My first apartment was a small furnished studio, smaller than the bedroom I left at home. I just had a hotplate and a small frig with a tiny freezer barely large enough for an ice tray. Mostly the freezer was one big lump of ice. Back then no one wanted to rent to an eighteen year old girl and wouldn’t have except they liked Keith. In fact Keith was the one who found the apartment (he was desperate to get me out of my parents home). At the time I didn’t have a savings account, only my penny collection. We pulled all our money from our part time jobs to pay for the rent.
I lived there less than six months. The apartment backed up to any alley and my father, the doctor, was terrified I would be raped. My parents knowing I would never return home moved me to an upstairs furnished apartment located behind Hamilton High. It was a one bedroom with a little kitchen, not that I had much spare money to buy food. The apartment wasn’t fancy, just spacious compared to the studio and located in a nicer area. Though my rent was now covered, a whopping $100 a month, my utility bills were almost as much as my previous rent.
