“How was work?” Mom asked me as I entered the kitchen and dropped my keys on the table with an earsplitting rattle. I flinched.

“Okay, how about you?”

“It was fine. So, is there anything new with you?”

“No, but I encountered a boy who dropped a really lame joke on me. I haven’t seen him at Sally’s before, and he doesn’t go to my school. He called me pretty.”

“Oh, John and I were flinging rubber bands at each other at the office. You know John, right? He’s one of my coworkers. He came to the opening dinner for our company.”

“Oh, right, John, the guy with the funny hair and his right thumb which is way bigger than his left?”

My mother laughed and said, “Yeah, that’s him. So, can you teach Luke to drive? I mean, I don’t know how to and you are a year older than him, being seventeen and all. He really needs to know how because I am sick of chauffeuring him around like I’m-”

“I don’t know, Mom. I don’t even have my license yet. I have only a permit, plus I don’t know how good I am of being able to teach some one to drive a car. He has to figure it out and just attend driving school,” I said, then quickly added, “like me.”

“But, Malory, it would be a good way to spend some time with him, don’t yah think?”

“Yeah, sure, but it is risky with all the cops and stuff. Can we talk about it later? I’m sleepy.” And as I said the last word, I stifled a fake yawn and stretched my arms above my head.

When I finally laid my head down on my soft pillow and yawned for real, Dad came in the room.
♦☻☺☻☺♦

What always made me laugh was my pathetic life. Sure, I had a loving Mom, a good-paying job, and decent looks, but they weren’t always enough. I have tried to impress my father for so long it gets exhausting. I had friends, but never had slumber parties like other eleven year old girls did. Instead, I was home scrubbing the bathroom floor and washing dishes and doing my father’s laundry and triple–checking my homework, waiting on my him to return home from work while my mother slept or went out. But no matter how hard I tried, my father always had a grim look on his lips and his eyes were set in an unimpressed way. “You missed a spot,” he would say when he checked the bathroom. “You better hope all of your homework is correct, so go check it again.” Or “You have more laundry to do, so let’s get to it.” Or “There are dishes with soap bubbles still on them; you might want to fix that or else.” I knew what “or else” meant. But every time he said it I wanted to ask “or else what?” If I did ask, I would get that or else.

I had a routine; a horrible, jumbled schedule. After school, I cleaned the kitchen: de-germified the stove top, clean the tables, set the tables, prepare Mom’s fancy dishes for uninvited and unexpected guests, cook dinner: appetizers, veggies, main course, desert, then clean the tables after we eat, do my homework: a consistency of math, reading, science, studying, and relearning music, check the homework repeatedly and thoroughly, mop the wood floors with the proper mops and jelly gunk that smelled like lemons and Chloride mixed with water, vacuumed the carpets with a big, heavy vacuum, swept the porch, got my normal beating for moving to slowly, and was in bed by nine o’ five exact. On weekends, I do everything listed above except school, so to replace the school time I scrubbed the bathroom: sinks, toilet, bath tub, and the floors. I went grocery shopping, watched Mrs. Rugby’s babies (and gave the money I earned to my dad), mowed Mr. Jet, Mrs. Lance, Mr. and Mrs. Tall (who are very short like me), and Ms. Shoe’s front yard and watered their gardens, and studied for three hours with ten minute breaks, and I was in bed by precisely ten o’ ten. And that is if I get at least an average of ninety-four percent on my main class tests.
♦☻☺☻☺♦

When Dad hit me last night, I didn’t feel the physical pain or the shock of the slap. It never came! I don’t know what it was, but it felt great and I just was overwhelmed. I was holding my breath, but when it came, it felt like someone tickled me. When I started laughing uncontrollably because I was in power of myself for one moment, Dad went berserk. He kicked me, pushed me off of my bed, and slapped me all over my body some more, I but I just giggled. It was the best feeling ever. He eventually stocked out of my room mumbling about “that damned child” and how “that damned child” must have been possessed by some lost soul with serious mental issues. But he can say what he wants about me; I will still cherish the moment of empowering my life and body for the first time in my life. He told me I was grounded for two months, two weeks, and five days. That was okay, because I slapped him on his face with all of my power and strength in my hand. I did it so hard he was crying and holding his jaw, far too weak to come back with his hairy hand. Then, the best part, I left the house with my mother along. We stayed at a hotel for two nights. I skipped school, sure. I missed work, sure. I left my father, definitely. We didn’t think about the man waiting on us at the Mad House. We just simply packed bathing suites, well; I had to buy mine because I didn’t have one, some clothes, and tampons. Next, we were on our way. On the ride home, I wrote in my journal:
I left the monster and his Mad House, Mom and I. I had fun. I never thought of the face of the monster. I knew it would give me nightmares of the worst. Mom and I went swimming the indoor pool at the Experience Hotel. My life was an experience those two days. I see why they call the hotel that name. It makes sense, but not of anything else. We stayed in room five-o-three where a bunch of kids and their parents were vacationing. I could tell because of the banging on the walls. If I could go back I would. I miss the chlorine burning up my nose and in my eyes. I miss the swishing of the water against my skin. I miss Mom teaching me how to do flips in the water and somewhat to swim. I miss accidently being rammed into someone else in the pool. But what I miss most of all, the smile on our faces as we splashed each other with cold water. This should have been my childhood. But now I have experienced one now, so I am truly grateful.

