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Mature Content/Trigger Warning: Discussions of substance abuse.
(1814 words)
"It's one of the things you can't talk about?"
"Not exactly." He ran his fingers through his hair. "The escapism has always been a problem for me. It's difficult when you're forced to live and breath what hurts you most." He let out a dark chuckle and leaned back onto his palms. "But how can you relate? You're the perfect daughter—maybe you didn't pick the path they wanted, but it's respectable, decent, just like you. What should you have to escape from?"
The reasons for how behaviors, our reactions, are never quite that simple. The cause is always layers deep. "I've been running since I was just a kid—a little after Serah was born. When I learned that life isn't the pretty story read to you at night. It's more like a nightmare you have to pretend is a pleasant dream." I stared blankly at the water before me. "I think it started when I found my mother in a pool of her own blood, screaming for me to help."
"What?"
"My mother almost died giving birth to me. She and my father decided to be content with only me, knowing there was no way she could make it through twice." I trembled at the memory of when my parents found out they were expecting again. "I was eleven when they found out my mother was pregnant with Serah—only a few months before she was screaming for me, and a day before she went into a coma."
Valin cursed under his breath. "I didn't know any of that."
"They don't talk about it. They don't talk about anything." My body ached with the memories, but went numb soon after. "Mother didn't wake up until Serah was seven months old. Serah was so little, so fragile and innocent. Father was never good with babies, so I fed her, I changed her, I woke up in the middle of the night when she wouldn't sleep—all while hoping my mother wouldn't die. Then, when she was healthy enough to come back to us, she acted as if everything I had done for her was a minimum expectation—as if I had no right to my childhood, to my life. I started swimming to avoid them. In the water, it reminded me of my insignificance. I could stop trying to be who they wanted me to be and just... be nothing for a while."
"All that. At eleven?"
I nodded. "I don't even think they make the connection between what happened to her and my decision to practice medicine. It's just another deviation from their plan for me. The plan they had for themselves."
Valin's mouth twisted to hide a frown. "I get that."
The breeze shuffled my hair, flinging water droplets onto my shoulder. I brushed it aside to look over at Valin. "Did you go through something similar?"
"I did," he said, but did not add more.
I knew I was walking the line that would make Valin clam up, but I wanted to know more. "How do you deal with it?" I asked him.
