rehab

 It's been uncomfortable. The house was in disarray when I first moved back in. My father was never one to clean up after himself. Never exactly warm either. Slow paced and quiet. I wish I could say it was better than living with Hugo, it really wasn’t. 

That discomfort first gripped when I came into my childhood bedroom, stepping through the door and with my hands sore from the luggage. Unsettled is the more precise word, as if it wasn’t me who cleared it before leaving for college, as if it was gutted and swallowed by unknown forces. I hadn’t seen it since then, didn’t even remember clearing it out. Not clearly, anyway. Unfamiliar and unexpected, I could almost see the posters hanging on the bits of adhesive still clinging to the white walls. 

Almost 20 years ago, I begged dad for turquoise walls. When he finally obliged, I was delighted. It didn’t last more than two weeks. The turquoise I picked was much too bright, saturated. He had warned me over and over. Terry, you’re going to hate it in a month. Terry, we’re not going to change it back no matter how hard you beg. Terry, are you sure?

 My head hurt and I started hanging out anywhere but my room all through that year. I eventually moved back in by sheer force of will. We only painted them back to white right before I moved. I did, really. I remember how my arms cramped for days after I was done. I remember how badly they hurt through my first day in college. 

Today, the walls were indisputably white, but seemed to glow some rabid teal under direct sunlight. I kept the curtains down. 

The bedding itched my legs. The bedding, too, was white and eerily clean. Reminded me about the couple days I spent at the hospital when my appendix bursted. Hugo was there with me, through the complications. I don’t remember much about it, I know he was there. He's been there in general, the vignette of all my pictures. I don’t remember what it is we talked about before everything came crashing down. I don’t know why or what made it all crash down, it seems it just did.

The pit in my stomach, I haven’t even tried to fill it. Not with food or alcohol or whatever else. I shopped for new clothes immediately after the split but never got myself to wear them, aside from the two or three times I walked halfway to the bar “to meet new people” then turned back and walked home. This was right before the bigger blues. I was saving those clothes for when I became a new woman, they’ve been hanging stiff since then. They’re crunched up in my suitcase. 

It seems life has gone on the same around here, after mom died. We don’t talk about it. For months, I couldn’t talk about it, I wouldn’t. Not with dad, not with God, not with Hugo. I refused to talk about it until everyone stopped asking. Avoided the funeral and would not let the condolences in, not words or gift baskets. Too late by then, nobody around to hear it. 

At night, I heat up some microwave meals and dad watches TV over in the living room. An old TV, I hear it going on and on about prizes and trivia. I have dinner in my room, over the desk. In the mornings, I make us breakfast. Eggs and bacon, usually. I do the dishes. I clean the house and dust the cabinets. Aside from that I don’t really know what I do. Time goes through me, it feels like. I walk in circles. 

The phone rings and it's still everything but what I want to hear. I don’t know what I want to hear, and I’ve never felt so alone.