Now I am on lockdown, along with my Mom. She is not permitted to go out tonight. I feel so bad having to bring her down along with me. But I guess that’s how life works in my world. I lie in my bed now, listening to Evanescence’s songs of meaning. They sounded like what I would write. I know how it feels like. I know why Amy Lee inspires me so much. This would be to my father if I wrote this song, Good Enough. “Under your spell again; I can’t say no to you. I shouldn’t have let you torture me so sweetly. Now I can’t let go of this dream I can’t breath but I feel good enough.” Later in the song, “Am I good enough?” is sung. Dad, am I good enough?

“Hey! Malory! C’mon, we’re going to be late for homeroom if you decide to take an hour to adore yourself in that stupid locker mirror of yours,” Halley called from her locker. The bell had already rung and almost everyone in the hallway left.

“My mirror is not stupid,” I replied calmly, but only to myself. This mirror is one of my most prized possessions. It is one of the few gifts my father had given me, and it was between me and him. No one knew how I spent my Christmas cleaning the house for a family gathering. They’re always fun, right?

“Miss Everest, I suggest you get a move onto class?” said a recognizable, deep voice, “And Miss Leckston?”

“Yes, Mr. P?” Halley replied.

“Don’t become late and follow our dear Miss Everest. She seems to be a bad example. And my name is not Mr. P or Mr. Principal; it is Mr. Jetson; like the cartoon.” And Halley left me with the principle, nodding.

“Mr. Jetson,” I begged, “I don’t mean to be late, I just…” and I lost my train of thought completely as he stood waiting for my response, like I was going to finish my sentence.

“Miss Everest, just get a move on it.” He gave me the ‘I’m disappointed in you’ look which made me feel really bad.
♦☻☺☻☺♦
After dragging myself through another day of school, I was exhausted. There was homeroom, where Mrs. Col embarrassed me for “intolerant tardiness”. She made me move to the back of the classroom and the Wicked Witch of the West, Andy Watson, made rumors about desperate freaks like me and how I supposedly made out with Mr. Jetson-which I so did not. Andy Watson is the worst living female ever. I swear. She threw a six year old in the garbage and left him there while he cried for his Mommy; I was there. In Science, I tripped over my lab partner’s foot. In Pre-Calc, I spaced out and didn’t get any notes whatsoever. Last but not least on my Worst-day-ever-events-in-school List is lunch. I ran into Rebecca Wabers and spilled her lunch on her shoes, which she claimed were “ridiculously expensive” and that her mother will be calling my mother, but no promises on that. I chocked on milk which made me throw up all over the table right when Emmanuel Rob was walking by and threw up himself.
Now my mouth tastes like acid and breakfast and lunch. That’s yummy.
“I’m home,” I called as I entered the Mad House unhappily.
“How’d you do in school?” Dad asked as I sat down at the kitchen table.
“Okay, I guess.”
“You don’t have to clean. We can take care of ourselves now.”
“What do you mean, Dad?”
“Before I say anything to you, know that I love you,”-yeah right-“Now you’re sixteen and…you know…”
“I don’t know. What’s going on?”
When I asked Mom came in and sat down on the third chair and looked concerned at me.
“What your father is trying to tell you is…you are…”
“Tell me, for Pete’s freaking sake!”
“Well, you legally emancipated yourself a week ago and…”
Then I got it. This couldn’t be happening. It can’t be real. All my life I wanted to leave this place and now I don’t want to. This is my home. “No! You’re kicking me out?”
My mother looked at me then at my father. She started to cry.
“It was your mother’s idea that-”my father said.
“It was your idea? You were the one who told me you loved me all these years when I needed you, when my father didn’t. You brought me food when Dad told me skip breakfast and go to my room to think about my grades. I cleaned this damned house since I was in middle school for you and Dad and now you kick me out? I hate you! I hate you!”I stood up and smashed some of my mom’s most important vases by throwing them on the ground, including her mother’s ashes, which were now spilled all over the floor and I tromped on them crazily.
My mother was sobbing. “Stop…please!”
“You’re just as bad as my father. I hope you two die! I won’t come to your screwed up anniversaries. I won’t be at your oh-so sad graves ‘cause if I do, I’ll spit on them. Mom, remember when you lost that baby when I was three, the one that was stillborn? That is one kid gone. Now you’ve lost two!” I stormed out of the house, and ran. Where I am running to, I don’t know.

