Back In Time

I went back to the place it happened.

I never thought I would. I spent years making sure I never even got close to this state again. I mapped my life around avoiding it. Even when I saw it on a departure board in an airport, my stomach would drop, my breath would catch, and I would walk faster, just to get away from the name. I never thought I would. I told myself for years that there was no reason to. That I had left it behind, left him behind, left her behind, the girl I was when I walked into that apartment for the first time. But today, I did something I swore I’d never do. I flew in. I got in the car. I drove. I followed the old roads I used to know so well. I drove straight here.

And now, I’m here.

I’m parked on this street, gripping the steering wheel so hard my hands ache, staring at the black wooden door of his apartment building. I thought time would have changed it, that maybe the paint would be peeling, or the glass doorknob would have been replaced with something modern. But no. It’s exactly the same. Like it’s been preserved, waiting for me to come back.

The air is thick with rain, heavy with the scent of wet wood. The same smell that clung to my clothes when I would leave this place. The same smell that filled my lungs every time I walked inside. It’s amazing, really, how scent can collapse time. How suddenly, I’m not twenty-six anymore. I’m twenty again, standing in front of that door, my hand reaching for the diamond-cut glass knob, turning it slowly, stepping inside.

I can still remember how it felt the first time. I remember turning that knob in my hand for the first time. How cold it was. How heavy the door felt when it swung open. How the apartment swallowed me whole the second I stepped inside.

The door clicked shut behind me, and everything changed.

The air inside was warm, close, carrying that same damp wood smell, but stronger. Mixed with something else: his cologne. It settled into the furniture, into the walls, into my skin. I could always smell him on me when I left, no matter how many showers I took.

The apartment was beautiful, in the way old things are beautiful, grand but decaying at the edges. The furniture was antique, heavy, like it had been collected from estate sales and forgotten mansions. Dark wood, deep velvet, leather that had been worn down by time and touch. It didn’t feel like a place someone lived. It felt like a set.

And maybe that’s what it was.

The first time I walked through those rooms, I thought I had never seen anything like it. The ceilings were high, the windows narrow, the lighting dim and golden. And there, on the wall, was Frida Kahlo, staring out from a massive canvas. Her eyes were dark, unreadable, knowing. She looked just like the tattoo on my arm. I took it as a sign. I thought I was supposed to be there.

I should have known better.

I should have known that nothing in that apartment was accidental.

The floorboards creaked beneath my feet as I moved through the space. The bedroom was the last room I saw.

I try not to think about the bedroom, but it drags me back anyway.

The bed was large, too large for the small space it was crammed into. Gray sheets, thick blankets, pillows that always looked perfectly placed. And the bed frame, old, metal, rickety, and loud. So loud. It groaned under the slightest movement.

The first time I heard it, I thought it was funny. Quaint, even. Something about the way it complained at every shift, every breath. But then I learned that sound too well. The way my breath would catch every time I heard that sound. Suffocating in the air of that room; it felt thick, like it had been pressed in from outside. Even now, in this car, years later, I swear I can still feel it pressing against my ribs.

I remember lying on that bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the rain against the window. I remember how dark it always was in that room, how even in the middle of the day, the light barely crept in.

I remember the way my body would go still, waiting.

I squeeze my eyes shut, grip the steering wheel tighter. But the memories keep coming.

The bathroom.

I hadn’t thought about it in so long, but the second it comes back, I feel like I’m standing in it again.

The floor was covered in small black and white tiles, arranged in a pattern that made me dizzy if I stared at them for too long. The tub was freestanding, clawfoot, white porcelain that had yellowed slightly with age. It looked like something out of an old film, something grand and elegant. But I never felt elegant in that tub.

I remember the first time I used it.

I had stepped inside, turned the water on, and let it run as hot as it could go. I know exactly how hot that water can get. I know how much my skin can take. I know that if I push past the first sting, if I sit there long enough, my body will adjust. The heat will consume me in a different way, one I could control.

I let the scalding water turn my skin bright red.

The pain of it was better than what I was washing away.

I stayed in there until I couldn’t anymore. Until the steam had filled the air so thick I could barely see. Until my fingers were wrinkled, my skin raw. Until I felt clean again, or at least, as close to clean as I could get.

There was always a bottle of soap in there. Purple. From Lush. I don’t know why I remember that detail so vividly, but I do. I only used it that once, then it just sat there. It was always there, in the same spot, with the same amount of soap. I remember exactly where I left it. The scent of it, something floral and sweet but artificial, clung to my skin no matter how much I rinsed it off.

Even now, years later, whenever I see a Lush store, I feel like I can smell it again. And suddenly, I’m back in that tub, back in that bathroom, watching the water swirl down the drain, pink from the heat, from my skin.

I wonder if the tub is still there. If someone else stands in that same space, washing something off of themselves. I wonder if they ever turn the water up too high, just to see how much they can take.

I open my eyes. The door is still there, solid and dark, waiting.

At eighteen, I sat in my dorm bed a block away from his apartment, under wide windows, staring at the sky, dreaming of what my life would be. Wide eyed and unsuspecting of what waited for me just down the street. I thought the world belonged to me.

At twenty, I lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling, realizing it didn’t.

Now, at twenty-six, I’m in a rented bed in a Airbnb up the road, listening to the same rain against the same kind of window, finishing this memory and I don’t know if I ever really left that bed.

I wonder if the apartment still smells the same inside. If someone else lives there now. If they walk across those creaky floorboards, if they’ve ever stood in that bedroom and felt something pressing down on their chest without knowing why.

I wonder if they ever hear the bed frame groan in the middle of the night, even when no one is moving.

I wonder if they ever feel like the walls are watching.

I thought coming back would make me feel powerful. That it would prove I survived, that I won. But here, gripping the wheel, staring at that black wooden door, carrying the scent back to my rented room, I don’t feel powerful at all.

I feel like I never really got away.