Insomnia and Other Short Stories

Promise

I'm not the type of woman who gets lonely the moment I'm left alone. Really, I'm not. Put me in a room with books, internet, and snacks and I'd be fine for an entire day. Longer, even. Being around people is exhausting.

But this was different. This was a three-room bachelor apartment in the middle of a city I'd only read about in books or seen in the occasional movie. I was in a city the size of a small province, thousands of miles away from the place I grew up, my family, friends, and–– Well, everything I'd known for the past twenty-three years of my life.

The knowledge of just how alone I was froze me in place. I stared at the boxes littering my tiny living room, all needing to be emptied and then recycled. Today.

Right now.

Distantly, even though I was on the fourth floor, I thought I heard cars drive past. The sky outside the large windows across from me looked cloudy and grey.

My vision blurred with tears. What was I thinking, coming here?

Almost without my knowing, I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. I stared at the starry black background I'd chosen until my phone turned off.

I could call Mom and Dad. Their voices would be a balm to this sweeping sensation of isolation, but––

Suck it up, buttercup.

Swiping a hand across my damp cheeks, I straightened my shoulders while drawing in a deep breath. Time to get some work done.

I told myself, as I hung up paintings my friend had painted for me and set up my bed frame, that I was a grown-ass woman. I didn't need someone to live with. Living alone would be just fine.

Sooner than I would have liked, everything was in place.

Again, I stood at a loss. I'd like to say that, with the second-hand loveseat I'd found, the one-person kitchen table by the windows, and my dreamcatcher hanging in my bedroom, that this apartment had started to feel homier.

It didn't. The bedroom and bathroom were the sizes of closets––the latter with a stand-up shower that was so small I could feel the stirrings of panic when I stood inside.

Fuck, I thought.

Again, my vision blurred with tears.

Seriously? You're gonna be a crybaby about this? Pull yourself together already, I told myself.

Too bad there wasn't someone else around to tell me that.

When did I become the type of person that needed people? That wouldn't do.

I pinched myself on the arm. It helped to regain my composure.

And then I tugged my light brown hair into a ponytail, gathered up as much garbage and recycling as I could, and left my apartment for the first time since hauling my furniture inside. Not by myself, of course; I'd had the help of some distant relatives who knew my parents but who I couldn't remember ever meeting.

I took the stairs. Because apparently, I hate myself.

By some miracle, I made it to the ground floor without breaking anything or braining myself in the stairs. I counted that as a win.

Whose idea was it to have the garbage outside? I griped to myself. I'd never lived in a building like this before (thirty-two floors), but seriously, was it too much to ask to have some kind of indoor disposal option?

Apparently, it was.

So I stepped outside into the chill fall air, into an alley of some kind.

Right. Perfect place for someone to come to murder me. I eyed the brick walls, the trash lying on the ground, and the dumpsters to my left with distaste.