nevertheless~

part 04

My phone l rings from across the hall as I am putting the laundry away and I go there to see, in block letters: CAROL, flashing on it. Oh, dear Lord, help my poor soul.

"Hey, mom", I pick up and try to say in my most sweet voice.

"Where are you girl? Do you just do this, randomly go missing on your mother?"

"Mom, I had work. You can't possibly be mad at me?", I say in a boring monotonous voice. This is routine, I get back from work, after an hour or so, there is a phone call from my dear mother asking me about my day, who I met, what I did, why I didn't eat enough salad and how it's not going to keep my skin shining and glowing, etc., bullshit. It's a good thing my mother lives 2 hours away on the other side of Seattle from me, or she would be paying me daily visits.

"Theresa, is that how you speak to your mother? What did I do to deserve such an awful child like you", she gasps through the phone line, which only makes me want to rip my ears off. It's such a shame, for Carol, isn't it? that she has a daughter like me, who moved out of the house at 20, when her mother wanted her to, who also, killed her dream of being a dancer altogether, for her mother, and yet, it's such an awful thing.

"How's dad?", I ask getting at the point.

"He's good. The doctor says, he can't say much, but dad will be fine soon"

"That's great. So, mom, I'm going to France, for my work trip then", I say hoping she didn't hear the part. Carol Young will die if I ever defy her or do something she doesn't want me to.

"Tessa, we have already spoken on this? You are not going to France. Who will look after dad?"

"Adam is there, right? And besides, you just said, that the doctor told you dad will be fine soon, so why can't I go?"

"Because I don't want you to go"

"WHY DO YOU NOT WANT ME TO GO?", I am screaming into the receiver as with each other words we say my blood boils.

"Because these trips are the sort, that stupid girls like you make mistakes in"

"WHAT MISTAKES?", I say through gritted teeth.

"Get Pregnant, lose their virginities, get high and mistakes that cost them their life, stuff like that"

"Oh, and what will I do in 3 weeks, that I will get pregnant? I don't even have a boyfriend right now. Thanks to you for making me break up with Nash"

"Nash was no good Theresa. He didn't give you anything"

"Oh please, I at least had a friend I could cry to. Just say, that Nash didn't give a fuck about you and that is why you didn't want me to date him, because he wasn't like Zed"

"DON'T YOU DARE SAY ANYTHING TO HIM!", my mother voices.

"BECAUSE ZED IS SUCH A GEMSTONE BOY?"

"Theresa! You are not going to France. I don't see any reason, why you should go?"

"I have a reason; my company needs me there. I want to work and mom, honestly this act is getting too much. Even you know you are being a bitch by being this intrusive in my life. So, stop it. you don't care and you never did"

"So, what If I don't care about you? You are still not allowed to do, what you want."

"Oh mom, I am. And this France trip is going to be the proof of that"

"Okay, fine. But you better not make any mistakes Theresa. I want you back here, the way I am sending you"

"I am not going because you are sending me. I'm going because I want to mom. Adam will take care of dad, and honestly, why can't you let the poor man die? Are you there to take away the remnants of his peace from him?"

"All his life, all you did was say hurtful things to him, torture him each day and night about how poor he was, just because he didn't give you enough and now, you're there for him, suddenly in his last breaths, you're there", I spill the remaining of venom from my side, and I know I will regret the words. I will. I have to show my face in one week in that house and I can already feel the goosebumps stand on my neck, as images of getting hit by Carol pop in my head again and again. Getting shoved in the wall, having bruises all over me, painting me black and purple.

"THERESA!".

"Bye Carol", I hang up before she has anything more left to say. That woman has done enough to make me want to throw myself from a roof once, I won't be that 19-year-old again. I had been on the curb for so long, that finally one bad word from carol, and I had jumped from the roof of her house in Seattle ready to take death more than her cruel words. Suicide felt easier to me than listening to Carol belittle my existence into nothingness.

I throw the phone against the bed and get a grip against the shirt near my heart, this always happens, whenever I feel too anxious, my chest starts paining, it's been happening for a year, it's not a thing to be diagnosed or something. It's just, it happens and there's no explanation for it. When I feel too much pain, when my mind cannot take the nasty thoughts out, my chest starts to hammer.

Tears prick at my eyes as I continue to rub my chest in circles and pat against my heart in thumps of 3, but nothing seems to take the pain away, and finally, I shut my eyes and count backwards, I try to feel for things that I can grab, I try to touch things to distract my nerves, and that is when my chest stops paining. This has become routine too, getting hurt in this mentally torturing way by each word that Carol says for me.

I go to the washroom and splash my face with cold water a few times, to get rid of some nerves and when I see in the mirror, I see a different person. Not the girl, who works 9 to 5 in publishing and is planning a trip to France in 3 weeks, I see the girl...who lost her dreams of dancing. The girl, who used to never be scared of her parents, now is. One that didn't have such panic attacks, but now she has them. Now she's become an adult, right? That's what Carol would say too, 'Theresa, the adult world will do this to you, you won't understand until you grow older than this'.

It's funny, how when we are young, parents don't tell us these things, that when they promise you that they won't hurt you, they are lying straight to you, because they end up hurting us in ways you don't even imagine. They never taught us, that panic attacks would be a thing that we will have to deal with, she never showed me what to do, she just left me on my own. I was always alone and that, today has caused me to have the fewest number of people, because it's hard to trust anyone. The more you tell them your secrets, your insecurities, things that make you happy, or when they know things about you that will affect you, they use them against you, they take those happy things, and break them, they use your insecurities and abuse them. The more you let people in, the more they just try to walk out of your life, the more you will always be scared about them leaving you and then one day they do, without notice, and without explanation and there remains absolutely nothing you can do about it, you can just watch them go and wave to their back as they turn and go.