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And at home it’s hardly as if I’m alone, either. The house is never silent—but Kit is still going through his evil phase, Tiffin is only interested in his DS and his soccer friends, and Willa is sweet but still just a baby. I play Twister and hide-and-seek with the little ones, help them with their homework, feed them, bathe them, read them goodnight stories, but all the while I have to stay upbeat for them, put on the damn mask, and sometimes I fear it will crack. Only with Maya can I really be myself. We share the burden together and she is always on my side, by my side. I don’t want to need
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“Help,” I find myself gasping. “I don’t understand what’s wrong with me!”
“It—it feels like people are burning me with their stares. Like there’s no air left in my body. I get the stupid shakes, my heart pounds, and the words just—they just disappear. My mind goes completely blank and I can’t even make out the writing on the page. I can’t speak loud enough for people to hear me, and I know that everyone’s just waiting—waiting for me to fall apart so they can laugh.
It’s always nice being fancied. It’s always nice being wanted. Even if it’s by the wrong person.
What is the point of it all? I wonder—this endless cycle.
As the light begins to intensify, so does my misery, and I wonder how it is possible to hurt so much when nothing is wrong.
I fill my lungs with the cold air and then drain them, running my hands gently back and forth over the rough cotton sheets as if anchoring myself to this bed, to this house, to this life—in an attempt to forget my utter solitude.
And the hands of the kitchen clock will continue moving forward, reaching midnight before starting all over again, as though the day that just ended never began.
I was once so strong. I used to be able to get through all the small things, all the details, the treadmill routine, day after day.
At the age of five she has already come to terms with one of life’s harshest lessons: that the world isn’t fair.
He’s lovely. I don’t know why I ever thought he was some arrogant tosser. Just goes to show how flawed one’s perception of others can be.
It’s the only time I’ve ever been grateful for the relentless routine. It keeps me going from one section to the next, and when I start to think too far ahead and feel myself crumble, I manage to reel myself in by telling myself, Just one more section, and then Just one more after that. Get through today—you can fall apart tomorrow. Get through tomorrow, you can fall apart the day after. . . .
Wow! That describesy last teo years . :,(
Having the children taken into care is something I have been trying to guard against since the age of twelve. No sacrifice is too great to keep my family together, yet the long path ahead looks so rocky and steep that I regularly wake up at night fearing I will fall.
we were never brother and sister in the real sense, but always partners, having to bring up a real family as we grew up ourselves? How to explain that Lochan has never felt like a brother but like something far, far closer than that—a soul mate, a best friend, part of the very fiber of my being? How to explain that this situation, the love we feel for each other—everything that to others may seem sick and twisted and disgusting—to us feels completely natural and wonderful and oh—so, so right?
I can’t help hoping she’ll cut off the two adults at either end of the bench and just keep the five children sandwiched in the middle. Because, ultimately, that was the family we became.
In the end we were the ones who loved each other, who struggled and fought to stay together. And it was enough, more than enough.