I took a bus to the boardwalk where I sat and set my chin on my knees that I held closely to me. I don’t let my eyes close for a second even when they start to droop. And that was because I wasn’t alone. They guy from work was there. He sat beside me, our legs dangling off the edge of the wood with his arm around my shoulders.
I learned his name was Patrick Lonson. He is eighteen. He is new and starts going to my school Monday. He told me he came here because he was exploring this place. He saw me and came over. We chatted. I told him everything from my past to now. Then it happened. I felt a click in my stomach. I felt the stab, stab, stab, and clench in my gut, but this time it felt great. We were silent for the rest of the time. I was wiping the tears that hadn’t fallen yet. And when they did, I never tried to stop them. I let them slide down my cheeks and into my mouth, for hours continuing to fall on my knees. We watched the stars and the sunset. We looked past the river, or at least we tried. He didn’t tell me I was normal, and I was okay with that.
I didn’t tell him he didn’t live a strange life like me, and he seemed irritated. We were opposites. He likes the heat, I hate it. He dislikes water, I love it. Here’s the weird thing: he wants to be my friend. One half of me want to be his friend, but the other half is still the girl with the weeping mother and outraged dad. That half of me declines. I’m so confused, but I just let it go for now. I was slipping into another person and hiding the old me so deep I could almost forget her. Almost.
♦☻☺☻☺♦
“Tell me why you just ate my fry. I have like nine left and you just took it like you own my fry, my unhealthy fry. You, you’re evil. I should lock you up for this.” Patrick told me.
We were on Strangle Avenue at Family Feast eating breakfast. We took a bus to his house where I met his mom and he wasn’t kidding when he said he was buying thongs for his grandmother. She kept asking him if he found it yet. “I swear I left it in the bathroom,” she said quite a few times.
“I,” I joke, “am completely innocent. What is so wrong about a girl who is hungry? You should go t jail, trying to starve me.”

“Thanks for letting me sleep on your couch. Your mom is really nice.”

“Sure, sure.” I’m not completely positive that he was being sarcastic about his mom being nice or if he was serious when I said thanks.

“So…” This was officially an awkward moment.

“So…”

“I should probably go apologize to my mom…”I said.

“Do you want me to come with you, so, you know…”

“Yeah, that would be…grr-eat.”
♦☻☺☻☺♦

My mother was sitting on the couch. She was watching television. Dad was next to her, snoring heavily. I thought deeply how I was going to be able to tell her sorry, one she didn’t deserve and a sorry I didn’t mean. If I meant it, I probably wouldn’t have to practice it in my head. She turned her head away from the TV and glared.

“Mother,” I said, looking away.

“Hi, baby. We need to-”

“No, I’m not talking. I’m here to say sorry and get my stuff.”

“Oh, yeah? Where are you going to go live?”

“I don’t know. You don’t really care. You’re the one who wants me out. So I’m gone. I don’t mean it, but sorry for yesterday. I only apologize out of politeness that father taught me oh-so well.”

“You can stay with me, Malory,” Patrick said. My mother looked at him as if he was just now noticing him.

