Part 1

It was a place that I could finally call my own, an attic transformed into a bedroom. It had no closet, a make shift door that only locked with a hook, and two small windows, whose frames were paint-chipped. When the owner of the house kindly agreed to let me paint the room a shade of green reminiscent of the inside of a ripe avocado, I was ecstatic. This enthusiasm carried me through the next couple nights when I realized that, though the house had central air conditioning, the cool air did not flow freely to my part of the house. I had been accustomed to sleeping with blankets, even during the unbearable summer evenings in the South. Because of central air, I did not have to give up my, very literal, security blankets. They made me feel safe enough to fall asleep during all of the nights I spent alone in my old house. But in this new place, in my own place, I was learning a different way of living, even if it was hinging on a meditative state that to kept my heart rate down and, subsequently, my body cool.

I was twenty-two and had never lived alone. I had housemates, four of them. I responded to an ad online when I was looking for a place to live. It was one of the only places that I could now afford and it was closer to my new workplace. My housemates were four strangers who found each other by way of their school. They were all a part of the NASCAR Institute, and though I stuck out sorely, they welcomed me. Jeremy, originally the only male roommate, talked about his cherry, IROC Camaro and other details having to do with cars and I managed to smile and nod in response. I had no clue about these things—transmissions, tires—of which he spoke. Kim was from Idaho. She was in her late thirties but appeared to be approximately fifty-two. She had a mouth only half full of teeth, the bottom half, which I never noticed as she droned on and on about the new man she met online, once beckoning me to see the new pictures he had sent her via email. The pictures were fakes. And then there was Casey, the younger girl, who had recently moved her boyfriend from back home into her room, so that they could be closer. Thus saving them the gas bill and the time spent traveling every other weekend to and from Kansas. They were the only two people I have met from Kansas.

The fact that I had four housemates never hampered my emerging independence. I had no one to whom I had to answer. I had no person who needed my attention or affection or opinion. It was me and my dogs and my books. I stopped cooking; in fact, I stopped eating in the evenings, except for the occasional yogurt or candy bar. I read more. I watched DVDs. And I fell asleep earlier. This room was my tiny slice of heaven, except that it increasingly felt like hell. The sweltering heat those nights were reminiscent of the night that propelled me here.