the lonely third wheel

We move around the two bedroom London flat like magnets in opposition. They are a pair, a couple, a partnership. I am the third wheel. This flat is the only place that has ever truly felt like home. My room faces into the quad of the estate. It is the largest bedroom I’ve ever had at a majestic 9x7 feet. It is furnished with a Queen-sized bed. The mattress nestles within an oak frame and is layered with quilts and blankets. The brightest and most obtuse in colour, I crocheted myself. My desk sits adjacent to my bed with a book shelf that bulges with playscripts and text books. Colour co-ordinated. The walls are littered with perfectly, to me, curated strings of light, polaroid pictures pegged to lengths of pom poms, and framed illustrations and cards. My room is my haven. Most recently I made the addition of a soft pastel-pink bucket chair that swivels. The seat of the chair is cushioned and cups my body with a warmth and steadiness that is reassuring. My love for my room is unprecedented, like the times, I suppose. With the unprecedented times I have found myself in my beautiful haven for roughly 23 hours a day. Across the corridor from my room is their room. Well, his room, but now their room. He is my flat mate. An incredible human shaped spirit of generosity and kindness. He is smart and funny and loves board games. In these unprecedented times his partner has come to live with us. Come to live with him. The living room that we used to share has a pull-out bed in it. So, with the times, the evenings find the bed pulled out. Because even partnerships need the nights to recharge. The mornings after these evenings, I tiptoe past the closed living room door and gently rifle through my kitchen cupboard. It’s usually around 10am. None of us see a point in waking early anymore. The world has paused and in turn paused all of us in a strange kind of floating stasis. Our jobs furloughed or terminated, the term ‘social distancing’ introduced into our everyday vocabulary. A country in lockdown. And we, three, in isolation in this place I call home. Except that they are a pair, in isolation together. And I am the third wheel. The loneliness has grown like a great black dog. Fierce and snarling. As their laughter shatters through the closed doors and walls of my beautiful haven I try to busy my mind. I am not welcome in their little world and I don’t feel able to welcome them to mine. I know my flat mate, but I don’t know this partnership. And in these unprecedented times I can’t find the tools in my armory to shed my gooseberry skin. I long for the person I know, and trust. I long for company other than my own. I long for my room to feel like my haven again, and not my prison. They have each other, a pair, a partnership. I am the lonely third wheel.