The exhaustion I've been feeling in my real life carries over into my dream, causing me to nearly collapse in the lonely, dark road as I try to catch my breath.
"You seem tired," a voice says behind me and I ignore it, knowing who it is and not caring to answer.
Taehyung moves from behind me to sit down next to me, leaning back on his hands as he stares up at the sky that never has a moon or even stars. It's always been as dark as everything else in this place.
"You know, Jin was right," he says when he realizes I'm not going to answer him. "You should talk to someone."
"Maybe I should talk to you," I say, turning my head only slightly in his direction. "It would just be me talking to myself, but it's better than nothing."
"Contrary to your belief," he counters, "I am not a figment of your imagination. I'm just as real as you are, but that's a story for another time. Let's talk about you."
I purse my lips, wondering to myself if I should press the topic further. How can a person in my dream be real? Maybe I saw him somewhere and his face left an impression, so I created someone with his likeness in my dream to be a friend in this lonely place.
I decide not to question him on what he said. I know there's no way he is anything but part of my dream.
"It was a night just like this. The clouds were so heavy that night that I couldn't even see the stars," I say absentmindedly as I stare upwards. "I had gotten up because I heard my mom and I wanted to see her as she'd been out all day and I missed her."
Taehyung doesn't say anything; he listens silently as I continue.
"It made me really sad when she walked out the front door as soon as I walked into the living room. I was only 10; I didn't understand why she didn't want to ever be around me. I followed her outside to see her closing the trunk of her car. It was packed with her things. I called out to her. When she turned around, she could only stand a few seconds of eye contact before looking away in shame. She got in her car that night and drove away. I ran after her. I screamed for her to come back. I was only 10, but I knew what it meant that she had all her belongings with her. She was leaving my dad. She was leaving me.
"After I couldn't run anymore, I collapsed in the road and stared up at the starless, moonless sky, wondering what I was going to do. I didn't know what to tell my dad. Lucky for me, that woman had left a note telling us why she left, so I was spared the agony of trying to explain something I didn't understand. It was my fault. She said it in the letter that I keep underneath my pillow."
"Like you said, you were 10," Taehyung says after a moment of silence. "You shouldn't have had the responsibility to keep the family together. You shouldn't have felt the way she made you feel. That was on her, not you."
A small, rueful laugh escapes my lips. "If I ever tried to tell myself that it wasn't my fault, my dad would be damn sure to remind me that it is. That woman was the love of his life. When she left, he let himself go and now he's dying because he stopped caring for himself. He married my step mother just so he didn't have to be alone in that house with me. Before he got sick, he would drink himself nearly to death and that was something he admitted to me one night. All of it... all of the abandonment and pain leads back to me."
"You definitely have always deserved better, Violet," Taehyung says quietly, resting his hand on my shoulder as a slight breeze ruffles my dark brown hair.
"I know," I say quietly, choking back a sob. "But if I don't help my dad now, I won't be any better than my mom. I'll be just like her if I abandon him."
"Do you want to leave that house?" he asks and my head drops as I stare at the asphalt beneath me.
"Yes," I whisper, afraid someone might hear me. "I'm working myself to death as my father turns into a shell of a human being, and he doesn't even see. My step mother slaps me as a hobby, blaming me for her husband's illnesses and shortcomings. He's in multiple organ failure at this point, but he refuses hospice care. It's like his mind gave up on living when my mom left, and now his body is shutting down, essentially giving him what he's always wanted."
"What do you think he's always wanted?" Taehyung asks.
A single tear falls from my eye. "To get away from the one he blames for everything going wrong."
"Violet," he says, squeezing my shoulder gently. "Though he blames you, please know it's not your fault. It has never been. You were a child who only wanted your mother's love, and she left you. You didn't force her out. You didn't do anything but love her. Your father is refusing to see it as his vision has become warped, desperate to blame anyone but the person who is actually at fault. You're doing everything you can; you always have. Don't you think you should let yourself have these next few days to put yourself first for once in your life?"
I sigh before looking up at the dark sky again. "I don't know if I even know how."
