Another sunset seeps through my windows, staying for a moment. It paints my white walls with an orange and pink tinge, the type of color you think of when a warm hand rests on your shoulder. Each ray of sunlight finds its place: on the mirror hanging from my door, on the boxes filled with my belongings and on the suitcases leaning against the wall.
Beyond my door live my roommates, the two women I truly came to know just months ago. The ones that were sewn to me by invisible strings of life, strings that were pulled together when it was our time to meet, when our hearts were ready to love one another. They have taught me something I never expected to learn so late in my college career: the feeling of “home” is far closer than I had expected. Sometimes it’s a laugh, a voice calling my name from the end of the hall or a light left on for me late at night, waiting for me to come home.
My happiness now curls itself into the sound of their laughter, mixing with mine. It stays within the rituals we have made in the months we have lived together, how we sit together in the living room without speaking, sharing silence as if it were a soft blanket, or perhaps in how we have late-night debriefs by the fridge.
If anyone ever asked, I could tell them endless stories of my college experience. Chapters varying in length: some about past loves, others about friends, classes and the things I had to face on my own. However, I know for certain that I would never be able to stop talking about my amazing roommates; those stories fill volumes of my life. Each word of our stories would ring in tremendous harmony on the page, they would dance as we do when we need to unwind with Just Dance on the TV.
For years, I doubted that friendships like this could exist, the kind where silence becomes its own language, where a glance can say I’m here or I get you without needing words. Where you begin to trust so deeply that you forget there was ever a time you didn’t. Because with them, it feels as if our love has always existed.
When I moved to the U.S., I already knew I couldn’t live alone. I knew myself well enough to know that isolation would pull me into shadows I didn’t want to revisit. But since I moved into this apartment, not a single day has felt dark. These walls, once strange, now feel like they breathe with me. In time, the floorboards have remembered all of our footprints combined.
I have always loved the story in Plato’s Symposium, where Aristophanes explains that humans once had four arms, four legs and two faces. After they attempted to attack the gods, Zeus separated them, forcing each to wander eternity searching for the other half. If this were true, I would argue for a triple human — one with six arms, six legs and three faces, because if soulmates exist, then soulmates of three must exist too. My roommates and I are proof of this: three separate hearts somehow beating in harmony. Three souls woven together by those invisible strings, or perhaps by the Red String of Fate, which in East Asian belief, states that certain people are destined to meet no matter the circumstance. Each of us is the perfect balance, the perfect contradiction, the perfect complement to the others.
We fit together effortlessly, like the ingredients in those recipes we make when one of us is hit by a craving. The most seamless combination since the invention of buttered popcorn, a small delicacy in our kitchen and our favorite form of comfort food, which tastes of softness and laughter when the machine pops far too many into the floor.
Our apartment is more than a place with three beds, a sofa and a kitchen; it is the small home we have created for ourselves. Where our hearts beat easier, where the word “home” finally stretches enough to include me. The quiet miracle of finding people who make the simplest moments, pink sunsets, airplane rides and laughter, feel like something holy.
Johnalys Ferrer is a junior from Arecibo, Puerto Rico studying Medicine, Science and the Humanities. Her column explores how culture, identity and the fight to belong live on, reminding us that heritage is not only remembered but echoed daily.
