"Please listen to me, Linda. You have to stay. She's our kid, not just mine."
"Not kid, Alex. She's our mistake. One we could have not made if I didn't listen to you."
"She's not a mistake, she just wasn't planned."
"Call her whatever you want. At least you know she's the reason you'll never see me again."
"No, no, babe wait. Please. Just try to see it this way, please. She's the fruit the love, baby. She's our little gift. Our beautiful little gift."
"Maybe she's your little gift but she's not mine. Do you know what she is to me, Alex? Do you? She's what happens when your boyfriend doesn't wear a fucking condom! It's been eight years, Alex. Eight years. I would be done with college by now and my parents would still be talking to me…but you wanted to keep your damn baby and ruin my life. So, guess what Alex. I'm done and I'm leaving."
"Wait, hold on, hold on. If you can't stay for her sake, stay for mine. Please."
"Fuck you."
She opens the door of the room that used to be Alex and hers and then there she is with her bags, right in front of me. She's surprised and not at all happy to see what's meant to be every mother's pride and joy, her own child. She looks into my eyes with all the resentment and disgust she had collected right from the moment she bore me. I feel every amount of those emotions, raw and tense, for the first time for what they really are. The same emotions she had done my best to ignore for eight years. Linda, my mum, shows me that she has had enough and is more than ready to move on, remove me from her life and forget that I ever happened.
She tells me to get out of her way and pushes me to the side. I follow her to the door and don't once look away from her as she walks towards the exit of our crappy apartment, not until I feel dad's hand on my shoulder. I look up at his teary red eyes as he watches Linda walk out the door. The loud sound of her shutting the door behind her gives me shivers. The next sound heard was that of dad's shaky breathing, trying to hold himself back from crying. It wasn't the first time I had seen her leave by herself but it was clear that it was the last. But I don't want to believe it.
"Daddy, is mummy coming back?" I ask.
He swipes the tears that had managed to escape of his face and looks at me with sad eyes, trying his best to smile. He kneeled down to my level and said with the little strength in him, "I don't think so, bud."
***
I wake up to a dream of my most dreaded memory. I'm a little shaky, breathing heavily, my head is throbbing and the sun rays peeping through the window aren't helping. I check the time. It's 7:32am. I don't have to wake up for another eighteen minutes. I fall back in bed in frustration, stare at the ceiling for a while and get up. I don't have sleep anymore. I'm out of my room by 8:08.
Dad is in the kitchen, all dressed up for work, plaiting my breakfast.
"Good morning," I greet as I take a seat at the breakfast bar.
"Good morning, bud. You're up early. Did you sleep well?"
"Uh yeah. Just wasn't that tired," I lie. Just like I always do when I'm not fine.
"Need a ride to the hospital? I can wait till you eat up."
"No, it's fine. I prefer to walk," I smirk because I know why he wants to take me, "but I can tell Helen you said hi."
He laughs a little, caught red handed, "Thanks bud. Tell Brooke I said hi too. I'll see you later."
He kisses my forehead and we exchange quick a 'I love you' before he leaves with his briefcase in hand. I finished my breakfast, cleared the sink and head to the hospital.
It's been ten years since my mum left. I'm eighteen now, a high school graduate and currently not in college. By choice and circumstance. I spend my time volunteering at Ciller Hospital. The hospital dad had been admitted to four years ago.
He had been jugging anything with alcohol in ungodly amounts since mum left and got liver damage serious to get himself in a hospital for a month. Ultimately, he was under medication at Ciller hospital for two years, making constant visits, taking counseling, doing checkups and sometimes stopping by just for the occasional hello. His first time there was his ugliest. He spent five months there on several prescriptions. I was basically a resident there, hating the idea of leaving dad's side, not wanting to go to school and neglecting everyone that said otherwise.
That's when Helen showed up. Information about the fourteen-year-old daughter of a damaged liver patient that refused to see daylight for as long as her dad was still admitted spread to her. She loved kids with a passion. Still does.
One day, she found me in one of the halls coiled up in a seat outside an operation room silently. I was waiting for dad who was undergoing an emergency surgery. It would take five hours and two had passed. Helen brought me snack, sat with me, talked to me, provided comfort like a mother would and eventually, I warmed up to her. After that, Helen visited dad and I every day. We got closer and dad's condition got better. We kept seeing each other, having lunches together, inviting each other's homes and I eventually started volunteering at Ciller Hospital and dad and Helen couldn't keep each other out of their minds. Always giving each other looks, sending butterfly kisses and flirting. Like get a fucking room.
I mainly work in the children's ward, Helen's expertise. My job is to make life in the hospital for the child I'm assigned to more bearable. Basically, be their friend. I make myself a little busier with other work like delivering food to patients and cleaning, just the basic stuff.
I don't really learn anything that I would need to know to professionalize in medicine but I'm not sure if I want to be a doctor to begin with. Frankly, I don't know what I want to do with my life. Nothing seems to hold me tight enough to want to go in that direction. I'm not in college because I wasn't accepted in any, three out of five colleges I applied to accepted me, or because dad couldn't afford a nice private one, he has the money, but because I know I'd be wasting my time and dad's money if I were. I wouldn't know what to learn. I'm undecided, unprepared and bothered. I barely keep in touch with anyone from my old high school. None of them has the time. They're too busy living up the life of a first year in college and I'm too busy not being in college. How long will it take for me to decide what I want to be? I don't have an answer to that. Why is it taking so long for me to decide what I want to be? I don't have an answer to that either.