UNFULFILLED // Falcon Sequel

9: Ryo

After my uncanny visit at the Kirstein house, I drove home feeling half empty. Perhaps it was learning about car things with Jean, or maybe it was the plethora of family photos hung around their welcoming home that made me feel lonely. Either way, I was happy that Kai had a family like that to fall back on when he needed to.

Maybe I'd be a different person if I had something similar.

Growing up I was plagued with the questions of why my father was absent. Was he dead? Did he just not want to know his own son? My mother always told me that I was better off not knowing him, because he was a coward.

She shrugged off my questions like they were nothing, pretending to be unaffected.

My mother was a hard working woman, building herself from poverty and taking care of me on her own. When I was born, she was still young and only had a part time job at a corner store to fall back on.

I remembered I would sit behind the counter as she slowly deteriorated, serving customers with a smile. Her smile was beautiful, always lighting up every room she walked into. Her long jet black hair caught everybody's attention.

She admitted to me that her falling pregnant was no fault, but more that she was blessed with me.

One night in the fall, I heard her trying to stifle her cries. I was young, so the memory was hazy.

"Come on!" She cried, throwing her phone down onto the bed spread.

I watched quietly from the hall as she paced back and forth, running her hands through her long black mane. A pile of opened white letters sat across the bed with the words 'urgent' written in red.

She sniffed, grabbing the phone again and sitting herself at the end of the bed. Her leg bounced erratically as she dialled a number, praying for the caller to pick up.

She sat with her nail in her mouth, chewing anxiously. When the call went straight to voicemail, a tear fell down her face.

"Fuck.." She whispered, the phone falling out of her palm and onto the ground. The sudden noise gave me a fright, causing me to gasp in the dark.

Her watery eyes spotted me in the hallway, her face dropping even more.

"Hey.. baby.. c'mere." She whispered, trying to hurriedly wipe her tears away.

I nervously swallowed and approached, her arms engulfing me in a tight hug.

That was the last time I ever saw her cry before she landed her new job at a high end firm. She became a powerful woman and gave me everything I needed and more.

I assumed that she was making an attempt at contacting my father that night after receiving so many bills at once, only to be let down once again.

I was a fairly quiet kid, never really truly knowing how to communicate with others. I didn't have a father to teach me how to throw or kick a ball. So when kids played, I sat on the sidelines and watched, drawing lines in the dirt.

As the years passed, I paid zero attention in class, a result of always feeling like a burden. No matter how much mother sugar coated it, I saw past her lies. She masked her regret with her typical, beaming smile.

Feeling like a burden converted into isolation. I would come home from school and fall asleep in my room, hardly ever showing my face for dinner.

It was when mom realised my cheeks had sunken that she took me to see a doctor.

"Although its uncommon in children of this age, some research suggests that parental patterns of irritability and withdrawal can lead to early onset depression." The doctor spoke, clasping his hands together.