Teardrops

4

"Are you going to Bethany's house tonight?" my mother says, not looking up from her computer screen.

"Yeah, I guess," I say.

"Are you staying for the night," she says as she lifts her eyes to meet mine, pushing her glasses farther up the bridge of her nose.

"It's up to you," I mumble

"Stay the night, if that's what you want," she says her eyes darting for a moment to the family picture on the wall, quickly returning to her computer screen.

"Oh, okay," I whisper, pausing for a moment, to stare at the back of her head, hoping for an indication that she wants me to stay. Her bent head reveals nothing. I grab my bag and head up the stairs.

Sitting on my bed my eyes gaze at the cracked frame cradling a picture of my father and I. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the calendar. A red circle marks today's date, forcing the memories from five years ago to rise. The memories make me restless and I go for a walk. The sky, familiar with my mood, becomes cloudy and grey.

As I walk, I remember that day. Every year we had a father daughter outing. All year, every year I looked forward to it. It had started off perfectly. My father and I went to the movies and afterward he took me to the mall to window shop. We always stopped for dinner at my favorite restaurant. My dad called it the perfect end to a perfect day. That time it was different, a perfect day, marred by a tragic end. My vision filled by a blinding yellow light and my ears deafened by the screeching of brakes, the crunching of metal on metal, then, only numbness.

Unconsciously, I had walked all the way to the cemetery. Staring down at his grave, tears well up in my eyes and fall onto the grass above where his heart would be. Sinking down to my knees, I cry helplessly into my hands.

"Daddy. Come back. I miss you," I whimper, "I've disappointed you. I've failed you. I'm not the strong girl you raised anymore. Help me."

Just like the first week without him, the sky feels my pain and cries with me. The water from my eyes falls, mixing with the water from the sky to form a puddle. Looking down, I see the distorted image of what my father called beautiful, but I only see as a monster. He would have seen the sparkle in my eyes; I see the muddy ugliness of them. The button nose he used to kiss appears to me as a crooked bump over lopsided lips. My hands knot in the ratty, tangled hair he would have seen as gorgeous. Screeching in pain, I am sucked into my own little world. All I can see are two images, what my father had seen, a beautiful person, inside and out, and what my vision tells me I have become, a monster. The words of my tormenters have taken root in my mind. These ghosts remind me that only the monster is truly me,. I am trapped in the void of my mind and these ghosts are my constant companions.