Chapter 1

My story started here. 

When my mother died, I've been crying all the time. All I did was mourn, and mourn, blaming myself that whatever happened to her that made her meet death was my fault. 

I couldn’t understand why my heart drenched, a turmoil inside me stirred up to make me feel the suffering more. 

Crying in the dull, forlornness room with things that weren't in their proper places, stygian lights, and curtains that hindered light from the sun. There on the somber side, I would condemn myself for what had happened to her years ago. 

I felt like I was dying, too. I was lost in the glacial, abysmal vastness of the ocean as my floating feet aloft it was excruciatingly with a slow rapid-fire hauled by its tremendous mouth, sending me to its bottomless body and engulfing me to die and to be part of its blue salty water. I’d remain there. 

For it's a metaphor I wanted to escape. It's like I wish I were on a concrete canoe that would never make me drown in the deep ocean that was waiting for my end. As if it was only fated to be my own cage never-ending. 

The other day, I woke up. Staring at the wall, smelling the attar of the rose from the place but in the alternate way. A wilted flower that was blown by the wind while it faded away. Then I would voyage on my mind as I blame myself again. 

I couldn't esteem of anything. It seemed like a void was unclasping me and whispering to my ears. Death, too. They were teasing me, mocking me, killing me, and dragging me to the forest of confusion and misery. 

It became a habit. While my tears, there weren't one of them left like my eyes were tired to make one. 

My Dad would knock three times on my door and he would say, "Sweetheart, aren't you coming out?" and I would mutter, "Leave me alone!" Then I would hear footsteps fading away. 

Right there in the house, it was only me and him, my father. I couldn't blame him for what had happened to my mother, but I somehow knew that he'd remain in the picture. He would evermore be in the picture and not merely me . . . However, did it even matter before? 

I never wished for it. 

When school had begun again, I didn’t do anything instead I frequently prepared myself before I went to our campus: waking up early in the morning, doing my morning rituals, eating breakfast quietly, and hopping in Dad's Subaru car as he would drive all the way to the parking lot of my university. 

It was what occasionally happened as if it was a typical thing to do, even though my Dad and I after the burial of my Mom years ago haven’t had that talk, a talk so casual and so happy that I couldn’t long for. I have to be at ease, at peace, and I didn’t desire to ruin my day by sheer conversing with someone that I loathed for years. 

I drowned in my studies, doing my best to graduate, to enter college. I focused and never befriended anyone. . . Well, there was one that I had before but he moved to a foreign country and lived his life there for a lifetime, and of course, he came back only for me to realize that he was. . . escaping home. I wanted to escape too like him, but could I handle it? 

With my possible expenses. . . With everything. I couldn’t. 

I needed to have an urge, a potent to make me get away from my home. 

I still have to rely on my father. It kind of sucked, but whatever I was thinking remained inside my head. I was locked in my bedroom, crying all the time endlessly, and that's the pill to make me sleep at night only to have nightmares, to have bad dreams. 

Despite that tale of mine, it was never the darkest part. 

When I graduated senior high school, I was the valedictorian of my class, a top-tier student in my batch. Like what happened when I was a ninth-grader student, because that time I had attained the highest honor, ranking first in my class. Everyone looked at me with respect because of that. 

But those years that I spent, those years where I felt like I was punishing myself, those entire years. . . I despised still myself and my father even more. Whenever I think of my mother, I couldn’t accept it. The scar stilled in me, engraved deeply that it touched my darkest side, my darkest fear. 

And still, it was never the darkest part. 

My story was kind of boring but it started there. It was cliché for all I did was to mourn and mourn, and I badly wanted to hurt myself to the pits of the hell inside me, burning my heart alive, torturing my every bone. But that despise was in me, and even if my head whispered to hurt myself, I feared to hurt myself. 

The scar was enough for me to suffer. 

Until now. 

Sitting in front of a mirror, criticizing how I look based on the reflection that I am staring at, feeling weirded out for how strange she looks. My eyes are sore, the wavy black hair of mine is a mess, cheeks, and nose reddish, and this pale skin of mine even paler than before. . . My lips are faded pink. 

What makes me glare is the eyes that I own in which I didn’t deserve, that I want to take off myself. These blue eyes of mine are similar to the attribute of my mother's. They remind me of her and of what I did to her. 

I flinched when I heard a loud thud. 

And when I looked beside me, I saw how the door is cracked open, my father barging inside my room. 

I gazed at him as I can’t remember who he is and what is my memories with him, a blank look it may have been, wanting to push him away as he rushed toward me with that filthy face—a worried look. I hate seeing him as he pitied me most of the time. It makes me want to shout at his face so that he can leave me alone. 

He grabbed my wrist which makes me look at his hand and winced. 

“Let’s go, Avery,” he said, pulling me from my seat and make me stand on my feet. Gripping my hand, plunging me away from my bedroom. 

“Dad, stop.” Two words they are, the only words that I can say. 

It makes me contemplate. It is so sudden. Whatever the reason he got to access and unlock the door of my room seems off, but somehow, I can’t remember that I locked it after eating dinner with him silently earlier. 

I want to ask what on earth is going on and why does he has to do this to me, hence, I can’t. Why do I have to be pulled this way anyway? 

