Chapter 14 Luc
Using my key, I unlock the door to my dad’s house and swing it open.
I came here alone. My dad stayed at the store with Claire because he said he had to check the supplies.
It’s not unusual for him, but still, I don’t like it.
Who knows what kind of arrangements he’ll make with Claire without me?
Will there still be any shifts left at the shop for me to take on, or will he change his mind about what we discussed and give them all to her? I’m not sure what will happen.
At first sight, not much seems to have changed in my father’s house.
That’s not news to me; I already knew that from the times I visited here in the past months.
But I didn’t know before today that he’d changed my old bedroom, and even if I did, it wouldn’t have mattered.
After all, I had another, better place to stay until my friend suddenly kicked me out of their apartment.
What will I be confronted with this time? After losing my room at Maxime’s place, my job, and my chance at romance, this day couldn’t possibly get worse, could it? My dad’s reorganization of my room can’t be that bad, right?
But when I open the door and look inside, I realize it can be. Fuck.
The sight takes my breath away in the most unpleasant way. It’s worse than my dad described. The room that used to be mine feels like a mixture of my dad’s junkyard and an abandoned gym.
Back in the cake shop, my dad said the machine he put here was “pretty big,” and he clearly wasn’t exaggerating. If anything, it was an understatement. There’s a treadmill that takes up half the space, blocking the bed, and now that I’m confronted with it, it’s more than I can handle.
As I look at the giant treadmill and the old, piled-up cardboard boxes surrounding it, everything hits me like a bomb. I feel so helpless and lost, and an urge to cry wells up in me. Unable to stop it, I let it happen, and a tear trickles down my cheek, soon followed by some more.
I hate this. There’s nothing here that’s mine except the bed, which offers me no comfort.
Reaching the bed will be like a workout, climbing over boxes and that stupid treadmill.
I feel like a homeless person crammed into the nearest, poorest available space with nothing of their own except their clothes.
It’s not fair. When will I finally have a place that actually feels like mine?
Nothing is going the way it should, and after being hit by one disappointment after another, I’m close to giving up. With everything I try, every move I make, someone blocks my path. Everywhere I go, my motives are questioned, my skills are debated, and my plans are obstructed.
Everything feels wrong. I have a roof over my head, but it’s not the one I want. It doesn’t feel like mine, and I don’t know how to make it so. I don’t have the strength to move that machine, or anyone who’ll help me do it, and it makes me feel so hopeless and alone.
My job doesn’t feel the same anymore either.
I no longer see the point in working at the cake shop, because no matter what I do there, my dad will always compare it to how Claire does it.
The cake shop—my passion—has been tainted, and I don’t know why I should even bother going to work anymore.
Because someone, no matter how nice she seems, is close to taking over, and my dad doesn’t care how I feel about losing what I built there. He doesn’t care how much it hurts me.
And that’s not even close to being everything.
I should probably also start questioning all my friendships.
It took Maxime next to nothing to kick me out of their house—nothing but a chance for them to get laid.
What’s the point of any of it? Why would our visits to nightclubs still matter, those nights of supposed drunken fun, if there are so many cracks in the foundation?
Maxime had some nerve, basically saying, “Let’s go to the club the night before I kick you out of the place you’ve lived for eight months.
Oh, and feel free to bring the person who isn’t your boyfriend. ”
That brings me to him. Speaking of everything falling apart, that may be the worst one. Losing Cody is what makes it all too much, the drop that overflows the bucket.
If I try really hard, I can maybe convince myself there’s a silver lining to my other circumstances.
I have a roof over my head and a part-time job.
It may be far from optimal, but it’s something.
Whereas when it comes to Cody, the person I’m pretty sure I’m falling in love with, I have nothing.
From him, I don’t get anything at all. Only a glimpse of what I could have had through the eyes of a woman I can only imagine is his girlfriend.
It makes me realize that my dream seems so far out of reach now.
I want to move back home, to France, specifically to Besancon, the city I love.
And deep down, I want Cody to be there with me, living in the same house.
It doesn’t have to be big or fancy; it just has to feel like home.
Maybe Cody and I would have a dog, a cute small French bulldog or something.
And I want to work at a cake shop, one that’s nice and where I can help customers and bake cakes. I think I could truly be happy then.
But I don’t need anyone to tell me it won’t happen; I already know.
Even pieces of that dream feel out of reach.
I could try going to Besancon alone. Maybe I could scrape up enough from my part-time job for a train ticket or an old car, but then what?
I couldn’t afford to stay. Maybe my mom would help—she doesn’t live far from there, and we still talk sometimes—but even if she did, what’s to say I wouldn’t just end up the same?
Unhappy, alone, only in Besancon this time.
As I stare at the enormous treadmill that takes up almost half of my bedroom, tears escape my eyes.
My dad told me I can move it if I can put it somewhere out of the way, but I think he already knew I can’t.
Even if I were strong enough to drag this thing out of here, it would always be blocking a path or taking up half a different room.
So basically, I’m screwed. I’ll have to crawl over boxes and climb over that awful exercise machine to get into my bed.
It sucks, but I don’t think my dad did this on purpose.
I don’t think it was his goal not to make me feel at home.
It’s just that I definitely gave him the idea I was never coming back.
But oh, it has that effect, alright. Rien ne vaut d’être chez soi. Or, as they say in English, there’s no place like home.
It’s funny, but cruel, that I know how to say that in two languages . . . but that I no longer have a place for myself that feels anything like home.