They call it right of abode. It means you belong where they belong. They, being those two people in the world who, through some terrible glitch in the universe, fell upon each other and became horribly and unthinkably attached. The wined, they dined...they married. Then they had you. They brought you home from the hospital wrapped in a little blanket, in a little white basinet, and thus right of abode is instated.

Where they live, you live. You will move from mansion to town house, from luxury to penury in a matter of years. Too short, and too quickly to grasp onto the concept of decomposition. A home life chewed away by insects, tiny things, invisible things, that worm their way through conversation; parasites in a clean white living room. They grow, they multiply, until they’ve eaten away at everything concrete and there are holes in the matter you once called the dinner table. Court documents are slammed onto that table, beside a custody arrangement, and you finally learn what right of abode means.

It’s an ugly apartment. Too small, and too cramped, and too noxious a scent like iodine and rotting garbage. The walls are off-white and littered with pictures of a life completely consumed by time. It’s mocking and humiliating. You are no longer that small or that unaware. You are here. Now. Completely and utterly awake. He is different now. She is in another house. Today, your right of abode has altered. A piece of paper sits on the relocated marble table that says you belong here.

It’s enough to make you sick with panic. Run to the bathroom, slam the door, different shampoo and different soap. Who is this man? What is this place? I am a stranger in my own bathroom. I am a stranger in my home. Earlier, I looked in that closet in my room. It had clothes he dug out of garbage bags from the garage. Things for Good Will, he couldn’t bear to get rid of. He hangs them up like he expects me to wear them. He must think I am that picture on the wall in the hallway. Small enough, pliant enough, scared enough. I stare at the clothes for a long time. Trying to imagine his face as he hung them each up so carefully. Did he believe that I would still fit inside them? Or that I would appreciate them? Or did he anticipate that well of discomfort that rose up from my fingertips as I touched each piece of cotton?

I get a new garbage bag, and I put the clothes in, and out in the walkway between the apartments and I wait for the garbage men to come so I’m sure this will be the last of that girl and that era. When they leave, I turn around to face my home and knock on the door like the stranger I am.

+

I’m in the backseat of your car, crushed behind the gray seats and the quiet music; Norah Jones will always bring me back here. There is no place for me here. Skinny legs are twisted sideways on short seats, and a blue skirt is rolled up in the palm of my hand. The other, with knuckles red and angry, is sweating profusely and openly into the stale air of your tiny car.

I’ve got no right to be here. I’ve got no right to leave.

You turn the wheel left and right, and left again, sharp and purposeful. It’s something I’ve inherited from you, this lack of patience. I know what you’re waiting for. For me to stop breathing like I’ve run for miles and miles. For my lips to stop twisting into such worn shapes, and this water bottle to slip from my hand. For you to be able to say "I love you" again, without me jerking backwards, like you’ve slapped me. I’m eleven again, and you’re saying this will all make perfect sense when I’m older. But I’m older, and I’m here. In the backseat of your car again. And I’m beginning to see the flaws in your philosophy. The tables have turned with every birthday, and it’s funny, but I think your begging to become scared of me.

I bow my head, hands on the seat in front of me, and see myself gripping your greased gray hair and bashing your head into the steering wheel. Knocking you unconscious, and throwing you out of your body. Maybe you would split in two. This thing that’s become you, and this image I have of you. You will look at each other and finally see everything the way I do. One of you will look away, and the other will meet my eyes with everything you are. I dream that you’ll see me, and recognize the girl you wake up every morning and pretend to know. I want you to see so badly, the person who I’ve become. I want you to remember who you are. I want you to forget who I was.

That’s when I’m thrown back; back into my body, back on the seat, with my skinny legs draped over the grey, and my motionless sweaty palms with their careful intent. I want to move in on this, I want to begin.

Soon though, there is no need to act. I have already started to unfold. Heavy breaths breed dizzy moments and soon I am screaming and not dreaming. My heart racing, my mind thick with fog. Everything is falling apart. I am falling apart.

Hospital. Take me to the hospital.

It was all I could ask of you. It was a simple request.

No.

That wasn’t even an option. For a moment I think you must have misunderstood, so I repeat myself.

You say you can’t do that.

I can’t breathe anymore, I can’t think.

It ends explosively. As it should, really. You and I, we’re heat, friction, and kerosene. I told them explicitly over desks, couches and tears. We’re never going to make it. I said. We’re never going to make it out alive.

It’s all in slow motion, pulling up to your apartment, and the hopes I had for us to ever stop clashing. I couldn’t stop being the flame that ignites you. I tried to extinguish the spark but every time I throw my hands down on it, I breathe the wrong way and everything goes up in flames beneath my fingers.

It’s a chemical reaction, I think, as I sit on a curb in the parking lot. My phone rings through to the water. They’ll come to extinguish the fire but the world has already fallen to ashes around me.

+

It’s been two years since I’ve lived with you. Ten months since I’ve seen your face. Eight days since I heard your voice over the answering machine asking me to call you on Father’s Day. I heard the message and stared at my phone, the numbers became all jumbled in my head and I hung myself backwards over my chair and contemplated how much time I’ve wasted with indecision.

One year ago, the gnawing guilt would have paralyzed me with an endless sadness that would have kept me awake for nights at the heartwrenching sound of your heartbroken pleas. Today though, I twist the phone cord around my fingers thinking of what would happen if I didn’t call you back.

Would it make me a bad person?

I think of you when those two words come to mind. The lies you’ve told me over the years, the name you’ve etched into every job application, and the fear you’ve personified in every day since ‘96. I was the kid, and you were the adult, and yes it was sad but it can’t be my life. So I put down the receiver and head down to dinner. I’ve decided not to fan the flames.