Arrangement [H.S]

11

I feel like a prisoner again in the place where I live. I can't call it home, nor my previous place with my mother in it. Well, honestly, all in all, I can call these places home sometimes but it doesn't feel like that at all.

Home should be an example of a place you want to come back to, where you feel love and warmth. The mythological Odysseus in the work of Homer, missed his home for twenty years, the thought of returning aroused hope and willingness to overcome adversity.

When I have to go back to the place where I live, my stomach hurts and I want to puke. And so since my dad died, all the time. What a life. Lucky me.

In the family house, I had to deal with ugly old men hanging around, parties I couldn't attend (not that I wanted to, but it was very forbidden), constant scams and lies.

First house felt like not a place from a Homeric piece, a place of love, but more like a place from Shakespeare's tragedy, Hamlet.

Most of the drama takes place in the royal castle of Elsinor. The court of the successor of Hamlet's father, Claudius, is full of lush life, it is full of chivalrous youths and beautiful women, there are feasts, performances, but the atmosphere of falsehood, hypocrisy, betrayal, and espionage dominates. A ruthless struggle for power and influence breaks out in Claudius' castle. Courtiers are only apparently friendly to each other.

So exactly like in my mother and Roman's house. The illusory atmosphere of a loving family for others. And really only business, scams, coldness and shit in general.

Now, my second "home". Of course, apart from the friendly greeting of the first night, the so-called baptism of fire, in the form of murder in front of me and threats made at me by an old gross man.

I didn't want to leave my family home too much. I don't know if it was because of attachment, which I doubt, or if I really just got used to it and I don't like such big changes in my life. They stress me out a lot.

But when I had to, at least I thought that I would free myself from this constant feeling of a prisoner where I live.

As you can expect, I was wrong.

Each of Harry's earlier words felt like a barrage of verbal blows, assaulting not just my mind but my entire being. With each utterance, my sense of self-worth crumbled further, like a fragile sandcastle washed away by the relentless tide of his accusations. It was as if he had a masterful grasp of the weaknesses in my armor, targeting them with ruthless precision.

My body absorbed the impact of his words like a sponge soaked in poison. My shoulders sagged under the weight of his disdain, and my chest constricted as if I were trying to hold back an ocean of despair. The pit in my stomach grew deeper, and it felt like a leaden ball of self-doubt had taken residence within me.

I wanted to despise him for his cruelty, for the way he tore down the already fragile scaffolding of my self-esteem. Every fiber of my being cried out in anger and revulsion, urging me to confront him, to stand up for myself. But my spirit had been so thoroughly battered that I found myself drowning in a sea of exhaustion.

In my mind, I tried to justify his words, to rationalize that perhaps he had a point. Maybe I was a burden to others, a constant source of complaints and troubles. It was a torturous inner dialogue, a relentless cycle of self-blame.

But beneath the self-doubt, another emotion simmered—disgust. I couldn't fathom how a person could be so callous, so unfeeling towards another human being, especially one who had already been through so much pain. The thought of sharing a space with him, of engaging in any further arguments, made my skin crawl.

I longed for an ordinary family home, a place where I could find solace and acceptance. It was a dream I had nurtured for years, a vision of a warm and inviting sanctuary where I could finally shed the heavy armor of my past and just be myself. But in that moment, that dream seemed impossibly distant, a mirage on the horizon that I could never reach.