Winter Wonderland

eighteen: happy new year

*

Storie has never been to my apartment before and I guess there's no better time than the last time I'll see it. Today is officially the last day on my lease, I have to be out by six, but it's only lunchtime and we're nearly done. There wasn't much to pack up. I haven't accumulated much stuff in the time I've spent here. Most of the furniture came with the place, including the dodgy mattress that has probably been wreaking havoc on my spine, and there's not much stuff I'm sentimental about.

"I can't believe you've been here all this time," Storie muses as we throw the last of my stuff in the trunk of her car. She wipes her hands on her pants and swipes the back of her wrist across her forehead.

"Bit of a dive, I know."

"No, no, I meant here. As in, you've been so close this whole time. Two and a half miles away." She slams the trunk and straightens her back and gives me that soft smile. "But yeah, it's a bit of a dive, too."

"One you'll never have to step foot in again." I double check I've got all the important stuff – phone, wallet, passport, my bag with my laptop and an assortment of chargers – and key in hand, I head up to check it over one last time.

It's pretty sad how little time and effort it took to turn it from my home back into the soulless studio apartment it was when I moved in. I barely made a mark on this place, aside from a scratch on the wall from when I tried to move the bed, which I hope the landlord doesn't notice. I barely lived here. I was just surviving.

Now I'm on my way to thriving. I lock up and post the keys through the landlord's letterbox and jog down the steps to join Storie, and I sweep her into my arms in the middle of the sidewalk. A couple walking towards us harrumph and step into the quiet road to pass. Storie laughs and plants a kiss on my lips and nods at the car.

"Come on. Let's get you moved in."

*

Her apartment is the stuff of dreams. I think it every time I step through the door, and now it gets to be my reality. I hang my clothes in a space she made in her wardrobe and she clears a shelf of her bookcase to stack my handful of books, and she laughs at my shower caddy.

"You don't really need that," she says. "You're not in a dorm anymore, Liam. You can leave your stuff in the bathroom; no-one's gonna steal it. Well. I might, but I'll replace it." She waves a half-full bottle of shower gel at me. "If this is what makes you smell so good, I think I'll borrow it."

"Whatever you're doing is already working just fine," I say, tipping my socks and underwear into a spare drawer while she reorganizes the bathroom, and we meet in front of the living room windows that give me a sweeping view of the city.

Cleveland doesn't even rank in the top fifty biggest cities in the country and it overtook Detroit to become the poorest of the big cities, and I'm not going to pretend that Ohio doesn't have more than its fair share of problems, but it's home. I can see the water from here, bright January sun glinting off the surface, and I can feel the residual tension in my chest loosening its hold.

I know how lucky I am. My hand finds Storie's and I squeeze her fingers and we watch a plane high up in the sky until it disappears, only the white trail of a jet cloud left in its wake.

There are little touches of me in this apartment already. Mom gave me a fake plant when I first got my own place and Storie has put it in the middle of the coffee table; there are photos of my family pinned on the fridge; my throw is draped over the sofa. All the stuff that was just sitting around my place has somehow, in the space of minutes, found its home here.

I step closer to Storie, close enough to put my arm around her and feel the warmth of her skin under my hand. "Thank you," I murmur. She puts her hand over mine and rests her head on her shoulder.