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𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟓
In that hospital, surrounded by the sterile white that somehow never really offers warmth, I, Missy Shepherd, stood paralyzed by a flood of emotions.
It was as if gravity had suddenly left me and I was floating, directionless, through my own existence.
The moment I looked into my father's face, a face I had seen in so many dreams and nightmares, the lines of reality blurred.
This was not the reunion I had imagined.
He was laughing. He was laughing with this woman I didn't know, with an ease I didn't recognize.
And then, as our eyes met, I felt it: the recognition. The shock. The regret.
Sometimes a single look says more than a thousand words ever could.
I shook my head, still slightly in disbelief, and looked straight into my mother's face, seeing her struggle to find the right words that had eluded her at that moment.
"You backstabbing little viper," I spat, my voice filled with contempt and bitter anger.
Without another word, I turned on my heel, my steps pounding across the hospital lobby. With every foot I covered, I felt the urge to go faster, faster, until I was running.
I stormed out of the hospital, raced across the empty parking lot, crossed countless crosswalks without looking left or right, just on and on, straight into the strange city that was so different and so far from home.
I ran as if to escape the storm inside me, running from the truth that life goes on, whether you participate in it or not.
But it was a race without a finish, because no matter how fast I ran, I couldn't escape the realization that some things can't be undone.
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