I measure without rushing, flour dusting the counter in a pale cloud. I mix the yeast with warm water and wait for it to bloom, watching the surface foam slowly, alive in a way I don’t want to think too hard about.
When I bring the ingredients together, the dough is shaggy and stubborn beneath my fingers. I turn it out onto the counter and press my palms into it.
Push. Fold. Turn.
The motion is steady. Rhythmic.
Push. Fold. Turn.
My shoulders loosen. My thoughts quiet. The dough resists at first, clinging, but it smooths under pressure, growing elasticand warm, and I lean into it harder than necessary—working out something I can’t name.
It feels good to use force on something that yields.
By the time I shape the dough into a round and cover it with a towel, my arms ache pleasantly. I set it near the window where light spills in, golden and unhurried, and watch it start to rise.
It feels absurd—baking in a house I didn’t choose, humming to music from a speaker tucked under the cabinets. And yet the scent and heat soften something, and I lean against the counter and let them.
The house holds sound differently than my apartment did. It doesn’t swallow it. It carries it across high ceilings and clean lines, across the long bands of light that shift slowly with the afternoon. Whoever designed this place understood how light changes over time. How a room can feel different at three than it does at five.
It’s a prison, but there’s a faint sense of comfort within these walls. It has to be the light. Light changes things, makes the surroundings feel safer than it really is.
I wash the flour from my hands and drift upstairs without fully deciding to. The staircase curves gently beneath my palm as I trail my fingers along the banister. I’ve avoided the upper floor as much as possible, using the small bathroom downstairs to pee and wipe toothpaste across my tongue. Keeping myself anchored near exits gives me a sliver of hope—even if they never open. But the house is quiet, and I’ve run out of reasons to stay on the ground level.
I pause where the staircase splits. I hadn’t noticed the fork the first time—my only concern then was the front door.
Now I stand at the divide, and I choose right because he went left the other night, and I need at least one small defiance, even one he’ll never know about.
The hallway ends at an open door. Open doors are rare enough in this house that I approach it the way I approach most things here now—carefully, half-expecting a trap. But when I reach the threshold and look inside, I find a bathroom.
Sunlight pours through a high, wide window that frames nothing but sky. It’s not grand in the way expensive things announce themselves—no marble for marble’s sake, no fixtures that shout about money. It’s quiet money, the kind that knows the difference between luxury and excess.
There’s a freestanding tub, matte white against warm stone walls. Brass fixtures, brushed and muted. A long vanity in dark wood with a single frameless mirror above it making the room feel larger than it is.
And then I look down.
The floor isn’t uniform. It’s mosaic. Tiles of different sizes and shades—deep blue pressed beside warm terracotta, pale cream against soft green. Some matte. Some glazed. No two quite the same.
It’s not the kind of mosaic that comes pre-mounted in neat little sheets, stuck to mesh for convenience. These have been set by hand, one at a time, fitted together from pieces that came from different places and somehow still belong to each other.
I kneel and trace the seams with one finger. Some edges are weathered. Some jagged. Some smooth and cool as river stone. The pattern isn’t perfect—it wasn’t trying to be. It’s beautifulin exactly the way that beautiful things are when they’ve been assembled from what was already broken.
What gets me—what I’m not prepared for—is how familiar it feels. Like I chose each piece myself. Like this floor was made for someone who wanted exactly this, who had stood in some imagined room and pictured it without knowing it already existed somewhere.
Why does it feel like this house understands me? God, that’s weird.
I stand and look at the rest of it. Thick towels stacked in precise order. A small ceramic tray holds soap, a shampoo bottle next to it. It’s my brand, the one that smells like vanilla and orange peel, but I choose not to let my gaze linger long enough for it to turn into a disturbing thought.
The timer downstairs clicks faintly through the vent, reminding me the bread is still rising, the house still moving, still breathing around me.
I don’t turn on the shower. I move to the tub instead, twist the brass handle, and let the water run until steam begins gathering along the mirror, softening everything.
I sit on the edge and press my palm into the rising heat, testing it. The warmth is immediate. Enveloping. And by the time I slip inside, the water reaches just below my collarbones.
The world narrows to breath and steam and the faint clean scent of eucalyptus, and for one moment—just one—I forget where I am. But he’s not far from my mind. He’s still lurking, with his vague answers and annoying silence.
When he’s here, the air tightens around him. My body stays braced, ready. My mind sharp. I hate the way he occupies every room, how he shifts the gravity of it just by standing there. And yet…without him, the house feels larger. Emptier. The silence isn’t relief. It’s hollow.
Is this better? I ask myself. Is this what safety feels like? Or is this something else?
