Reverie

She remembered it all so clearly; the day that it had all fallen, shattered into tiny pieces to lay before her feet, without a hint of recognition for what it once was. She had been stupid to believe in it, to hold it so dearly. It was something she would never forget until the end.

The first day of the rest of her life.

It had been on that day, she could recall, that the bright rays of morning sunlight warmed her skin as if to taunt her. It was a rare thing to see such beautiful weather in a cold town like hers, yet it was here on an early August morning, lighting up the faces of every person who saw it. Even in such an early hour of the morning, she could already hear the children’s laughs and screams as they played in the park at the bottom of the road. In truth, however much she silently cursed the sound, she should have been like them. She should have been driving around the town in a car packed full of her friends without a care in the world; the windows rolled down and music flowing shamelessly through the air. She should have been at the beach with her family, soaking up the rays of sunlight and happiness. She should have been smiling.

It was instead that she found herself here, eyes turned skywards to watch the building before her with a vacant expression. It was a four storey high, grey bricked set of apartments. There was a word stirring in her thoughts that she was meant to hear, meant to feel, when she looked over that tower of stone and cement, yet it wasn't there.

This wasn't a home for her anymore.

But it could have been, God knows it could have been.

In another time, another place, it could have been all so perfect.

She had picked up her last case from beside her feet (which was filled with her remaining personal belongings from her parents house) and entered the downstairs corridor of the somewhat daunting building. From there, she took the lift to the second floor, and reached the front door of her flat in a matter of minutes. It was postponed today only by her steps that were slightly slower than usual; heavy and precise as she had walked across the cream coloured lino that covered most of the floors in the building. It was a generally well-kept and clean apartment block, and a place you would be proud to call your own.

Her own apartment was somewhat the same, though it was currently deceiving from the piles of large, cardboard boxes that lined the hallway as you first entered. Some of them were empty, most of them were full, but it made little difference as she walked past them all effortlessly, ghost-like, weaving around jutting corners and intimidating heights without a second thought. That said, she wasn't thinking at all. She couldn't even comprehend such a thing.

Then she was in the lounge, letting the small case in her hand fall to the ground as she dropped down onto the cheap, red fabric sofa she had bought with her savings just two weeks earlier. It had been the last of her necessary purchases, and also her most loved.

Her eyes were resting on the neutral carpet that was on the ground, now. She hadn't taken her shoes off at the door today, and so her eyes travelled over the darkening prints across the light material. She kicked them carelessly off then, dried mud chipping away and littering the ground as they fell. It wouldn't matter anymore, anyway, she had figured.

This wasn't a home for her anymore.

But it could have been, God knows it could have been.

Roughly brushing away the salty, silent, and relentless tears from her cheeks, she pulled herself back onto her feet and strode through the open space containing what little furniture she could afford. She stopped in the bedroom, eyes diverting themselves away from the deep maroon sheets covering the pale-framed wooden bed, though the colour flashing at the corner of her gaze made her heart ache just the same. Instead she had turned to her single dresser, tugging out the drawer with such force it hit the floor in front of her toes.

The clothes were removed without order, being tossed into the open suitcase sitting beside the dresser, which had also been made from a light wood to match the bedstead. Not that any of it made a difference to her in the near future. She'd be gone as soon as it was possible - though she would much preferred it to have been before the light of a new day. She knew much better. It would be weeks, months, before she could escape her once cherished abode.

The lid of the black case was closed in a hurry, zipped up in seconds and pushed roughly back against the wall. She then sucked in a sharp breath and turned courageously to the bed that occupied most of the space in the small room, blurred eyes stinging at the sight.

A sorrowful whimper escaped her throat as she stormed across to it in three steps, collecting the duvet in her arms and pulling it away from the mattress. She ripped apart the popper buttons holding the cover together, before tearing the material away in a fluid yet rushed and almost manic movement. All the while her broken voice grew in her throat, the pain swelling in her chest and making it harder for her breathe steadily. Yet on she continued with passion in her veins, stripping the bed completely before throwing the large bundle of cotton grudgingly into the corner of the room.

She stood still for a moment, cries wracking her frame as her breaths came sharp and laboured. After a moment she slowly surrendered to her aching and tired body which hadn't rested in over twenty-four hours, by crawling forward onto the bed and curling up in the center of the now bare mattress. She wrapped her arms around her knees, hugging them tighter into her chest, as her heart ricocheted against her ribs with such force she was certain it would kill her. She almost hoped that it would.

It was in that place that she had stayed until the late afternoon. She had cried herself into a much needed sleep, and awoken with sore eyes and her throat dry. She had laid in that same spot until the sun had fallen in the sky. It was only then, under the cover of darkness, that she continued to move about her single floored house, diligently packing away what little objects she had placed out over the few weeks she had stayed there. By the light of the next day, she'd start her search for a new place to live.

This wasn't home for her, not anymore.