I halted and forcedly took his hand off me. “Explain.” I creased my forehead. “Why?” 

I can’t believe that I'm talking to him! Of all people that I have to speak myself for, why the hell should it be my father? 

I feel a stinging pain inside me, tickling every bit of my soul, wrecking the tranquility that I hunger for. This is chaos, and I must leave. 

We're almost in the staircases, thank goodness that I stopped him in front of the stairs. 

As I look at his face with knitted eyebrows and twitched lips, it seems like he's thinking it's ridiculous of me to utter words, to question him. It makes me go burst and be mad, or punch him on his face, but I have to remain calm as I should be. 

He fixed his stand and said, “We are going to states.” 

“No,” I blatantly replied, shaking my head. 

He's got to be kidding me. He's doing it already. He wants me away like he always has back then. 

I heard it for the second time. 

“We need to get out of this place as soon as possible,” he continued. 

“No,” I said, stern. 

He won’t make me. 

He sighed. “Avery, I know that this place never contributed good health to your condition. You have to grow and live your life.” 

“No.” 

He has to spill the real reason, his evil intent. He has to say them, and I may have forgiven him for that. 

That’s why I heard them. 

That's why I upset my mother and she. . . 

I shook my head. “Come on, Arthur,” I disrespectfully said. “How will I have a good health when you yourself want me like th—” 

He slapped me. 

He freaking did. 

I laughed preposterously. “Oh, wow.” 

I’m done. 

I took a step backward. 

His eyes are pleading, asking for forgiveness, his mouth agape. “Avery, I didn’t mean to—” 

“Enough,” I muttered, voice broken. “Just forget about my existence.” 

“What will you do?” he asked, eyes widened, rushing toward me. 

But before he could even get imminent my direction, I ran toward my room and locked it. 

“Avery, open the freaking door!” he ordered, shouting, but not enough to let me obey him. 

I don't know what's happening anymore. From this moment, all I could think of is hurry. I searched my eyes through my room to look for my bag— where is it? 

I stepped nearer the bed and kneeled, lifted its mattress, and looked beneath it. I found a suitcase and a bag. But I chose the bag because it is convenient so I picked it up and stood up, then I quickly dashed to my closet and disclosed it to get as many dresses and clothes that I can and make sure it fits inside the bag.

When I'm finished, I suddenly have the urge to heave a sigh.

I stared at the door. He never slammed it anymore. It made me crease my forehead. What is he thinking?

I went to my window and removed the windowpane for me to get outside by jumping. It's quite heavy, but it's not a waste of time either. It's already removed, just a bit tightened for it to not fall suddenly. I removed it before whenever I tried to escape to breathe some fresh air. I can't believe that I'm using this passageway to leave home.

I put it somewhere besides the bed, then I leap a foot on the windowsill. Honestly, our house is a two-story one. I'll get hurt if I plunk forward certainly, but I have to try.

I gulped. Is my father already in the living room? Is he hiding somewhere and waiting for me to lure myself out of my bedroom? Does he know I'm liv—

“Avery.”

I looked at the closed door.

He’s behind it.

He's been there all the time.

“Can you give me a chance. . .” His voice is mellow, but it is also fainted, wavering. “Prove myself?” he continued, then he chuckled after. “We're quite a mess, aren't we? You don't even make me explain myself.”

I did. Earlier, I did want you to explain, father. I want to say those words as a reply to him, but I am a mum. I can't be able to speak. I am tongue-tied.

“Avery, I'm sorry—”

“Don’t apologize.” Finally, I have the guts to speak. “Dad, I loathed you. I really do, but that doesn't mean that I don't love you and don't care for you because I do.”

He’s never uttered a single word.

I continued, “Dad, all I ever ask silently is for you to fight. You have the right to fight for me.”

“Avery, you don't understand—”

“Stop.” I closed my eyes for a moment. “Listen, I don't care if you’re sending me to States because you want to bring me to my real family. I care that you've been a coward all the time.”

“Please, Avery, listen—”

“Dad,” I said to stop him again. “Let me think about it.”

He’s quiet, perhaps from what I've said.

“Don’t chase after me. Don’t do anything. Stay there until I leave.” A tear then escaped my eyes. “Let me heal. Let me calm myself.”

“Will you. . .” he paused, “. . . will you come back?”

“I will,” I replied. “So wait for me until then, got it?”

“Okay,” he said, but I still don't trust him.

“I’ll come back as soon as I heal, and do come with you wherever you want me to go.” I leaped my other feet on the windowsill and grabbed the nearest wall to strengthen my poise to not just fall, leaning in, panting. “Please, let me do it.”

“The key of the car is in the garage.”

I smiled bitterly. “Got it.”

Before I knew it, I am crying.

I looked down the bushes from below. I take a deep breath before jumping, closed my eyes as soon as I did. Then seconds later, something is prickling my skin. 

That hurts.

It’s so fast. Maybe because I am too preoccupied, but when I came back to my sense, I am in the garage, looking for the key. I found my father's jacket hanging in a corner so I scanned and searched for it.

I feel a cold metallic object inside so I picked it.

I was right.

It's indeed there.

I opened the car and jerked in my bag. Then I went inside as well and started the engine. 

My story started before I got here.

Hence, my story is barely from what's about to happen.