As the sun rose to a new Sunday, she found it blissful to remain wrapped in the sheets for a little longer. Her slumber had slipped away into the daylight. But of course, it was a Sunday ritual to lay in bed for longer hours than usual. Along with the monotony of Sunday, it was the stillness, the silence, the solitude that she found her peace in.

Alyssa stayed away from her home like she had always wanted to. Ever since she had realised that home didn’t feel like home, she knew she had to leave that place which was supposed to nurture her and it did to some extent, but also ended up damaging her. She had always imagined what staying alone, away from all the chaos, the familiar streetlights, the creeping walls would feel like and even if it wasn’t like that, she was happy, and she felt liberated.

But that Sunday didn’t feel like the usual peaceful one. Instead, she felt tired to the bones, vulnerable, and frustrated, with solitude lingering on like loneliness.

“Long baths feel nice on days like this, when you are crippled to your flesh until you stop smelling like your shower gel,” she thought to herself as she was biting on the left-over pizza. She didn’t feel devastated exactly, just empty and gloomy, craving for the urge to be in someone’s company, to be held, to be hugged. Who doesn’t?

“The human desire to be loved is ecstatic and sad at the same time”, she mumbled as if someone was sitting across her. She had always had this weird habit of talking to herself. It wasn’t like she didn’t have friends. She had the nicest of them, better than the ones she had earlier who only had her feeling how being the second option is what she fits the best into. But sometimes the feeling of aloofness stalls around you in a way, stopping you from confiding into the ones you know because probably that is not what you want at times exactly.

She spent half the day stalking the people she had left behind. Her exes, of whom she wasn’t very proud, her ex-friends, people she thought she didn’t care about anymore. There is an odd joy in doing what remains unexplained. And putting her vulnerability into metaphors, completing the stories she had left midway, creating Pinterest boards for the new characters she had inside her head, watching 90’s movies, the teen rom-coms, where she had always found her comfort. And eventually dozing off.

Waking up from her afternoon nap, she found herself feeling lighter, looking out of the window against which were pressed the hues of sunset. Splashing the cold water to her face, she felt as if she is finally out of her afternoon dream. She then went on to make herself some coffee. Opened the door for the stray kitten she had been feeding.

The kitten was an orphan. Or, at least didn’t have a mother as far as Alyssa knew. Alone and lost, just like her. She had named the kitten Al, the initials of her name, for when she found it, it reminded her of when she was new to the city, scared but free. As Alyssa stood on her balcony looking at the city lights slowly lighting up, sipping through warm sips, Al purred, rubbing against her feet. And as Alyssa looked down, it was as if she had found all the happiness in the world.

“Where have you been little Al. I missed you so much,” she said emphasising on every word she could, as if Al would reply with an “I have missed you more, human!”

“At the end of the day, we are all just looking for love and the feeling of home,” she thought to herself, picking up Al and fading into the city lights again.