Butterfly

Prologue

       I woke up one day and found myself miserable working at my mom's diner. It is lovingly called Delilah's Diner after her favorite flower. Every day I find myself dreading coming into work to work my usual 8 hours. It's not the people that I work with by any means – I find my many shifts with Kimberly to be rather nice, and we've grown to be close friends over the years – it's more so my parents' absolute refusal to allow me to pursue anything else besides being the future owner of the diner. You would think by how much they want me to take over the diner that it would be named after me, though I suppose Soyeon's Diner doesn't have the same vibrancy to it.

       My parents have never been supportive of my want to go to college. The discussion has caused numerous eruptions of fights that were loud for the sake of being loud and went nowhere. My mother has constantly upheld the idea that I would take over the diner since I was little with the idea that it would become a "family business" of some sorts, but I truly have no interest in fulfilling her desires.

       My father, while not as loud nor as aggressive as my mother, did not hide his distaste towards my wanting to go to school. He would constantly try to talk me into just submitting to what my mother wanted for the sake of making it easier for everyone involved. He's even mentioned several times that he did not have much faith in me being able to make it through school. He told me he'd given me 5 months max before I came crawling back and begging my mom to work at the diner again. I for one have no idea where this idea of his came from as I have always been a rather good student and I refuse to allow that idea of his to come to fruition.

       Today happened to be one of those days where I attempted to bring up my going to college. It ended the way it usually does, in increasing intervals of yelling and begging to simply just listen to my mother and stay working for the diner until I eventually own the whole thing and will hopefully expand on the foundations of their workings. My parents don't exactly believe in formal education nor the formal education system. My mother strongly wants me to stay here in Highland, find a good man, and settle down here. The idea of this alone causes a freezing chill to slither down my spine and my skin to break out into a cold sweat. It's the most appalling thing that has ever come out that mouth of hers.