I only know that I belong where you are
The sun streamed into her office, the bright light infiltrating her mental sanctuary through a crack created by a crooked blind in the window. The single beam was bright enough to jolt her from her reverie and bring her back to Earth.
Sometimes zoning out and not thinking about anything at all was the best part of her day. Between her nine to five where she was currently situated, being a dutiful granddaughter, and the volunteer work that she couldn't give up she didn't often have a moment to herself unless she was sleeping. Everything in her life was scheduled and carefully regimented, just the way she liked it. When there is a plan, a schedule, a routine then nothing can go wrong. She liked for everything to be right.
She knew with absolute certainty when she went to bed at precisely 8:30 each evening that she would get exactly four hours of sleep before waking up parched. For this, she was prepared. She liked to always know what would happen and always be prepared. She always kept a bottle of water within arms reach and it was part of her routine to guzzle it down without spilling a drop and drifting back off without ever having been entirely conscious. She would sleep restfully straight through until exactly 5:47 each morning. Her alarm would always get snoozed and she allowed herself a few minutes each morning to catch up on Facebook, reading about her friends lives without ever actually communicating with them anymore because technology made that unnecessary and she could be antisocial in reality without being pestered by anyone who would have otherwise noticed. She would read some news clips and check the weather before she got up to get ready for the day at 6, on the dot. She was always ready and out the door of her apartment building the same time every morning and arrived at her grandmother's apartment way uptown like clockwork each morning. She always brought coffee for the doorman of the building, who always thanked her with a nod and a smile as she continued through her morning motions.
She always let herself in, stealthy like a ninja, and put the kettle on the rickety, ancient stove. She prepared a light breakfast just in time for her grandmother to step in to her tiny eat-in kitchen after her own toilette each morning. The sun shone brightly through the sole window in the room, illuminating the cracked and slightly dingy subway tiles that covered the walls. This floor had not yet been updated by the buildings new owners, but they thought it still had now old city charm that way. They would dine each morning and then she would accompany her grandmother to her studio on Sullivan street where she taught children's art classes in a colorful and cheerful building. They always took a cab because her grandmother loved to see the city buzz about in the morning and enjoyed seeing so many different people in one place. The always instructed the cabbie to go the long way and circle around Washington Square park before doubling back down Houston. She would walk her into the building and help her set up for the first lesson of the day before setting off on foot to her own office job on the other side of the park as an admissions officer at NYU.
Each day she would trek down the dirty sidewalks past the purple-lined streets. Couldn't NYU have picked a better color? She wasn't fond of purple. It had always been her mother's favorite and she tried to never think of her mother but was hit with this thought every single morning on the walk to work and in the office all day, even the damn letterhead was emblazoned with it. She would arrive each morning and dig into the pile of papers that were always passed onto her by her senior admissions officers. Her job was always the rejections. She read every single application and the years had not yet numbed her to the disappointment she knew she was issuing. Though the young men and women receiving her letters would be disappointed, she always made sure to stick in a sentence that deviated from the standard form letter the other rejection peons mailed that was carefully worded to be inspiring and tuned to the individual based on what she knew about them from their file as well. Whether or not any of them ever read their letters or just disregarded them when they got the envelopes with the sole sheet of paper which they knew held their rejection as opposed to the thick packets of paper that they had hoped for, heralding their bright futures, she would never know. It was still worth it for her to throw it in though. Even if just one of those kids read that sentence and felt good about themselves or still felt inspired to change the world and keep being themselves, no matter what NYU admissions thought of them on paper, then it would be worth it.
She left work at the same time every day, retracing her steps back to escort her grandmother home and fix her a light supper before bidding adieu to the night doorman and heading off to shelter. There was a decent amount of foot traffic outside, being so close to Dylan's, Serendipity and the tram but not too many people came in. She no longer kept contact with the girls from the private school she'd boarded with in the past, nor the boy who had been her best friend throughout her own years at NYU, or anyone for that matter. She had little conversation with her co-volunteers at the shelter and saved her affections for her grandmother and the furry creatures at the shelter. She would leave late each night, the smell of ammonia stuck for at least the next few hours in her nose and in her hair at least until she got home to rinse it away with the sadness that enveloped the entire shelter. She felt just as alone as all those cats and dogs, both the young ones who had never known homes and the old ones whose owners had died and the building landlords or remaining family members had set them loose on the streets to fend for themselves after years of being pampered and loved family members. They had a high kill rate in this city so the turnover was high. The animals who she'd spent time nurturing and cleaning up after this evening would likely be put to sleep and their space replaced with another unfortunate pet within two days, if that.
She would return to her building at about the same time each evening, depending on how the trains were running. Her building was not nearly as nice as her grandmother's building was. There was no doorman to greet her and the double locked front doors were a joke because nobody knew their neighbors and any man could follow her in there posing as a neighbor and attack her, again, on her way to her fifth floor walk up. She tried not to think of that. Thinking was never good so she worked hard each day to focus on her grandmother, her work and her love of animals. She didn't focus on her looks. She didn't try to cultivate friendships with the people around her. She kept herself to herself and entertained herself with good, old books. She carried her keys differently these days, some between each finger in her fist, as if it would do anything anyways. She would never unlock the door if there was anyone near her anymore, outside or in the hallways once she flew as briskly as possible to her door on the landing upstairs.
She would lock all three locks on her door and check all of her three windows in the apartment before closing all the curtains and heading to the shower. She would turn her music on as loud as possible and the water up as hot as it would go before scrubbing herself free to the tunes of her soul. She'd retreat to her closet of a bedroom for a chapter of good, proper English literature before settling in for evening and doing it all over again. She felt safe in her schedule. Her routine, to her, made life predictably safe. Nothing bad can happen to you when you know every step you will take each day. There was no room for fear or anxiety when you were properly prepared. She was taught by the woman who loved purple and didn't deserve to be called a mother that when bad things happen, it's your own fault for being stupid and she had had enough stupid in her life. She every day she went through the motions, stuck to her safe and regular life, closed out anyone and anything else because it could hurt her, and lived on in this way. She tried to keep all extraneous thoughts on the tasks at hand, the next days tasks, or the book she was currently re-reading. Beams of sunlight were welcome interruptions to her errant thoughts during the day but at night all she had was sleeping pills and hopes of not having to endure any dreams.
