timberhead lane

the thing about our apartment in foster city was that at the beginning, it wasn't quite large enough to hold all our hopes.

the walls were white. the carpet was white. the tiles and the counters in the bathroom and kitchen were white. the upholstery on the furniture was white. the wooden tables were white. the dishes were white.

it was fresh and square and perfectly clean: the only possible place to start a new life, midwestern girls hurtling toward the coast blindfolded and without a map.

this is where we kept the book of t.s. eliot in the bathroom. this is where we turned the recycling bins upside down and sat on the porch for hours, just waiting - for what, i never learned. this is where, for the first and only time, something i made up in my head played out in real life exactly as i'd imagined (he kissed me as i sat on the corner of the balcony railing, nothing but 30 feet of bare space behind me, and his mustache made me giggle).

this is where i did most of the loving i've done in my short life. the girl with the long dark hair, the girl with the sun on her shoulder, the cat who would cry until his voice failed him, the man whose blue eyes at the time seemed kind.

this is where i assume most of that loving remains.

this is where i threw everything in my hands on the sidewalk to hear it break and didn't bother to pick up the pieces because nothing mattered.

this is where i drank secretly and quietly by myself so no one would know, hoping something would come along and make me laugh, just once. this is where i showered in boiling water until i turned red and raw just to clean him off my skin. this is where i showered in boiling water until i turned red and raw just hoping that a little bit more of his scent would rise up off my skin.

this is where i thought i was an adult. this is where i thought i was living real life. this is where i let it start to break me.

the balcony was painted grey. from the porch we could see the water of the lagoon, which was never quite green and never quite blue. it was hard and cold and painful under my bare feet. the dirt of our lives lay in the corners and i threw my clothes contemptuously in the washing machine, hoping just once to not smell like the waffle cones i baked for eight hours a day.

it was pale and muted, transparent and unreal: the perfect place to find the first wrinkles around my eyes.

the thing about our apartment in foster city was that at the end, it wasn't even halfway large enough to hold my disappointments and the rubble that remained from the destruction of my defenses.