when i was left

Some stories are always Start with " once upon a time." Why, She always thought. Why people become the part of past. Why legends are always remembered.ohh that was funny for her.

She was happy because she was no one's property. Property yeah she considered herself a property. No one owned her. She was abondoned. She was terribly happy.

Sophie was only eight when her world fractured in a way she couldn't fully understand at the time. She had always adored her father, a tall, strong man with a booming laugh that filled the house with warmth. But when the yelling started, when her mother cried herself to sleep at night and her father's anger clouded the air, things shifted.

Her parents' divorce came as a sudden jolt—her mother, tired of the emotional strain and the constant arguments, decided she couldn't take it anymore. She packed Sophie's things, leaving behind the house in their small town, and moved to Canada, away from her father, away from everything that once felt like home. Sophie felt like the ground beneath her feet had been yanked away, leaving her floating in a sea of uncertainties.

In Canada, Sophie tried to adjust to the foreign life that her mother had chosen for them. But her mother's grief became a constant shadow that loomed over their small apartment. Sophie's mother had once been vibrant, full of life and laughter, but now she was distant, withdrawn, consumed by her own sadness. It was as though their new life wasn't a fresh start, but an extension of the past, one that Sophie couldn't escape.

Sophie, meanwhile, found it difficult to connect with the new world around her. She didn't speak the language as fluently as the other children in her class, and they often stared at her funny accent. Her school felt alien, her friends seemed so much more confident. In the crowded halls, she couldn't help but feel invisible. She often stayed quiet, avoiding eye contact, retreating into her own mind.

Her father's absence loomed large. She was forced to grow up fast, learning how to hide her tears. When she was alone, in the quiet of her room, the floodgates opened. Why didn't he want me? She cried. Was I the reason they broke up?

As Sophie entered her teenage years, the emotional scars from the divorce deepened. She learned to avoid her pain by hiding it behind a mask of indifference. She became stoic, the girl who smiled on the outside but never let anyone get close enough to see her pain. She had no words for the hole inside of her, the yearning for her father's love, the ache of abandonment that seemed to define her very existence.

At school, Sophie had become a quiet observer, disconnected from the relationships around her. She pushed away people who tried to get close, afraid of letting anyone in, afraid of being abandoned again. Love was something to fear. She didn't believe in its permanence anymore.

Her father's betrayal—his emotional neglect—had taken root deep in her psyche. In every argument she witnessed between other couples, in every interaction that seemed to mirror her parents' breakdown, Sophie braced herself. She became terrified of becoming her mother: weak, passive, drowning in an ocean of sadness.

Her mother, despite the physical distance, continued to talk about her father. "He misses you, you know." But Sophie had stopped believing in that long ago. There were no calls, no letters, no attempts at reconciliation. Sophie realized then that her father was not just absent physically but emotionally. He had abandoned her in ways words couldn't describe. He had been her protector, her guide—yet he was gone without a trace, leaving behind only his silence.

As Sophie reached adulthood, the weight of abandonment began to affect her ability to form meaningful relationships. Her first attempt at love, in her late teens, mirrored the emotional distance she'd learned from her father. She couldn't let herself trust, couldn't allow herself to need someone, because in her mind, needing someone meant opening the door to being left once again.

But as the years passed, Sophie began to question the foundations of her pain. One quiet evening, alone in her apartment, she looked at the photo of her father she had kept hidden in a box for years. He was smiling in the picture, his arm draped around her mother, his eyes full of love. Sophie realized, for the first time, that her father wasn't inherently a bad person. He had been hurt, broken by his own struggles. But that didn't excuse his absence. She had to let go of the idea that his love was conditional on how well he could be the father she needed him to be.

The realization didn't heal her immediately, but it began the slow process of mending the fractures inside her heart. Sophie started to seek therapy, to talk about her feelings in ways she had never allowed herself before. She explored her fear of abandonment, the belief that no one could truly love her, and the deep-seated notion that her worth was tied to how others valued her.

It was a long road, filled with moments of doubt, but Sophie learned to reframe her experiences. She realized that her father's absence didn't define her. His actions were his own, but they didn't have to dictate her future.

Years later, Sophie found herself standing on the shores of a beach in Canada, the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks. She was no longer the silent girl who feared love, who hid behind walls of self-protection. She had learned to embrace her worth, to recognize that the love she had been seeking all along could only be found within herself.

She had her own voice now. She had her own strength.

Her father never came back, but Sophie learned to forgive him in her own way—not because he deserved it, but because she deserved to let go of the burden of resentment. She wasn't abandoned. She was free—free.

And for the first time, Sophie smiled without fear of being left again.