CREATIVE NON-FICTION
FUCK YOU, AVENUE
November 2017
For a year of my life, I was abused – not physically, but mentally. Roughly two years ago, I lived with people who took advantage of me; who took advantage of my complacency and my extreme fear of confrontation. And I was scared of them, I am scared of them. I am terrified because they abused me. Those small, 18-year-old women made two semesters of my life a living hell. A few months after I graduated from high school, I moved into my first dorm, unsuspectingly met my first roommates, and settled in to the best of my abilities. Up until that point, I had lived my entire life in the same house in Southern California. Living on my own, let alone sharing a living space with four strangers, was never going to be an easy task, but two of those four decidedly made my life much more miserable than I would have ever thought possible.
The school was small – an insanely expensive art school in Oakland, California – and I was placed in an apartment-style complex across the street from campus. Three girls in one room, two in the other, a small kitchen, gross bathroom, stained couch with a carpet to match, and a tiny balcony that looked as though it’d snap off the side of the building if more than two people stood on it. Really, I should’ve known. I should’ve walked into that apartment and immediately become cognizant of the fact that my life for the next year would be intolerable – that my patience, much like that balcony, would be pushed past its limits. The two girls in the other room have fueled my nightmares since I left.
Monique and Lizzie took my home away from me. Amidst moving over 300 miles away from the place I’d always lived, amidst the terrible fucking homesickness that made me dread going to sleep, getting up, and everything in between, they made it all worse. They denied me a sense of home. They denied me a quiet place to work, a safe place to sleep. When that old apartment became all I had to make a home out of, they refused to let me. The list becomes blurrier and I become less vivid as time passes since I’ve lived there, but I know that I was abused. These girls checked just about every possible box on the list of “things you can do to be a shitty roommate”. They threw parties in our tiny living room, ate my food, used and left dishes unclean, stored alcohol in common spaces, used and broke personal belongings, stole, smoked hookah and weed, kept me up with noise until five in the morning, slammed doors, consistently left the apartment unlocked, and gave no warning if they chose to fuck someone within hearing range.
During my time living with them, I became more possessive over my belongings than I thought I could, but more and more, I realized that I simply wanted respect. I wanted to be respected and I wanted my belongings to be respected alongside me. I’d repeat to myself that I was a decent person. Every night on the phone with my friends, I’d express how much I didn’t deserve this. When we’d FaceTime, I’d constantly tell my mom how much I didn’t want to be there anymore. Every second that I lived there, I had to reiterate to myself that I was a decent person, that I did not deserve what they put me through, I had to convince myself not to snap. And a lot of the time, I really wish I had. I wish I’d poured the vodka down the drain every time it showed up and called the RA every time they brought over uninvited guests. I’d seem like a prude, but at least I was still a decent fucking human being. At least I could respect others the way I hoped to be respected. I needed them to respect my space, respect my right to a home when I was already homesick, and to respect me.
And they did none of it. So, to California College of the Arts, I say fuck you. Fuck you, a million times over, for treating me like shit. Thank you for letting me continue to stay in an abusive housing situation. Thank you for moving me out only once I was threatened. Threatened? Are you fucking kidding me? I had to be threatened to be moved out of abusive housing? All I can say is well done.
In response to that god forsaken college and the assholes it chose to admit, your apology was never accepted. It was not okay. It is not okay. And it will never be okay. So do not tell me you’re fucking sorry for what I had to go through because I am not okay. If you had managed things right, if you had paid enough attention, I would’ve never had to go through it. I wouldn’t have been the one moving out. You would’ve taken the numerous complaints I’d made, the numerous times alcohol had been found in our apartment, the thousand parties that were thrown without permission from the residents, and actually done something about it. But here I am, writing about the shit you kept me in and the abuse that you put me through because you waited.
You waited until I was threatened at 2am on a Saturday morning to finally take action, to finally make an effort to make me feel safe. You waited and I’m the one that has to deal with the repercussions of your actions. That has to deal with the fact that a year of my life was so much worse than it needed to be because you couldn’t do anything. Because you let them disrespect me. I’m the one with the nightmares and the anxiety and the emotional damage and they just finished Junior Review. To that school, those miserable examples of human beings, and to that apartment on Avenue, I cannot express this enough. Fuck you.