There are rules in this flat. Not many. We are not a commune and I am not anybody’s mother. But the white towels are not for strangers you met at 1am in Shoreditch. That one is carved in stone. Or it was, until this morning, when I walked into the bathroom still half-asleep and found foundation smeared across the good set like someone had used my linen as a napkin.
I stood there for a second with my toothbrush in my hand and thought, right. So we are doing this.
The crime scene
They were still damp. That was the first insult. Hung wrong as well, all bunched up on the hook so they will smell by Tuesday. The second insult was the shade. Warm beige, slightly orange in this light, which means it was not mine. I wear cooler tones. I know how that sounds. I do not care how that sounds. I have spent enough money on my face to recognise a stranger’s makeup on my property at ten past nine on a Sunday.
Sophie was already in the kitchen doing that quiet judgement thing she does with the cafetière. Mia was in a hoodie that is technically mine. And there was a man. Of course there was a man. Sitting on our worktop like he paid rent, scrolling his phone, hair still wet.
I looked at him. He looked at me. Nobody introduced anyone, which is how you know it was a good night for somebody.
“Morning,” he said.
I said morning back because I was raised properly and also because I wanted him gone before I started talking about towels. There is a time and a place. The time is after coffee. The place is not in front of the suspect.
How we got the good towels in the first place
I bought them in January. White, heavy, the sort that make you feel like you have your life together even when you do not. We had been using a mix of old gym towels and something Mia nicked from a Premier Inn in 2023. I cracked. Went to John Lewis like a woman possessed and spent money I did not need to spend because I wanted the bathroom to look like adults lived here.
We agreed. Guest towels in the airing cupboard. Grey ones. Slightly thinner. Perfectly decent. The white ones stay folded or hanging on the back of the door and they are for us. Us meaning the three people on the tenancy. Not a boy from last night whose name may or may not be Tom.
I even said it out loud at the time. Mia rolled her eyes. Sophie nodded like I had announced a fire exit. And for months it worked. Then Shoreditch happened, as Shoreditch does.
I am being very normal about it
I am. I made coffee. I asked if anyone wanted toast. I did not hold the stained towel up like a murder weapon, even though I wanted to. I waited until he put his shoes on and did that awkward hover by the front door where they all pretend they have a very important thing across town.
The second the latch clicked I put the towel on the table.
Sophie winced. Mia said, “Oh my god Chels, it is a towel.”
It is not a towel. It is a boundary with a high thread count. There is a difference.
Mia swore it was not her shade. Sophie swore it was not hers. I already knew it was not mine. Which left the obvious conclusion. One of us brought a face full of product into our bathroom and handed him the wrong pile because at 3am nobody wants to explain the airing cupboard.
I have a theory it was Mia. She has form. Last month she let someone use my expensive conditioner and then denied it until the bottle was half empty and smelled like a man who wears too much Boss. She looked at the towel the way people look at a parking ticket. Inconvenient. Not their problem. Already thinking about lunch.
Sophie tried to keep the peace, which is her whole personality before noon.
“We can just wash them,” she said.
Yes, Sophie. We can. That is not the point and you know it.
The bit I should probably confess
I have done worse. I know I have. There was a night in May when I brought someone back and we used the last clean tea towel for something I am not putting in writing, and I still think about it when I dry a plate. So I am not claiming moral high ground here. I am claiming ownership of the white towels. Those two things can sit next to each other.
Living with girls is a constant negotiation between being a good time and not wanting a stranger’s mascara on the one nice thing you bought for the house. You want the story. You want the photo. You want him to look at you in the kitchen light and decide you were worth the Uber. You do not want to find his girlfriend’s leftover foundation on the set you paid sixty quid for.
Was it his girlfriend’s? I do not know. I did not ask. Asking makes you the unhinged one and I am trying very hard this year to only be unhinged in ways that photograph well.
What actually happened last night, as far as I can piece it together
Mia and I left the flat around ten. Sophie stayed in with a face mask and a spreadsheet, which I respect even when I take the piss. We did that usual loop. Drink in Parsons Green, another one that turned into three, then someone knew a door in Shoreditch and suddenly it was last orders in a place with terrible lighting and a smoking area the size of a cupboard.
He was there with two mates who were louder than him. He was fine. Not the best looking in the room. Not the worst. The sort of face you say yes to when your feet hurt and the night is already a write-off if you go home sober. Mia got there first. Or I did. The timeline went blurry after the second tequila and I am not going to pretend I kept minutes.
What I do remember is the three of us coming back in a cab that smelled like old perfume. Shoes off in the hall. Someone laughing too loud on the stairs. Me telling them to shut up because of the neighbours, which is rich coming from me. Then I went to bed. That is my story and I am sticking to it until proven otherwise.
This morning the bathroom told a different one.
Why it got under my skin
It is not really the towel. I know that. It is the small proof that this flat still runs on chaos even when I try to civilise it. I can buy the expensive set. I can put them in a nice stack. I can write the house rules in the group chat with a little smiley so I do not look like a tyrant. And then Saturday happens and some boy who does not even live here treats the place like a Premier Inn with better lighting.
I hate that it bothers me. I want to be the girl who does not care. The girl who finds it funny. Sometimes I am her. This morning I was the girl checking the hook for damp and getting annoyed about beige makeup like my grandmother.
Sophie said I was spiralling. I told her I was observing. She made more coffee. Mia put the towel in the machine on a hot wash without asking if it was supposed to go hot, which is how you know she felt guilty even if she will never say it.
The boy texted Mia an hour later. Just a little “got home safe x”. No mention of the towels, obviously. Men never remember the linen. They remember whether you kissed them in the doorway.
New rules, same flat
I have moved the white towels into my room. Petty? A bit. Effective? We will see. The grey ones are back on the hook with a note that says guests, which looks insane written down and felt completely reasonable when I was holding the Sharpie.
Mia asked if I was going to write about it. I said probably. She said I am obsessed with turning the flat into content. She is not wrong. She is also the reason I have content. That is the deal we made without ever making it.
Sophie asked if I wanted her to split the cost of a new set. I said no. Then I said maybe. Then I opened John Lewis on my phone and closed it again because I refuse to be the woman who buys replacement towels before lunch.
Look. I will get over it. I always do. By Wednesday this will be a funny line in the group chat and by next weekend somebody will bring another stranger home and we will all pretend we learned something. We will not have learned anything. That is flat life. That is the whole joke.
But I am still washing them twice. And if I see that shade of beige on my hook again I am naming names. I have not decided whose yet. I have a shortlist.
The towels are in the machine now. The kitchen is quiet. Mia has gone back to bed. Sophie is answering emails like a person with a job. I am in the good jumper with wet hair, writing this instead of being normal, which I promised I was being.
White towels. Not for 1am. Not for Shoreditch. Not for whoever left their face on my property and then asked if we had oat milk.
There are rules. Apparently I am the only one who read them.
