The day is half gone by the time I’ve pried myself from between the couch cushions, eyes glazed from a second-rate police drama marathon, a hopelessly mangled rat’s nest protruding from the back of my head. Days like this used to be what I lived for. Days like this used to be an invitation to drag my entire bedspread down to the living-room sofa. Days like this meant “Tom and Jerry” and newspaper comics printed in color. Days like this meant eating popsicles until I felt ill. But then we got a new denim sofa, and Mom stopped buying the grape-flavored Tylenol that came in little chewable tablets, and cable television became a thing of the past.

It feels like something even bigger has changed.

The dormancy of my muscles makes them heavy, each ounce of potential sticking and hardening and weighing down on my bones like drying cement. The thick void made by this lack of motivation makes the air seem too dense to inhale, and anything I attempt to accomplish quickly ­becomes wasted energy. I find myself loathing the desolation of a lifeless room, where the phone only rings when some jerk is trying to auction off substandard timeshares in Aspen in exchange for a portion of my soul.

I swear can hear my pulse.

Having the house to myself is rare – almost unheard of: it’s basically an illusion. But of course when I least appreciate it, I find myself deserted. Mom, whose panic attacks come and go with the weather, decided this snowstorm was the perfect opportunity to get the holiday shopping done. Dad crawled up from his basement lair and made the executive decision to go back to the office to contaminate his coworkers with whatever infectious disease has had him hacking and wheezing for the past two weeks. My parents must sense a feeble frequency of self-pity emanating from my pitiful corpse, a vibe assuring them that no one could possibly want to come within a 25-foot radius of their spawn today and they can be safe leaving her alone with a spare set of house keys and a liquor cabinet.

But I can’t stay here.

I blink and I am at the coat closet, pulling on my parka. I yank the hood over my head and borrow whoever’s boots are sitting in the puddle by the front window. I even lock the door, because for some reason, I don’t think I’ll be coming back anytime soon.