Forevermore {h.s}

32.

"My father" those two words kept repeating in my mind, it was like endless torture and cruelty.

What is a picture of my father doing in Harry's house? I couldn't believe my own eyes. 

My eyes slowly scanned the photo over and over again, trying to catch every detail and figure out who the other people were. My heart went to leap out of my chest and onto the floor, I put both hands in my hair behind my ears and blinked a few times because memories of my dad were starting to flash in my eyes and I wanted to chase them away.

Realizing that I was still in Harry's house and he might wake up, I got up off the ground. I put the photos back but took the photo of my dad. I tiptoed out the door and swiftly made my way to my house, locking the door.

I sat down on the couch with an exhalation. I scrolled through the photo a few more times on my phone, trying to figure out the answers. But it was, as always, impossible. My eyes began to sting as I remembered the day my father died. I never would have even considered that such a good and generous man like my father would die at such a young age.

Every time my mother's friends were on a visit, they could not stop ranting about my father and felt sorry for me as a 14-year-old girl who lost her fatherly role model. I didn't feel like listening to the moronic bullshit because it didn't help my dad from the grave. 

Every day I felt more and more like getting out of the house and moving in with grandma Joelle even though my mom was a big manipulator and thought I had forgotten grandma. My mother had no emotion, even at my father's funeral but I've already mentioned that. His death changed her for sure and she became a heartless bitch.

Just the fact that she didn't notice her daughter was gone from New York proves it.

I always thought my mother would find a boyfriend after father's death, but she didn't. She's denied marriage, love and relationships since he passed. Well, what could a teenage me do? Nothing.

Focusing on school and being more than good and have straight A's was my destiny, but luckily I wised up and after trying college, I left and became the book writer I always wanted to be. I wouldn't say my mother is proud of me because she never said or showed it. How could she when she hates feelings? She always told me that with my body and face, I could have been a model. That was not what I wanted and she blames me for not choosing modelling to this day.

The only moment of pride I felt was when I found a boyfriend, Michael. 

Michael and I met, as I was saying, at the publishing house. He was very nice, polite and intelligent. He had one flaw. He was boring. I'm not saying I am not boring as well but he was another level.

When I introduced him to my mother, she already had our wedding planned in her eyes. He was so perfect, had his life together and most important for my mother, so rich. Disgustingly rich. That was something I didn't know when I started dating him.

I didn't want to get married, marriage and wedding to me were just papers and a lifetime commitment that made no sense. When you love someone, I'm sure you don't need some stupid paper and a white expensive dress. 

Well, now about love. I don't know if I've ever loved anyone. Maybe I have and maybe I haven't. I still haven't figured out what it feels like to fall in love and actually realize it.

I hardly had any time for love and I didn't feel good about romantic movies on TV. Because the characters in it had perfect lives and no problems, which I found unrealistic. I'd say Michael and I were like a couple from a romance movie, except I was in over my head with all those problems. When we broke up, it was the end of the world for my mother. I got the feeling she was going through more than I was, and she was trying her hardest to get us back together.

Blind dates, inviting me and Michael to dinners, or buying gifts. My mother tried all that just to get us together. I told her many times that I wasn't going to get together with him and to accept the fact that it just didn't work out. 

For me, breaking up with Michael wasn't that horrible and depressing. I haven't had a relationship since. I've been on a couple of dates, but those didn't work out either, and I really started to feel like I was becoming my mother. I was afraid I'd be emotionless like her, but then I remembered my dad used to tell me that I will do big things for the world and that he hoped I'd find my true, perfect love in life.

But what if that love isn't true or perfect?

What if it's the exact opposite? Totally wrong and entirely imperfect love. Not the one everyone wants, but the one I desire.

I wish I could explain this to Michael while we were dating, that I really don't need $20,000 purses, dresses or shoes. In fact, after we broke up, I sold them all and had things in my closet that I paid for myself. I don't need some stupid roses that wilt when I blink, or fancy dinners, vacations, and credit cards.

Lately, I've been thinking about who I want to love and how I want to love and why I want to love the way I want to love. I know, too complicated. But.

When I break it all down, it essentially comes out like this when I whittle it into a single breath.

Before I die, I want to be somebody's favourite hiding place, the place they can put everything they know they need to survive, every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer and be certain I will keep it safe.

I want to have someone who will sit with me in complete silence and I won't feel uncomfortable. And I hope I get to do that someday.

I realized my heart is just like the flowers, they wilt if I don't take care of them.

---

After so much thinking, I finally got up, made myself an iced coffee, and went upstairs to my bedroom. I sat down on the bed, picked up my laptop and started typing. I had to stop a couple of times and take a sip of my coffee but I couldn't sleep, I couldn't do it.

It was 3 am and I  couldn't sleep. I opened my window and felt the cold, crisp air on my skin, I took a deep breath and looked at the dark blue sky that sat above my head and marvelled at how beautiful it is. 

Trying to find the moon and the stars that guarded the night sky. I whispered all my uncertainties out into the universe, I told myself it was okay if I let stars carry the weight of my worries for a while.

When it was 3 am, I could not sleep, made a cup of coffee, grabbed a pen and paper, and wrote everything I wish I could say in the form of a letter and addressed them to the people I wished I had the courage to tell. When I was done, I seal them in an envelope and kept them in the drawer of my bedside table.

Maybe one day I'll show them the words I wrote but for now, it's out in the world and that's all that matters.  When I started to shiver, I closed the window. When my hands started to cramp, I stopped writing on the paper. When I crawled back in bed and tried to sleep, I felt a little lighter.

I wrote until the first rays of sunlight showed outside and the sky started to brighten up, I decided to go outside. 

 Laptop in my hands, I sat on the porch in my warm sweater and wondered how many more of these sunrises I would experience.