“Tell father have a nice life, please when he wakes up. And Mother, you have a good one too. I’ll call you when I am settled at Patrick’s. And you might want to hire a maid to clean up. Bye.” I walked up the steps with Patrick on my heels. I put all my few belongings in a garbage bag. I cleaned the room and left one note.
Mom & Dad
Sorry I have been such an extra burden to your lives. I don’t understand why you didn’t just put me up for adoption or something. You could have had an abortion or even illegally sold me. I don’t know why if you don’t want me. I’m happy with Patrick, and you two should be happy to.
I want you to know that I have been a sad little girl because, Dad, you hit me and kicked me when you were angry. That hurt. You yelled at me and called me names to my face or muttered them to yourself when you thought I couldn’t here you. I could here you. I did here you. You gave me few gifts and wouldn’t let me be comforted. You just let me cry for hours and hours when I was little. Why? Why did you do this to me all of these years? Pretending to love me hurts more than telling me you didn’t. You’ve told me you loved me three times in my life. One was when I was five and I had to go to the hospital when I tripped running away from you. Two was when you thought I was sleeping. And number three was when you and Mom kicked me out.
Mom, you hurt me the most. You told me you loved me all the time. You told me it was going to be okay. And you were right. It’s going to be just fine. But what isn’t fine is that you lied. You and Daddy lied to me, over and over again. I had to work restless days cleaning this mad house. I tried to impress you and Dad so hard, and every time I think I did well, there was always something wrong. I always screw up. I’m not like other girls. When I was ten and eleven, going to another friend’s house would have been nice if you would have let me. But you didn’t. I had a bad childhood, but I refuse to let my adulthood be wasted. After so many years-seventeen-you let me go. You should have done that in the beginning. But you didn’t, so I let go. And forgetting you is exactly my intentions.
You don’t worry about it anymore; I’m gone like you’ve wanted all along. Bye!
-Malory

“What do you want to do now?” I asked Patrick.

“We can go to the park or…” He tapped his finger on his chin. “Aha! We are now going to Water Works.”

“What’s that?” I asked. I have never heard of Water Works.

“You’ve never been to Water Works?”-I shook my head no-“Goodness, we have a lot of exploring to do.”

We headed to his house only to ride in his black car which was kind of scary because it was really fast and he was speeding. I had hit him quite a few times until he agreed to slow down a smidge, and that smidge was not enough. I was petrified.

“Patrick?”

“Hmm?”

“Would you please, please, please-?”

“Slow down? I might possibly.”

“No,” I explained, “I was asking if you would please tell me about Water Works. I’m dying to know what it is.”

“Nah, you have to see for yourself. We’ll be there in about fifteen more minutes.”

I sat back in the seat and closed my eyes for s second longer than I would have if I’d have blinked. I looked out the tinted window and saw a blurred sun smiling at me. “Patrick?”

“Yes?”

“How is Christmas for you?” I asked.

“What do you mean? It’s June and school’s almost over. Christmas is months from now.”

“Yeah, I know, but I just want to figure you out. I mean, you are so quiet and mysterious around other people. I don’t understand. I just-never mind.”

It was quiet for the rest of the ride and I just closed my eyes for about ten more minutes trying hard not to reply what happened at my former parent’s house. I tried not to reply the former past of mine that I haven’t quite forgotten yet. I tried not to think and just concentrate on visiting Water Works-whatever it was- and enjoy my time with Patrick, but I was having no luck on that. In fact, my mind had intentions to not just relive that part, but it wanted to make it vivid and clear. And unfortunately fate was shrewd and wanted my to be continuously tortured for ten minutes. I-

“We’re here,” said Patrick, interrupting my thoughts.

“Thanks,” I said aloud.

“For what?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Are you okay? You look a little pale. Maybe we should go back and do something-”

“No, I’m fine. I just need water.”

Patrick walked to the trunk and pulled out two water bottles and threw one to me. I missed it and it rolled down the parking lot. I chased it along with Patrick, but it kept on rolling down the street.

“Shoot, I’m sorry, Patrick. My catching skills aren’t that great.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s actually kind of funny. We were just running around seeking the opportunity to abstain the water bottle from being hit by a car.” And we started to giggle and jump into laughter.

“Forget the water bottle. Let’s go,” I said after I finished my hysteria of mad laughter and enjoyment.


We ambled over to the entrance and I realized something. “Patrick, I didn’t bring my bathing suit. It’s still in one of the garbage bags in your trunk.”

“Ahem!” the lady at the ticket section thingy interjected.

For one second, a flicker of humor passed in his eyes. I couldn’t help but get angry at his enjoyment of the ‘oh, so horrible embarrassment’ that, unfortunately belonged to me. “What’s so funny, Patrick?”

“Who’s laughing?” He made a small show of cupping his hands around his eyes like he had a pair of binoculars and looked around.

“Patrick!”

“Okay, okay. Let’s go get your bathing suit.”

