White Walls

I hated it at first. 

The walls were too white, too bright, too empty—like they were waiting for something. Waiting for life to press itself against them, to stain them with movement, laughter,  fingerprints, proof that someone had lived here before. But they were silent. Watching. Blank.

The floors, too smooth. The air, too still. Even the silence had weight, pressing against my chest like an unwelcome embrace. No hum of a distant television, no muffled voices through thin walls, no creaky stairs that betrayed your footsteps in the middle of the night. Just stillness. Even my footsteps sounded wrong. Like the house didn’t want me here. Like I was an intruder in a place that wasn’t mine and might never be. 

"This is home," my mom said, standing in the doorway, smiling. But I saw the way her fingers tightened around the strap of her purse, how her eyes flicked over the empty walls too quickly, like she didn’t want to look at them for too long. 

"Home." I echoed, tasting the word, rolling it over my tongue, trying to find the warmth in it.  But it felt foreign in my mouth, like trying on a sweater that didn’t belong to me. I let my suitcase drop. Maybe the house would finally react, acknowledge our presence, creak in protest, or shudder under our weight. But the sound disappeared into the walls, swallowed whole, leaving only silence. 

I took a slow breath. The air was wrong. Too crisp. Too clean. It smelled like fresh paint and something artificial—like a place that hadn’t been lived in, only prepared for living. A stage,  waiting for actors to make it look real. 

Back home—no, not home. The old house - the air smelled like cinnamon on Sunday mornings. Like books, their pages swollen and soft from years of being thumbed through.  Like us. 

This place smelled like nothing. Like absence. 

I ran my fingers along the banister. The wood was smooth, untouched. No scratches from rings sliding against it. No dents from years of kids racing up and down the stairs, taking them two at a time. It was too perfect. 

Too unlived in. 

Too unclaimed. 

Too… not ours.

I walked down the hallway, my footsteps muffled by the plush carpet. Each room I passed was the same: white walls, empty space, windows that stared blankly at the identical houses across the street. A perfect little neighborhood. A perfect little house. A perfect little life, all boxed up and tied with a bow.

But life wasn’t perfect. It was messy. It was chipped paint and old stains on the carpet, and a fridge covered in magnets and receipts, and drawings that didn’t make sense. It was laughter at the wrong moments, whispered arguments behind closed doors, and music playing too loud on a Saturday afternoon. It was socks forgotten under the couch, the hum of the heater kicking in at 2 AM, the comfort of knowing every inch of a space by heart.

This house had none of that. 

I pushed open the door to my new room. More white walls. More empty space. A single window overlooking the street, where the sky was starting to turn the color of fading embers. 

I sat on the bare mattress. Stared at the ceiling. Let the quiet press in. 

Maybe if I stayed here long enough, it would start to feel like mine. Maybe I would stop feeling like a stranger in my own life. 

I exhaled slowly and ran my hand over the mattress, its unfamiliar texture stiff beneath my palm. I imagined the indent my body might leave after weeks, months—proof that I had been here. That I had made a mark. 

It would take time… weeks? Months? Maybe longer. 

But for now, the walls were still white. 

And I was still here.