The closest strangers

Two houses.

Two toothbrushes.

Two kitchens.

Two of everything.

And yet, nothing that feels like home.

When Friday night comes, I pack my things into a small backpack—my entire world shrinking down to what I can carry. I wait in the back seat of the garage, silent, until he drops me off at the McDonald’s on 23rd streets. That’s where my mom’s husband picks me up in his spotless Mercedes SUV, the leather seats too stiff, too cold.

I go to their house, to my room—a hollow square that once held warmth, now just a shell of what it used to be. Downstairs, their kids run through the halls, their laughter bubbling up like a song I no longer know the words to. The TV hums. My mom is in the kitchen, cooking for her family. 

I sit at the table facing my mom’s kids. They call me big brother and yet I don’t know how to be one for them. I don’t know how to be a big brother that can love his step siblings when I’m still a child myself that hungers for love. How do I give something that I never experienced having.

"Can you at least smile while at the table?" my mom asked. "Why do you act like a stranger? Are you like this at your dad’s place too?"

I force a small smile, not because I feel it, but because it’s easier than answering her questions. The food on my plate grows cold as I push it around with my fork, pretending to be part of something I can’t seem to belong to. The laughter, the clinking of plates, the casual conversation—they all swirl around me, close enough to touch, yet impossibly distant.

After dinner, I retreat to my room, shutting the door behind me. I stare at the walls, at the neatly made bed, at the suitcase still half-unpacked from the last time I was here. I could unpack. I could settle in. But what’s the point when I’ll just be leaving again in a few days?

I lie down, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of two houses pressing down on me—two places I am supposed to belong, yet neither one truly mine.

Maybe one day, I’ll find a place where I don’t feel like a visitor in my own life. A place where love isn’t something I have to earn, where I don’t have to fold myself into the shape of someone I’m not just to fit in.

But for now, I close my eyes, listening to the muffled sounds of the family downstairs, and try to pretend that for just a moment, I am home.

PQHAÜS