The Lost Boy - Chapter 3 – part four - A Place of My Own

The place they gave me wasn’t truly my own.

It was a room — one of three — in a shared temporary accommodation setup. A box with a bed, thin walls, and just enough space to lie down and breathe. We shared a kitchen, bathroom, and a living room, but those spaces didn’t offer much comfort. Just strangers, occasionally.

Still, I was happy.

Not because it was anything special — but because it was mine, sort of. A proper base. Somewhere I could come back to. After bouncing between chaos and nothingness, having a key in my hand felt like something. Not freedom, maybe, but at least a door I could close behind me.

My things were scattered on the floor — not that there were many.

A few clothes, maybe a bag or two. That’s all I really remember having at first. No furniture of my own, no decorations, no sense of building a home. Just me, my emptiness, and eventually a TV. I’m not even sure where I got it from — probably some deal, a hand-me-down, or a favour. I don’t even remember watching the bloody thing. But I do remember listening to music. I don’t know how or on what though!

They told me this was a stepping stone — a chance to prove I could manage, keep myself together, and move on to a place of my own. That idea should’ve excited me. But the truth is, I didn’t think like that back then. I was impulsive, reactive. Living for whatever today would bring. I didn’t know how to build a future — only how to escape the present.

The only time I ever really looked ahead was when I was locked up.

Funny that.

When you’re caged, you dream about the world outside.

About walking free, doing better, becoming something new.

But out here, when the gates were open and the world was mine…

I still felt trapped.

Still lost.

Still using something to escape.

So there I was: not behind bars, but still not free — but freer than I’d felt for a long time.

Unsettled. High. Floating through the days, just trying not to feel too much.

I don’t remember moving-in day — not the moment the key touched my hand, not what I was wearing, or even what the weather was like. But I do remember trying to make that little box feel like mine. Like something more than just a place to exist.

I’d reconnected with my Irish mate again by then. He was around for most of this part of the journey — and not at all after it — and this memory is one of the few that stuck. I’d had the idea to decorate — not properly, but just to add a bit of something, you know? Make it feel less like a temporary bed and more like a space of my own.

We didn’t think much about it. I just said the words out loud — let’s go get a few bits — and we were off. No plan, no budget. Just two lads on a mission to B&Q or Homebase or wherever it was, walking a few minutes up the road like we had a clue what we were doing. This home wasn’t in the village I knew — it was in the town. Bigger, busier, and with it came this strange sense of stepping into a wider world. More responsibility. More eyes on me. More ways to go wrong — and unknowingly on the search for them all.

We got to the shop and started looking around. I remember being weirdly focused — like, actually looking for things that matched. I found this self-adhesive border with Chinese symbols on it. Proper early-2000s vibe. I loved it. It felt deep, even though I didn’t know what any of the symbols meant. I found a net curtain too — and maybe even some actual curtains to match. A few other bits as well, though I couldn’t tell you what they were now. But at the time, I was buzzing. I felt like I was doing something good. Something normal.

We browsed a bit longer before making our way to the exit — arms full of stuff, heads full of some half-formed idea of a better space, a cleaner life. It was a small thing, but in that moment, it felt like hope. A little flicker of it.

And then... well. That’s where this bit’s a little less innocent.

I did say we didn’t have a budget, didn’t I?
Well, no budget means no money.

We hadn’t really discussed it from what I remember, but we just walked out the shop, alarm going off behind us, and made our way home. I vaguely remember getting caught in some way, but I honestly don’t know what happened around it — because I got home with some of the stuff, if not all of it.

I only know that because I can picture myself back in that room, looking at it all up and about — the curtains hung, the border stuck around the walls. I could be wrong, but my memory says I’m not.

And there I was, in my room and alone in that memory.
High, smoking baccy mix bongs. Feeling proud of my space.
Fuck, those backy mixes hit different. I can still see the cloud of thick, yellowy smoke hanging in front of my face like a curtain. My lungs felt like they’d taken a punch. I guess they had.

That home was full of good memories, in its own messed up way. Much of the same sameness. Drug sessions with mates. Getting stoned. Swallowing pills. Laughing. Forgetting.

The bass seemed to have faded by then, thankfully. That stuff was something else — you could go for days nonstop on it. At least with pills, your serotonin ran dry eventually and sleep would finally come.

One time we were so off our heads, we stood outside as daylight broke, chucking stones at a block of flats across the canal. Seeing who could hit the windows.
Yes, people lived there.
They didn’t get a thought either.

I also remember midnight bumbles — climbing and jumping over the canal locks, peering down into the near-empty drop below as we leapt over them like kids chasing a thrill. It made our highs feel more intense. Fuck knows why. Just drug-taking idiots being drug-taking idiots, I suppose.

Not gonna lie — it was great fun at the time.

