All I Have

You punch the snooze button on your alarm clock, waking up in your suburban New Brunswick, New Jersey home at 4:30 in the morning. Time for school, a place that's on the other side of the tristate area.

Not to mention, the commute takes forever.

You groan as you slowly crawl out of your bed. In a matter of minutes, you brush your hair, put mascara and place yourself in trendy, fashionable clothing. White crop top, black high waisted jeans, high top black Vans and a grey hoodie from H&M.

As you go downstairs to prepare your breakfast for the road, you see a note from your mother.

Stay with your father in New York City, New York for the rest of the month, do this for him, he hasn't see you all summer.

You zone out into deep thought, thinking about how much you hate your father because of the reason your parents had divorced.

Dad had an affair. The other woman found out he had a wife and a teenage daughter and left him.

Mom found out a few weeks later, the worst Valentine's Day for the both of them. The divorce was finalized on your sixteenth birthday almost three months ago.

You crumble up the note and throw it in the trash before grabbing your Hershel backpack, phone and charger before leaving your house.

On the way to school, you pass by secluded streets that reek the scent of garbage. Yet, you're nose blind, the stink doesn't get to you.

It's only 5:15, the start of your usual long day. You catch the 5:45 Coach bus to Wall Street, the heart of New York City's Financial District.

This is your first time being in contact with the city since the end of June, when school ended for the summer.

Arriving at Wall Street at 7:15, you realize how much you loved being in the city, the plethora of people going in various directions.

At 7:45, you swipe your Student ID to prove your attendance.

Your first day of you junior year of high school went by slowly but tons of things were introduced that made you think about how you see yourself in ten years.

Dad was waiting outside of school on his old motorcycle.

"Good to see you." Dad says.

"Can we just go home?" You say to your father.

Dad hands you you helmet as you take a seat behind him on his motorcycle.

In a half an hour, you're at your father's TriBeCa apartment.

Hours later, your homework was finished and you were binge watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix.

Dad knocks on your bedroom door.

You say, "Come in."

Dad comes into your room with a photo album in his hand. He says, "I need to talk with you."

I pause Orange is the New Black.

Dad sits down on my bed next to me, opens up the photo album to show me the first picture.

"Who's that?" You ask. "Where's mom?"

"This is your mother." Dad says.

"I don't understand." You say as you shut your laptop.

"I was widowed. The woman died in a car accident in London a year after we got married. You were about three months when this happened." Dad says. "The woman you know as you mother, I found her and fell for her, and married her two years after your real mother died."

"So the woman who I think is my mother is actually my adoptive stepmother, she was never my actual mother." You say. "However, the woman in the picture is my adoptive mother."

"Right." Dad says.

"So you originally have custody of me?" You ask.

"Yes." Your father says as he hands you a document.

As of April 7th, 2001, the New York State Court declares your father as the sole guardian of you.

You check the date on your phone. Today's September 7th, 2014. You legally got back into your father's custody two months before your fourth birthday.

"What happened after mom died?" You ask your father.

"Mom's family disowned her after being pregnant with you." Dad said. "My parents on the other hand, wanted me to get an education so they took you to an adoption agency."

"What?!" You screech. "That's crazy, they basically never trusted you enough to take care of me and get an education at the same time."

"So I went away to search for you after that happened." Dad says. "They put you in four of their other places nationwide for two years before brining you back to the place my parents dropped you off at."

"When did you find me?" You ask your father.

"Shortly after I graduated college." Your father says.

You get into deep thought.

He almost sacrificed his future for me.

"When I found you, you were already three years old, getting real close to four, walking, talking, potty trained." Dad says.

You go back to the memory when you were just before four years old.

"I remember that." You say. "I remembered how you picked me up and threw me up in the air and my sweet little laugh back then."

"You do?" Your father asks. "You know that you look just exactly like your mother from when I first met her?"

"Yeah." You say, answering both questions as you take the photo album to look at the picture of your mother. You push your hair away from your face as you smile at the picture of your young mother. "Thanks for finding me, dad."

"You're all I have." Dad says.