The Key To This
I opened my room door, and all the posters were torn from the wall. My clothes were all over the place, my cassette collection thrown around, a few of them broken to pieces. A few frames were shattered, too, the photos inside them gone. I can't even remember how many times this has happened. This time, she'd found a pack of cigarettes in my wardrobe, and this was her showing her rage.
Then I was sitting across from her, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, spaced out for I'm not sure how long. I saw her face getting red, she kept talking fast while her fingers pointed here and there, showing her disappointment. Then she finally realized I wasn't even there—that I hadn't bothered to listen to her yap. Her blood boiled, and she slapped me across the face a few times.
"That's it. From now on, you don't live here anymore! You're not even my daughter anymore! Get the fuck out of my house, now, and don't ever come back!"
I took my backpack, grabbed a few CDs and my Discman from my room, and walked out. Walked more than 30 km until I reached one of my schoolmates' houses. I asked her if I could stay for a couple of days while I worked something out. She said yes, and her mum helped me get settled in her room. I stayed there for almost a month before I found a part-time job ten minutes from her house, and the owner let me live in the storage room.
—
It was my stepfather who came to bring me back. He sat down across from me.
"We need you to come home. The new semester is about to start."
"I can stay somewhere else."
"But why? Why don't you just come home?"
"So she can throw all my stuff away again?"
"You've been smoking cigarettes."
"I bought them with my own money. I've been making my own money to buy my own things. I don't use yours."
"That's not the point."
"Then what is? She's been beating me since I was a kid. Does she think I'm just gonna sit there and take it until I'm dead? That's not happening. I almost died when she drowned me. I'm not taking chances anymore. I don't have a grandma or grandpa to step in if she does it again."
"Just come home…"
"I don't feel safe with her. Not in that house, not anywhere near her. I never feel safe with her. She hates me, and I don't understand why. I need to understand."
"There are things you'll understand when it's time."
"Right. Until then, I'm making space. Staying as far from her as I can."
—
The pendulum swing sounds faster than it usually does. The AC is blowing too high, and the room feels too chilly. I can barely feel my feet—I'm cold. She wraps me in one of her maroon-red blankets.
"Do you want me to turn off the AC?"
"No, this is okay. Thanks for the blanket."
"You're in withdrawal. I'm going to write this down so you can bring my notes to your psychiatrist. You have a session in two days, correct?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, let me write this down: you need to reduce your alcohol consumption while you're on this medication…"
"I hear you."
"There's no way to numb this. The only way out is through…"
"Tell me about it. I've been doing this—with you, with the psychiatrist—for how long now? Three years? And I'm nowhere near better, let alone understanding why these things keep coming back. I've been paying you to help me. To make me better. Look at me now!"
"Calm down…"
"No, you calm the fuck down! Make me better! I can't sleep without those damn pills, and when I do sleep, the nightmares come back. You don't understand!"
"We can still navigate this together. I need you to calm down now…"
"I just wanna get better…"
I'm sobbing so hard I fall off her sofa. She rushes to hold me, and we're both on the carpet. She holds my trembling body, and I finally rest my head on her lap for the next hour.
—
You were packing your things into your duffel bag, and I stood at the door watching you in silence, tears streaming down my face. I wanted to tell you not to leave me alone, but I didn't know how to ask. I didn't have the guts to ask. I was always afraid of rejection. Especially yours.
"You sure this is what you want, yeah?"
I couldn't answer that, so I just nodded and swallowed my pride.
"Did I do something wrong to you?" You stopped packing, walked over, tried to hold my hands—but I rejected you before you rejected me.
"It's not you, it's me…" I finally found my voice.
"You know that's bullshit, right? We've been great together—look at us." You pointed at our framed pictures on the table, taken at one of your exhibitions. "Look at that, then look at me now…" You reached for my hands and pulled me toward your face. "Look at me. What did I do? Is it because I asked for the key to your apartment?"
"No…"
"If you don't want me to have it, I understand. I can wait for that."
"You don't understand…"
"I don't give a damn about your apartment key…" You let go of my hands and laid a finger on my chest. "I want the key to this. That's what I've been waiting for. That's what I've always wanted from you."
"I can't…"
"Because you don't feel safe with me?"
"No, not that…"
"Then what?"
"What if you crush it?"
"You already crushed mine—by doing this—and I'm still standing here. I still choose you."
"I'll never be enough for you."
"Bullshit. You're already enough—for me, for us. You're the one who keeps deciding not to believe that."
"I can't…"
You took a few steps back, staring at me like I was some bizarre thing you'd just found standing in front of you. You shook your head, took your duffel bag from the bed, walked past me, and never looked back.
—
That little girl is still sitting in the corner of that room, playing by herself. Sometimes with a Barbie doll, sometimes with a set of Lego, sometimes with her own hair.
From time to time, we talk for hours. I listen to her stories, or she listens to me walk down memory lane—about mum, about my grandparents, but mostly about my disappointments, and how years of rage and resentment consumed me.
She says there's nothing I can do about the past; what's done is done. I just have to focus on my future—for me, for both of us. But she can't answer my question:
"How can I forgive and let go of everything they did to me—even from long before I understood the impact it had on me, an impact that's been haunting me for more than twenty years?"
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