You Feel Like Home [h.s.]

The One with the Ghastly Hallway

In hindsight, moving just before a country-wide lockdown was not Ryan Walden's smartest decision. But her last two-bedroom flat was far too overcrowded with the presence of her best mate, Fiona, as well as her brand new boyfriend turned fiancé. And while Fiona was the best flatmate Ryan ever had, her new live-in-fiancé was not. Therefore, moving just before the city of London closed down completely was the only option Ryan was left with. 

It's a known fact that Ryan isn't good with people. But, she somehow found common ground with Fiona Kitchen, a fiery girl with hair to match her exuberance, who decided Ryan's mellowness and overall quirkiness somehow counteracted her brashness and self-assuredness. And they were good together, for quite a while, at least. But when Fiona's sudden boyfriend-turned-fiancé took Ryan's place, resulting in Fiona kindly offering their shrinking flat to her until all of this pandemic situation was sorted out, she immediately declined, deciding once and for all to just live by herself.

She's moved enough times in her life to knock it down to a science. First, find a suitable flat within the appropriate square footage in a desirable location (something that screams "I'm twenty-seven and somewhat highly successful, even though my job is an oddity and finding a boyfriend that understands my social anxiety is a lot harder than it looks.") Next, order boxes that can be composted afterward, start packing in order of importance, leaving the necessities until the absolute end. Then, grab the keys from the realtor and rent a moving van, something mid-sized that wouldn't cause an impending heart attack while driving through the ridiculous streets of London. And if done correctly, the entire ordeal can be finished in a few hours (which Ryan has tested numerous times with positive results.)

Ryan Walden's quite prone to moving, if she's being honest. Starting with her parent's divorce when she was younger, and the overall conclusion of having two homes with two sets of parents, with two bedrooms she could style however she desired, made the concept of living out of a duffle bag for week-long trips highly achievable. Then, switching from one university to the next (because her first school didn't challenge her in the way she needed), adding on the disaster of her first serious boyfriend who ended up being the worst flatmate she could have possibly come up with, ended with her moving back in with her eccentric mother on the shores of Devon with too many books about astrology and not enough food that wasn't a substitute for meat or dairy.

Fiona saved her in that sense. But after she drags Ryan out of the confines of their warm flat one dreadful night and meets Roger in the claustrophobic club, coming to the absurd conclusion that it was love at first sight, Ryan starts to worry. Because while Ryan didn't understand people all that well, and spent most of her time in the background observing everything until she had the courage to speak up (a trait her mother attributed to her being a Pisces, but Ryan had her own reasons for being a wallflower), Fiona was the complete opposite. Vivacious and bright, bold and unrelenting—she took risks that Ryan would never even consider, and while they balanced each other out in that sense, Fiona was prone to making leaps that were incomprehensible to Ryan.

Which was why when Roger proposed after two months of dating Fiona (with one of those months filled with online communication through FaceTime and WhatsApp because he was traveling for rugby), Ryan had her concerns.

And when her friend asked her to stay in their already too-small flat, ensuring her that nothing will ever change, Ry! Ryan knew that everything, in fact, would change.

So when a Google search for a new living space turned into a phone call from a fancy realtor about a new complex near Hampstead Heath that was looking for occupancy, Ryan started labeling her moving boxes and was out the door before Fiona could even start to miss her.

With her things stacked neatly in the rented moving van, Ryan makes the hour-long trek from Clapham without any hiccups. And with the van parked somewhat correctly outside her new complex, Ryan has a feeling that the rest of her afternoon of moving would go by just as she imagined—easy, swift, and without problems.