Love in Three Rooms

Love in Three Rooms

Room One: The Studio on 14th Street

It was barely a room, really. A studio apartment over a noisy laundromat with a single window that rattled when the buses passed. But when we signed the lease, it felt like the beginning of everything.

We were 24, broke, and fearless. We built a life with mismatched furniture and shared leftovers. Your record player lived on the windowsill. My books stacked high in milk crates. We had no closet, so your clothes lived on hooks screwed directly into the wall. I didn’t mind. You hummed while you cooked pasta, and I would watch you from the bed—our only real piece of furniture—feeling like the luckiest person alive.

We fought about things that didn’t matter then. The dishes, mostly. Or how loud your guitar was when I was trying to write. But always, we made up by midnight, limbs tangled, apologies whispered against collarbones. In that room, love was raw, breathless, blooming. We were still discovering each other, like exploring a new city without a map.

Room Two: The Walk-Up with the Blue Door

Two years later, we moved up. Literally. A one-bedroom walk-up in a quieter neighborhood with a door painted the color of early sky. There were hardwood floors and a tiny balcony. You brought home a fern named Albert. I bought matching mugs.

This room had doors. A bathroom we didn’t have to share with the neighbors. A kitchen with enough space for both of us to cook. It felt grown-up. We started eating at the table instead of cross-legged on the floor. We adopted a cat, named her Clementine. On weekends, we grocery shopped together like real adults, arguing over pasta shapes and choosing wine by label art.

But the arguments became heavier. Not about dishes anymore, but about dreams. You wanted to tour with your band; I wanted to apply for grad school in another state. You accused me of planning an escape. I said you were stuck in a dream that couldn’t pay the bills. Our fights grew teeth. Silence started to stretch between us—not angry, but cold.

And yet, the love was still there. In gestures. You made my tea before bed. I kissed your forehead when I left for work. We said “I love you” like brushing our teeth—routine, but still necessary. That apartment held the slow unraveling, the quiet fade, but also the stubborn holding on.

Room Three: The Sublet Near the River

We took the sublet as a last try.

It was temporary—three months while the original tenant worked overseas. The room was sun-drenched, full of other people’s things: postcards from Florence on the fridge, soft rugs that smelled like sandalwood, a bookshelf of unread novels. It felt like living in a stranger’s dream.

We said we’d use the time to “figure it out.” We started walking by the river in the evenings, not talking much, just listening to the water move. I slept with my back to you more often than not. You started coming home later, smelling faintly of bars I wasn’t invited to.

One morning, you made pancakes. You hadn’t made pancakes in months. I sat at the table, watching the batter bubble in the pan, and asked, “Do you still love me?”

You didn’t answer at first. Then you turned off the burner.

“I do,” you said. “But I think we’re loving different versions of each other.”

We didn’t cry. Not then. We ate the pancakes quietly, one bite after another, like we were honoring something that used to live here.

When we moved out, we packed our things separately. I left a note tucked into one of the Florence postcards on the fridge. You left behind Albert, the fern, now drooping at the tips.

Now: Roomless

Sometimes I walk past those places.

The laundromat on 14th Street still rattles with every bus. There’s a new door color on the walk-up. And the river still flows the same, though I don’t walk there much anymore.

I think of you when I rearrange my books, or when a certain song comes on. Not with pain—at least not the sharp kind—but with a softness that asks nothing.

Love lived in three rooms. It bloomed, burned, faded. It was loud and then quiet. Messy and then still. But it was real. And for a while, that was more than enough.