We raced each other to the car again and opened the truck. I looked down and I was so surprised to see-

“The water bottle! Dude, Patrick, dude, Patrick, Patrick, Patrick, Patrick, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, friend, buddy, dude, Patrick!”

“What, what, what?!”

“Look,” I said and pointed at the plastic bottle.

“Hey, it’s our good old friend, what’s-it-called-again?!”

“A water bottle?”

“Ohhh, yea, right, duh. How come I hadn’t I thought of that first?”

“’Cause you’re a boy you called it something that doesn’t even make sense.”

“Do we have a sexist here?”

“Depends, do you mean-” I stopped when I realized he was slowly leaning towards me. I was so shocked I jumped away from him. I didn’t know what to do. I’ve never even had a real boyfriend. I could tell from the look on his face that he was hurt that I’d rejected him. “I’m sorry, I just…”

“Just ‘what’?”

“Well, we were never really anything. We are just friends. And you just suddenly decide you want to kiss me in the middle of a parking lot in freaking ninety degrees. What did you expect?”

“We weren’t a ‘thing’? So you call us ‘just friends’? Does it look like we are just friends when I had held you like we were a couple? I took you in and let you just sleep on my couch? All I’ve wanted to do was kiss you.”

I had no reply to this. Now that I think about it, we must have looked a lot like a couple, not that I care. “I’m sorry, but…but…I don’t know how to…”

“You don’t know how to what? Love me? Be with me? Is it because of…” he trailed off suddenly.

“Oh, so you put it on my dad? Look, I don’t know you just because you know me!”

He flinched and his eyes turned down a little and he pulled the bags out of the trunk, retrieved the water bottle and got in the car.

“Oh, Patrick. I didn’t mean that, I was mad…Please, just don’t go.” I was too late; he already pulled out and had driven away. I keep hearing myself say ‘please, don’t go.’

My only love left me in the middle of a place I have never been with three bags filled with belongings. I walked for two hours trying to find a way back home-no, I thought, I have no home. All I have is the street and some benches, and I didn’t reach that yet, I was still on the highway. And I was lonely and scared, and having memories of my past that have struck me into a phase of wistfulness for periods of time.

When I was six, my daddy loved me. “Daddy!” I would scream at the top of my lungs. “You came to pick me up from school.”

“Of course I came to get you! How was school?” He’d ask as he helped me into the front seat of his pickup truck.

“Daddy, I had fun in school. We got to do art today! It was so cool because we made butterfly puppets and lady bug puppets! And Ms. Andrea let us play fun games!”
“Wow, Malory, that’s great! How do you feel about ice cream today-chocolate, your favorite!”
“Oh, Daddy, that sounds fantastic!”

“Only under one condition, Mal, did you do well in school?”
Enough! I couldn’t take anymore of those memories. All Dad wanted when I was young was for me to succeed. He bribed me to do well and now he doesn’t even do that?
I knew it wasn’t good to hitchhike, but it’s the best I could do for now. With my thumb out in front of me, I pray I get picked up by a safe human who is not a pervert or a forty year old lonely murderer who lives in the middle of the country driving by to take girls in like me with nowhere to go.
“Hey! Hey!” I screamed at a passing car and to my surprise, it stopped.
“Need a ride somewhere?” an older woman asked, rolling her window down.
“Yes, actually, I do.”
“Where are you headed?”
“I don’t know. It’s been a long day.”
“Get in and we can talk about it,” the lady said.
“So, what’s your name?” she asked as she shoved some McDonald’s bags off the passenger seat. It smelled.
“Amy, my name’s Amy.”
“I’m Katrina. How old are you, Amy?” She looked at my with a determined look on her face. Her stare made me want to wilt, but I held fast.
“I’m nineteen years old. I got kicked out of my boyfriend’s house and I don’t know where to go. I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“What about your parents, Amy?” She looked at me again as she pulled off of the curb and headed back onto the highway.
“They…they…” I bit my lip. I needed to find a good lie. I thought about saying they died in a car accident, but it was too unrealistic.
“Amy? You were saying…?”
“Huh? You say something, Katrina?”
“Your parents are available because…?”

“They moved to Canada!” I said quickly, letting the words just blurt out of my mouth.

“Oh, do you want to move in with me?”

“You’d take me in, a stranger, just like that?” But I never got the answer because right then we pulled up to Minnie’s Diner.
♦☻☺☻☺♦

I stared down at the hot chocolate Katrina had bought for me. Minnie’s was the kind of diner where there are no fancy waiters and manners. It was old, run by a rotund elder, and the walls were stained yellow from all the smoke over the years. It was the kind of place where any city girl would die in. It was the red neck kind of place. Strangely, I felt quite comfortable there. It was homey.

