FEEL

21. Hemeisis

Hemeisis ~ the off-putting awareness of how deeply your culture's norms are ingrained in your psyche.

~The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows ~

~°~

How simple my home life would be depended on me. On my actions. All I had to do was not provoke the beast. Follow all of his instructions. Don't question him. Don't answer back. And most importantly, don't open your bratty mouth unless asked a question.

I cooked for him, washed his dishes and then cleaned up after him. He asked me to wash him a shirt, I did exactly that, then hung it up to dry. It was purely by my luck that he had to leave around 8PM before he gave me more chores. I had homework that needed to be done, I couldn't play slave forever.

After my father left, I was cooped up in my room with an abundance of homework and revision to do. With the new topics we're learning in Math and Biology, I have to look back at the base of them that we learnt last year, which was difficult for me seeing as the syllabus in South Africa went entirely differently than here.

I'll have to use the internet. The problem was, I can never find my phone. The tiny gadget fails me once more, with its inability to be there when I needed it.

I picked apart every room in the house, unassembling and reassembling it in search of my cellphone. My mother arrived near to midnight and I was still searching for it, this time, near to tears from frustration.

She walked in, frowning when she saw me push the couch against the wall (I was doing this for the third time) and look under it. “Hello, mntanam. What are you doing?”

I absently reply, “Looking for my phone.”

“Your phone? Your cellphone.”

“Yes, mama, that.” I start to stuff my hands in between the couch cushions, again, for the third time. “Have you seen it?”

I can hear her shuffling on her feet. I glance over at her, frowning at her nervousness. “Well, you don't really use your phone.”

“I do when I'm studying. Google and YouTube, for research. Sometimes I can't understand it the way the textbooks put it.”

“I gave it to your father.”

I internally deflate. “Why?” I'm tired, so tired, that I almost don't even want to hear the answer.

First, I had to deal with Mr Pierce's outburst, then Dre delaying me coming home with his long discussion, and then being my father's personal assistant and now this. I'm too exhausted to react, but I can't deny the fact that I do need my phone. And answers.

My mother says, “I didn't think you use it. It's never with you and everytime I come home, it's sitting on the coffee table. He lost his phone while he was out a few nights ago, so I gave him yours.”

“Without asking me?”

“You weren't using it.”

I sneer, “It's still mine.”

“Watch that attitude,” mama warns. “It may have been yours, but I bought it with my money. It's far more of mine that it is yours.”

My mouth slams shut. Mama keeps looking at me for a passing moment, expecting me to say something. I would have. Except I knew that everything I wanted to say would have made her lose her mind. Would have made her hate me more than she already does. So, I walk away keeping whatever is left of our relationship entact.