all mine | ft. michael clifford

thirty-one;

Dedicated to Florence - thanks for supporting this so much.

'Woke up this morning with a grudge the size of a short story. I feel - I feel so low."

***

I was moving out. I was leaving the nest. I was breaking away from my parents for good; not because I hated them. I loved them and they knew so. There just wasn't anything in that house that made me feel free. And so instead of waiting around feeling sorry for myself and wasting time, I'd found a cute apartment twenty minutes from my parents' place and was diving head first into it.

It wasn't the same as Room 20 at the Hollowed-Inn. Nothing would ever be the same as that and I'd done my best while apartment-hunting not to compare every single place I'd come across to my gorgeous LA home. I needed something cosy and cute; something that felt like Mali. But also something that wouldn't remind me of certain people every second of the day. How many times did I need to start over before my life would begin for real?

It was only 3 days after I'd chosen an apartment that I was moving into it. It was a Monday and the skies were dark, rain threatening to pour down on me as I heaved cardboard boxes from the moving van, hauling them upstairs to my new haven.

It had taken me all of three hours of easy deliberating to choose what I'd wanted to take with me. It should have taken me three weeks; I was moving my entire 21 years of life from one house to another. I should want to take everything; I should have boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff ready to move into my new place. I should. But I didn't. Instead, I had hired a moving van to transport my bed and chest of drawers and the three boxes I'd stuffed a bunch of clothes and shoes in. I took what I'd needed. Nothing more. Just like LA.

Only this wasn't LA. And I wasn't Mali anymore.

God, Charlotte. Lighten the fuck up.

Right, let's count blessings. I had great parents. I had a great new apartment. I had a job. And I had – well, that's all I had for now.

But hey, I was twenty-one. Heaps of time to make friends, right? And stacks of time to find a life purpose, yeah?

I hoped so. Because things were seeming a little hazy and whilst I was busy putting myself out there, there was still this murky pool of uncertainty resting at the bottom of my stomach that I couldn't get rid of. It was like wading through the shallows of the ocean knowing that the water could pull you out at any given second; the worst part is that it was out of my human control. Life was out of my human control. Right? We can build skyscrapers thousands of feet into the air. We can design armies that can wipe out entire towns in seconds. We can rally together thousands of people for protests to demonstrate power.

But humans are powerless against the ocean. And I was powerless against life.

"You gonna show me where your bedroom is?" An unfamiliar voice asked.

I turned my head to see one of the removalist guys standing in the doorway to my new, pale green kitchen. He was a younger guy, big, muscular arms for lugging heavy items and bright blue eyes that were so beautiful I could have sworn they were crystal.

He'd been a nice companion the whole morning, whistling while he opened the back doors to his truck for me and passed me my boxes. We hadn't spoken until now though, aside from greetings and polite pleasantries.

You gonna show me where your bedroom is?

He was holding my bedframe and my heart slowed.