In the last few years it has become painfully obvious that I only had one chance at ever being happy, leaving. I arose this morning, sore and wore out from sobbing into my pillow until the empty void that is sleep swallowed me whole only to regurgitate me. “Well fuck- I woke up again” my inner monologue groans. I gather what I have left of my will to live and shleck down the stairs. My parents had left for the day and my siblings are all emersed in their own activities. As I make my way to the living room to sulk in the crone of the couch my sister - Angela - says, “Mom said they will be home tonight”. What does that mean? “Tonight” when? Should we plan to make dinner? Should we wait on their return? Better to not overthink it- if she really wants us to make dinner she will let us know. Better to wait and see than guess and make her mad. My mother was a kind woman who just happened to have a bit of a temper and poor emotional regulation. We all go about our days.Llittle to speak of, most of our day spent watching television and existing within each others space. Before long, the sun began to set. Angela and myself frantically clean the entire house, every nook and cranny. Ensure our younger siblings are in their pajamas and eating dinner. We rush them off to bed and short after our parents arrive.

When they walk into the house the air is different. A once light and playful mist has now settled into a stress-filled, anxiety-inducing fog. Mom greets us and heads upstairs. Dad goes into the kitchen to collect some sort of sustenance. Angela and I sit in the living room trying our best to not disturb them whilst also enjoying our time together, just two teenage girls giggling and talking. Dad enters the living room and surveys the room asking what we’re doing up, as if we hadn’t spent the entire day making sure the younger children were taken care of. “Hanging out” Angela replies. “Well don’t be up to late, your mom wants you up early tomorrow. We have errand to run”. I can’t hide my expression. A look comes over my face as if I have been spat at. “What’s your problem?” He asks. “Nothing” I respond. “Clearly something if you have that fucked up look on your face”. I quickly think of something to pin my expression on. “Just the current affairs of America” I drone on speaking of my views on the concepts and the way to fix it and how each of us can do our part, just to be interrupted and told that I’m incorrect for thinking this, I have no life experience to go off of, I am just a child, I don’t need to make every issue my concern. And then as if a switch flipped I realize, I don’t need to do this. I don’t need to cower down and allow him to speak to me like this, I don’t need to pretend I don’t have the powerful beliefs I do, I don’t need to dim my light and power because he says to. “Well that’s what I believe” and this single statement erupts into a massive argument. Screaming and harsh words before I finally walk away and go up stairs to collect my belongings. “What are you doing?” Angela asks. “I have to get out of here. I don’t now I never will. No one cares why I think or how I feel I can’t stay where I’m being suffocated in one way or another.” I say as I choke back tears. Just then my mother comes into the room. She tries to explain to me that emotions are high and that he doesn’t mean the things he says, that it’s been a long day and both of us would benefit from a rest. I am adiment that I need to leave. She reasons with me “sleep on it for tonight and we can talk again in the morning” before switching off th light returning to her room and going to sleep. I sit on my bed in silence sobbing- why is it that any of my thoughts, beliefs, feelings are pushed aside and disregarded. I think back to the past few years since my mom married our now father and I realize that most of these instances stem from his way of thinking and his idea that a child cannot know anything other than being a child. Where he isn’t breaking me down my mother was. The constant criticisms, the invalidation, pretending that you can just choose to be heterosexual, all of these things that I have endured over the years and ignored in attempts of self preservation finally I could leave. The tears stop. It’s been decided, I’m leaving.

The sun is high in the sky and I open my eyes and for once I don’t wake with a sense of dread but as if a weight has been lifted from my chest. I come down stairs and my mother is making breakfast “I made you some breakfast”. “Why didn’t you wake me?” “I thought I would give you some time to rest.” “Oh okay. Thanks. Anyhow Chance will be by soon to start collecting my belongings” and just then she froze- an action I’ve never seen my mother preform. She turned and asks “what?” “Chance, my friend, you’ve met him.” “Yes, and why is he coming by without you asking?” “To gather my things. I slept on it and I have decided that I need to leave.” She walks past me without any words and goes to her bedroom to get ready for the day and then leaves. She says nothing else to me.

Chance helps me pack my things into his small silver sedan. “Are you so excited to be free? I know this has been a long time coming but aren’t you glad?” I think for a second. I’m happy but it still feels like I’m missing something like my escape is almost a betrayal. I look to the front door and see Angela. I can’t. She deserves to be free. She has endured everything that I have we are the same me and her spending countless hours caring for our siblings, tending to drunken adults, cleaning day in and day out, still being made to believe in all of this that we are just children and should not be allowed to think for ourselves. Still being berated and belittled when we are anything less than perfection. I go to Angela, “I’m so sorry I can’t do this.” I sob a and wrap my arms around her. “Please Maria you have to. I’ll be okay. I know that you need to away from here. Look at what this place is doing to you.” I think back of all my attempts at suicide, my failed relationships, friendships ruined by intrusions, the self loathing and pain that sits in my heart thanks to things that my parents forced upon me. And I realize Angela is right. I need to leave or I am as good as dead. I dry my eyes say one final goodbye and head to Chance’s car. “Are you okay?” “No, but I will be.”