I take a deep breath and exhale a whorl into the icy air. Funny, isn’t it- I’m supposed to want
to go home, yet I would rather stand out here alone in the dark November weather. My
hands and face are turning numb. Again, I gasp in another breath, tracing the doorknob with
my fingers, then suddenly grasp it and turn it open before I change my mind. The hostility of
my house seems to bleed out of the door to the outside world like staining ink, black and
ugly and sticky, infecting everything around it. Slowly, I take one step, then two, until I am
inside and engulfed by the inhospitable air. It wraps itself around my neck and chokes me.
Reluctantly, I pull the door shut.
Disgust seeps through the marrow of my bones. All around there are piles of rubbish; beer
cans, crisp packets, cigarette butts, heaped in such abundance that the grimy carpet is
barely visible. The door to the living room is open a crack, and the harsh glare of the screen
and the blast of the volume repel me, pushing me towards the stairs like myself and that
room are magnets with the same charge. Hurriedly and silently, I creep up the stairs to my
bedroom and shut the door. With a click, I lock it too, as a desperate attempt to keep the bad
air out.
Almost frantically, I cross to the other side of my bedroom and push open the window,
gulping in the freshness from outside, as if to keep myself from being infected by the
atmosphere here. I turn back and stare around at my room; it is pin neat, not an object out of
place. I try my hardest to keep my space as a big contrast to the rest of the house. It feels
safer this way.
Downstairs I hear voices. They start slow and quiet, barely audible over the blaring
television, but I hear the coldness and bitterness of each word, feel it like a knife through my
stomach. Gradually, they rev up, hate spewing from their mouths, disgusting spiteful words
being hurled at one another. It’s not long before the words turn into bellows- they try to yell
over the top of each other, like they are in a competition on who can detest the other the
most. I press my hands over my ears and squeeze my eyes shut, as if making myself as
closed off as possible will somehow erase the situation. As if it will change everything. As if it
will transport me to another house, a house where I am greeted warmly at the door with a
hug, a house where everything has a place and is always tidy, a house where there is
always a hot meal to return to, a house with parents that love each other.
A house where it is not a rare occasion to hear the words “I love you.”