The key turned with difficulty in the lock, as if the keyhole had overgrown with rust and neglect over the past six months.
Or maybe my fingers – scarred, awkwardly fused fingers – had forgotten the old, instinctive motion.
The smell of the stairwell hit me: musty walls, cats, and something foreign, sharp – cheap air freshener, the kind I had never used.
The elevator wasn’t working, so I had to walk up to the second floor. I held onto the cold, dusty railing with my healthy hand.
My left arm, held together by metal clamps and a rigid exoskeleton, hung lifelessly at my side. The doctors said it would stay that way.
“Disability… take care of the paperwork,” they said matter-of-factly. I didn’t cry then. Not once in the past six months had I cried. I couldn’t.
Or maybe all my tears had stayed in the crumpled car, trapped in the smell of gasoline and burnt metal, in the scream and the crash.
The apartment door was new, covered in bright brown faux leather, with a shiny metal strip. Roma and I had planned to replace the old one three years ago but kept postponing it.
Apparently, now it had finally happened. I inserted the key, but it wouldn’t turn. Another key was stuck in the lock from the inside. I had to ring the bell.
The chime sounded unfamiliar – tinkling, melodic, too cheerful for this hallway. The sound echoed through the stairwell, and my stomach twisted. I heard footsteps.
Light, quick steps. They were not Roma’s. He always walked heavily, his whole foot pressing the floor, as if announcing every step. These were high heels.
The door swung open. On the threshold stood an unknown girl in a short robe, her hair in plastic curlers, her face smug and well-fed. The smell of fried potatoes came from behind her, and the television hummed from the kitchen.
“Who are you?” she asked, lazily chewing pink gum.
I looked at her silently, then glanced down the hallway.
On the coat rack, where my coat had always hung, now dangled a bright pink windbreaker. Roma’s leather jacket was gone. On the shelf where my slippers had stood, fluffy pink house shoes lay.
“I live here,” I said softly. My voice was rough and foreign, as if it weren’t mine.
The girl blew a bubble, which popped loudly, then shouted back into the apartment:
“Roma! You’ve got a woman here!”
Roma stepped out of the kitchen. Sweatpants and tank top, unshaven, at home. He looked at me—and immediately looked away. Like a caught child.
“You… Kata,” he said, quietly. “We weren’t expecting you. You were supposed to come Thursday…”
“Thursday,” I interrupted. “It’s Tuesday. They discharged me early.”
“The doctors said you should have stayed,” he mumbled, staring at the linoleum.
“Why bother with manners?” the girl snapped. “What are you doing here, cripple? I live here now! And Roma lives with me! So get out before I call the cops!”
Her words spat out like the gum in her mouth. I felt suddenly neither anger nor pain. Something cold, hard, and calm rose inside me, slow and unstoppable.
I stepped into the apartment. I passed the pink jacket, the scent of foreign perfume, heading toward our bedroom.
The room was unrecognizable. My bookshelf was shoved into the corner, buried under clothes. On the wall where my photograph had hung, now grinned a kitschy tiger poster.
My old “Chaika” sewing machine – a gift from my mother – was pushed to the floor, half under the bed. On my side of the bed, a huge pink plush pop star sprawled.
“What are you messing with?!” the girl screamed.
“Roma,” I said quietly. “I’m not leaving. This apartment is mine. I inherited it from my parents. You’re just registered here. And he—” I looked her in the eye—“is nobody.”
The girl lunged at me, claws aimed at my face. I didn’t flinch. I just pushed my metal-clad arm forward. She collided with it full force and screamed in real pain.
“If you touch me,” I said quietly to Roma, “I’ll file a report that will land you in jail. I have papers proving my disability. And the apartment is mine.”
For the first time in six months, Roma truly looked at me. At the scars on my temple, the clamps on my arm. Into my eyes.
“You… you weren’t like this,” he whispered.
“You made me this way,” I replied. “You have one hour.”
Forty minutes later, they stood at the door, loaded with bags. The girl turned once more:
“Nobody will want you like this! Cripple!”
I shoved her pink jacket into her hands and opened the door.
“You and Roma are the merchandise. I am a human being.”
Once they left, the apartment was filled with strange, ringing silence. The television still murmured from the kitchen. The smell of fried potatoes lingered in the air.
I picked up my old photograph from the floor. The glass was broken, but my face remained intact—long hair, smiling, believing.
I looked into the mirror. Another woman stared back. Short, graying hair, deep lines on her face, tired but alert eyes. My left arm hung motionless.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “We’ll manage.”
I sat down on the floor, pulled out my phone, and called my mother.
“Mom, I’m home. Yes… alone now. Could you come? Help me get things in order?”
As I listened to her worried voice, I finally felt my tears find their way. After six months. And then the second one as well.
I cried—and with every tear, I felt lighter. The apartment had been cleansed. The foreign smell slowly disappeared from the air. The walls were mine again.
I may be disabled. I may be broken. But this is my life. My apartment. My boundaries.
And no one will ever throw me out again. Never.
