Interlinked

2 | Starr

They say it doesn't take long for your life to be
flipped upside down.

A second.

And it's all over. I should've known. I should've been a step ahead. If I did , I would've done everything in my power to stop it.

If I walked away. If I never gave in. If I never looked for him. If I behaved. If I never gave in to my feelings and desires. If I listened to the warnings.

Then maybe it wouldn't have ended the way it did?

A mother's love is supposed to keep you warm, hers burned me alive.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Mother yelled.

That was a daily thing. After all in her eyes, I was the problem, no matter what she believed that I caused everything. That is the result of her rage. I knew better than to answer her question. I knew better because I was my mother's daughter. Answering will only fuel her anger more. Yet staying silent will also fuel it. I can't win and I know that. I am my mother's daughter.

"You're fucking worthless"

Silence.

"I wish you was dead. You're not my child."

"Okay Mother," I replied. Be careful not to show any emotion. Be careful to not break down. I had to stand strong. But this angered her. This hurt her. The fact that she thought I didn't care. That her words didn't affect me, but they did. Greatly. They always took a toll on my mental health no matter what I did.

The only times I felt free was when I read. When all my book characters came to life I buried myself in the world of books. Every time I read I went on a new adventure. Whether it was being a manhwa princess, fighting dragons and curses, or turning into something out of the ordinary; inhumane. It made me free. It made me something different because then I didn't have to worry about my miserable life.

But when I couldn't read, I dreamed. I dreamed of him because no matter what I always believed that he would save me. that he was the one. I closed my eyes and soared into the world of fantasy. where I was the solution where love existed where I was the one anyone needed.

"You're going to that school, you're never going to be my kid. I fucking hate you.", she continued.

This was it, she'd finally lost it. She's sending me to someplace far away. Where I didn't exist to her. Where she'd finally be happy. It didn't matter if she didn't love me, all that mattered was that she was finally happy and free just like I longed to be. We'll both be free.

My heart ached for her love, it was all I ever wanted no matter what the price was. All I ever wanted as a child was her heart to have a place for me, it never did. There's no safe place for a mother to vent her growing rage but on her daughter, perhaps it's because she sees herself in me.

I had the privilege to live in a Western society where a woman is free from her traditional roles back in her home country, she didn't have that. She never got the privilege to escape her patriarchal mandates, but I did. Perhaps that was the trigger for her to treat me the way she did. She had to give up her education to get married and settle, to have her children grow up in a better place than she did. That's why no matter how bad she treats me I could never bring myself to hate her. No matter what, even if she hates me and wants me dead, I could never bring myself to "hate" the woman who gave birth to me.

"Get your suitcase we're leaving"

I had been waiting for this day for years, so I was ready. I was already packed. I took nothing but a few cosmetics, hygienic supplies, clothes, and my books. all of them. During that whole ride, I felt nothing but an ache as she went on and on about how much I wasn't hers.