Somewhere around that time, I got a job at McDonald’s.
Don’t ask me why, but I remember it lasted six weeks. No idea how I remember the length — I just do. A number that stuck. Maybe because it felt like I was trying to do something normal. Stable. But I wasn’t ready. Not really.

I had family visit from Ireland during this time — my mum and my sister.
I don’t remember it happening at all, but my sister reminded me of it the other day.
It’s strange how memory works — what it holds, what it lets go of.
The only reason I mention it now is because I think their visit might’ve planted the first seed that eventually led me to leave. To pack up and go back to Ireland. Something shifted. Quietly. But it mattered.

I’d also gone to visit Ireland while I was living here.
Again, I don’t remember much of the trip — not what we did or where I went.
But I remember coming back.

And being told someone had overdosed in the house while I was away.

That’s when it hit me — really hit me — where I’d been living all along.
That house wasn’t just temporary accommodation.
It was a place for addicts, alcoholics, broken systems.
I was sixteen or seventeen years old, surrounded by people twice my age who were using hard.
I forgot to say that earlier. But yeah — that’s where I lived. That’s where I grew.

It wasn’t pretty.

I got my room robbed once.
By a friend. Or at least someone I thought was a friend.
That’s when I remembered I had a PlayStation up there — maybe that’s why I don’t remember watching telly. It was there more for the console than anything else. That must be how I listened to music too! Anyway.
He nicked it and sold it for a bag of smack.

I didn’t even blame him.
I did punch him, though.
Not out of rage — more out of what felt like routine. Like that’s just what you did.

And then there was the smackhead from next door who robbed my food.
I came home, opened the cupboard, saw it was bare — and caught the smell of my dinner cooking through the wall.
No way they’d spent money on food.
I knew it was mine.
So I went next door. Me and my mate both.
Found my stuff and gave them a proper beating.

Him and his missus.

He got it worst — but she got hit too, trying to defend him.
A smack in the face.
I don’t say it with pride.
I say it because it happened.
Because this is the sheer, brutal honesty of it all.

That was the life I was in.
One foot in chaos. The other already stepping out of it.
But still, I stood in that doorway a while longer.

Not every memory from that house was chaotic or wild.
Some were just dark. Not visually — but inside.

There’s one in particular I’d almost forgotten. A moment so quiet on the outside it would’ve looked like nothing to anyone else. But inside, it was violent.

I’d run myself a bath.
And I forgot I was running it.

The house had a water tank, not one of those new combi boilers, so when the tank emptied, that was it — no more hot water until it refilled and warmed up. And by the time I remembered, the bath was stone cold. And so was the tank.

I stank. I needed to wash.
But now, there was no choice — it was cold water or nothing.

I got into that freezing bath.
And something snapped inside me.

I hated myself for it. Not just the cold. Not just the mistake. But what it meant.
You can’t even run a bath properly.
What a fucking idiot.
You’re so stupid.
Who ends up having a cold bath in their own place? You absolute joke.
You can’t even look after yourself.

The voice in my head wouldn’t stop. Wouldn’t let up.
It just kept going, ripping into me, over and over.
Until I broke.

I must’ve been trying to wash myself, because I remember squeezing the bar of soap so hard it bent out of shape in my hands. Then I threw it. Then picked it up and did it again. Over and over, like something inside needed to break. Or maybe I already had.

And then came the real punishment.
I started hitting myself.
Not lightly. Not a slap. But real punches.
To the head. To the face. Grabbing at my skin, pulling at my eyes, scratching and clawing and dragging the hate out of myself by force. I wanted that voice to shut the fuck up. I wanted to punish the idiot who ran the cold bath. The twat who couldn’t even get that right.

There was no one else there.
No one to stop it.
No one to see it.

Just me. And the cold. And the echo of my own rage

I know this wasn’t the only time.

The voice, the rage, the beating myself — it happened more than once. I can feel it.
But this is the only time I fully remember.
The rest… it’s there, somewhere in the fog. Half-seen, half-felt.
But that’s okay.

I only need to see it once.
Because that one time was all the times.

By looking at that moment — that cold bath, that bar of soap, those fists —
I’m looking at all of it.
All the pain. All the shame. All the forgotten versions of me that suffered in silence.

And now, when I revisit that memory…
I don’t turn away.
I don’t flinch.

I sit beside him — that boy in the cold water.
And I hold him.

I wrap my arms around him and whisper what no one ever did back then:
You’re not a joke.
You’re not broken.
You didn’t deserve that.
It’s okay.
I see you.
And I love you.

————————

I can’t remember leaving.
I don’t remember the catalyst, the decision-making, the goodbye, or even packing my things — if I even packed at all.
I just know that part of my journey ended, and I went back to Ireland.

I never made it into my own flat.
Never reached the next step they said this place was leading toward.

I just left.
Back to Ireland. Back to something — or maybe back to nothing.
But that’s for the next chapter.

And as I sit here now, recalling it,
I can already feel that chapter holding a lot.
A lot.