TRIGGER WARNING: THE REST OF THE CHAPTERS OF THE STORY INCLUDE MENTIONS OF ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS. STAY SAFE! 

Funny how it takes so long to fall asleep in a new place.

You think about your distance from the door and how the ceiling's arrangement of bumps are different than the way they were at home, and you're forced to find new patterns from them as you drift off either into sleep or existential dread. You notice how the air conditioning shudders loudly and how the floorboards creek even when nobody is walking. There's new monsters under the bed.

Soon the distance from the door seems just far enough, and the patters on the ceiling are like a story, well worn yellowing pages that were rubbed down in a child's loving hands. The air conditioning's rattles sound like the whispers of an old friend. Sometimes it'll tell you a secret. The floor boards groaning is just the house settling down for sleep of it's own, you know that now, and the monsters under your new bed have taught you some lovely piano sonatas they've written.

The first night at the apartment in Georgetown I could barely close my eyes for various reasons. The new setting, the insomnia I had been suffering from then, and the sweet, yet bitter taste of freedom.

Sweet yes, because I was finally able to be away from the woman that hit me for being myself, and turned my father, a good man, into a monster.

Bitter, because while I was free, I was also very much on my own. I did have George, but he went to work and too various college classes. I also barley knew him. So I was left to figure most things out on my own.

But despite all that, I was happy, or I grew happier anyway. I became myself, truly over the first few months I lived with George. I laughed at jokes and did wild things like write poetry and fiction (yes, to me that was wild). George seemed happier too, and I wondered if he liked his old roommate very much.

The sounds of a new home are also hard to get used to. My mom's house carried the sound of heavy footsteps and slamming doors. It held the very loud ringing of grief, as if there was an alarm singing: "There's something missing!". There was also a lot of silence. Terrifying, heavy, aggressive silence.

In George's apartment, there was the sound of sunlight gracefully playing songs on the floor boards, and George's humming. He always seemed to have a song in his head. There was the sound of wheels on tile floors and the happy productive chirping of a keyboard. And when there was silence, it was always one that makes you satisfied, not one that had you wondering what you did wrong.

A few more months went by, and I got to know George as a close friend. He talked about boys he temporarily fell in love with on the street, and I read him my stories. We both opened up about our pasts, except for one important thing.

"George," I asked one day, pulling apart the quiet. I was curled up in a chair and he was writing something. "why are you in the wheelchair?"

Everything stopped.

"Don't you know why?" He asked, and I shook my head. He sighed. "I was in a car accident when I was younger, my legs were paralyzed."

"Oh." I looked up from my notebook. "Do you miss being able to walk?"

But you know how that conversation went.

Months went by. George and I talked LGBTQA and I learned terms for feelings I never knew had names.

"Aromantic," George told me one night "is when you don't feel romantic attraction to anyone. Asexual is when you don't feel sexual attraction."

"What's the difference?" I asked.

"Romantic attraction is when you want to be with someone romantically. You feel the desire to do things like hold hands with them, you know, do couple things." I made a face. "Sexual attraction is, well, you know..." I started gagging. Dramatically. Immaturely. I had found my labels.

"So that's you? No kinds of attraction at all?"

"Yeah."

"That's fine with me." He smiled, and I had no idea how much I'd miss that smile.