“So, your parents fled to Canada in hope of weather changes?”

“Yes, ma’am, then I decided to surprise his parents by making them dinner, something they don’t often get. They don’t have time. He got angry and dropped me off in the middle of the street.” I looked away. Telling a lie to a kind woman’s face was just too not right. After all, she is letting me stay in her guest house for a few months.

The look on her face told me she didn’t believe one word. “Why did her get mad?”

“Well, I-” I stopped talking, took a deep breath and said, “My name’s not Amy, it is Malory and here’s what really happened...”
♦☻☺☻☺♦

Before I knew what I was doing, I was at his door knocking and wishing Katrina hadn’t talked me into setting things straight with Patrick. After a few seconds, I figured no one was home, well actually, I was hoping no one was home. I turned to walk around the corner to where Kat’s car was parked, secretly hidden when the door swung open and appeared his grandmother, once again muttering about those darn thongs. “He’s up stairs in his room.” Our room, I thought. It would have been our room if I’d kissed him.

Knock. Knock. “Patrick?”

He glanced up at me, looking angry and relieved all in one. Breathing irregularly, I entered his room.

“You didn’t call.” He continued to read his book. It was one of our favorites, a fact we learned about each other the night we fell in…by the boardwalk.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been worried about you, Mal. I’ve been wondering ‘Has she been kidnapped? Killed? Where is she?’ Do you even know what I’ve been doing these past couple days?”

“You left me!” I snapped. Calming down, I added, “I was hitch hiking and a lady, Katrina, took me in that night. She gave me a home. She was there for me. You weren’t. You abandoned me because I didn’t kiss you!” I was fired up again. At the shock of my words, I put my hand over to my mouth.

“Is this really what it’s about,” he asked, “because I think it is about you not trusting me because of your screwed up father changed things for you. So when I came into your life, offering something big, important, love, you pushed me away…because you don’t trust me.”

Tears were stinging in my eyes, and I was shaking. My face was heating up. He thinks I don’t trust him. He thinks I’m too concealed to trust him. But what hurt most of all is that he brought my father into this, the man who ruined me.

“Patrick…”I mumbled as I started to turn. “I love you.”

Before I knew what was happening, I found someone’s lips, soft, warm, and loving.

Patrick’s lips.

I was curled up in his lap telling him about what’s happened since the day of the water park. He was twirling a lock of my short hair, a pink part, in his fingers.

“…and when I came in, I saw you were reading our favorite book. When your grandmother answered the door, she said ‘He’s in his room’, and do you know what I thought?”

“What?”

“She means our room. Now I don’t know what to do. Katrina is nice. I love you. And I don’t know where to go.”

“I do. Here,” he tossed a red bandana at me. “Cover your eyes.”

Next thing I know, I was in front seat, smiling goofy, while Patrick drove. I wasn’t sure where he was driving to, but something, I didn’t know what, felt familiar.

“Katrina, you told her where we are going, didn’t you?” I asked Patrick.

“Yes. She said she’ll be at her place where you will be getting some of the belongings from today.”

“What?”

But we had arrived. I took off my blindfold and blinked. It was the mad house, a place full of memories, some good, but most are bad.

Patrick half-dragged and half-pushed me into what was once my home. He knocked on the door for me and I got super nervous.

Mom answered the door and got all teary-eyed when she saw me. She started shaking her head back and forth like I was the long forgotten past returning, asking for forgiveness and to return. Oh, wait, I was.

“No, no, no…” she started to murmur. “No, no, no…”

Great. I’d done it again, I thought just as my father came to the door to see what all the fuss was about.

He hugged me and Mom. Dad actually hugged me! For what seemed like hours Mom, Father, and I hugged while Patrick stood confused on what to do until I finally told him I’d call him tomorrow.

It turned out that I never got the chance to call him the next day. And that’s when I heard it. He was in an accident. A car accident. It also turns out that my father did love me, he just couldn’t stand the wrath he got from his own father when he was my age. It was an emotional thing. And my mom. My mom did love me. She kicked me out for what ever reason. She wouldn’t tell me. But we had a deep discussion working things out. Sort of. We are going through therapy and Katrina is brought my stuff later after I visited Patrick.

He had one call, and Patrick chose to call me.