The New Room

She sat on the bus and watched the greenery slowly turn into grey city buildings. She was caught in the middle of contrary needs. She didn’t know if it was possessiveness or what but she was really excited at the prospect of having the room all to herself.
But she also really didn’t want to be alone.
She wanted to burrow into a space that was hers, hers, hers but when the silence came he filled it and she was left with a worrying gnawing need for noise. For all the noise that had always been there. Step one would be to buy a clock radio or something similar.
She didn’t want to share her wardrobe and let her jumper and socks mix and match with someone else’s. Now that they were hers and hers alone they took up an almost comically small space. She didn’t want books that didn’t belong to her sitting on a shelf next to the three she’d been given on the ward.
But she also didn’t want the responsibility of looking after all of it. She’d never had that before. She’d never had things that were only hers. The psychologist said it was okay. These conflicting thoughts were a reasonable reaction to not having her own space growing up. To moving around a lot. To being with the group for so long. “You’re searching for home” he’d said, lowering his glasses and giving her the thinly veiled pity smile they all gave her.
“You’re trying to figure out what that means for you”
She pressed the button and stood up to get off the bus with her two bags, one full of clean clothes that one of the nurses had washed for her this morning and left in a neat, folded pile at the end of her bed. And one that was empty except for a notebook, a letter telling her when to come back for her next appointment and a card that said “Good Luck” on the outside. She hadn’t read the inside yet. She’d save that for in a few hours when the gnawing started.
“You’re looking for yourself” she repeated under her breath. She stepped off the bus onto the pavement, it was raining, she didn’t have an umbrella. Another new thing she’d need to get for herself.
“Loads of people are looking for themselves at this age”. That’s what they’d told her.
That thought satisfied her for a while, it felt like a reasonable excuse to not knowing the answers to questions like “What is your favourite colour?” “do you like the monarchy?” and “what are you going to do now?”
At first, on the ward, in occupational therapy, helped by staff and meds and the police, it had felt like a game. Fitting new square blocks into the old square holes in herself. They loved it when she got one right, she’d pick a topping for her jacket potato at lunch and they’d smile. Cheese please, grin. Beans please, smile. They wanted timelines to things she didn’t remember. I was there that night, gentle smile. I don’t remember where they took him when they took him off me, no smile. I don’t remember where they took him, no smile.
After a while though, it stopped feeling like a colour in children’s book, the choice of pastels, bright blues, dark reds, oranges to fill in the lines got overwhelming she didn’t even know if she cared anymore whether she preferred beans or coleslaw or cheese or nothing or all of them or if she thought a man had been on the moon or if she’d see him and his little hands again or if there was even a point to any of these opinions.
Even though she was apparently entitled to all of them, just like she was entitled to space. That’s what they’d been telling her. This is what she needed, what she was allowed. Her own space. To fill with all these thoughts and opinions. Theories. Needs. Colour them all into the black and white templates on every single page, a dog, a cat, a couple holding hands, a barn. A pool of blood. A baby. It was all a lot of work.
You’re allowed it. You’re entitled to it.
Entitlement could be such a negative word, you’re so entitled, you think you can have things just handed to you. She thought of the rows and rows of women sitting side by side listening intently. You have to be grateful for what you have. And she had been grateful. She had always tried to be grateful.
And she had had some things handed to her. And other people didn’t, and that was bad.
But what about what they’d taken? She didn’t want to think about it.
She pushed the door open of the new flat, one room. The bottom of the bed touched the sink. The window was covered in a dusty net curtain.
“My room.”
She put the bags on the floor and sat on the bed wincing slightly, it still hurt to sit.
She pulled her appointment letter out of the bag and smoothed it out in her lap. 14th of November. 2pm. That was exactly 3 days away. 3 days to fill with whatever she decided to fill them with. She’d clean the room. Get it ready for him. She’d fill the fridge with all the good jacket potato toppings. She’d get some new bedding, get rid of those dusty curtains.
“My room” she thought, “my new room, our new room.”