Against All Odds

[1] one

I remember every detail about the day he left. The sky was grey. My hands were shaky, and his were steady, but his eyes looked dull. It was the first time I had ever experienced heartbreak, and let me tell you: I was not, in any way, shape or form, prepared for the feeling that came along with it. It was the worst emotional pain I have been through in my life, by far. I wouldn't wish the pain I felt on my worst enemy. Truly. Not a person in the world deserves that pain. It feels like you will never be okay again. I was young and naive which made my pain a lot worse. I was foolish enough to think he would come back to us one day.

Even now, eleven years later, I still vividly remember how bad it hurt. Because it really, really hurt. It hurt so much I went to sleep all day and when I woke up, I did everything I could to sleep again, because I just couldn't bear being awake and thinking about it.

Every evening, after school, I would sit on the ledge of the window - with my eyes glued to the pathway, hoping to see his feet walk down the pebbled tiles once more. I hoped he would knock on the door and throw his arms open wide, waiting for me to jump inside of them. He would hug me tight. Real tight. And for the first time since he left, I would feel whole again.

That wasn't even the worst part of it all for me. The worst, by far, was the pain I felt on behalf of my mother. Her sleep was scarce and scattered. I could hear her muffled cries from her bedroom. Every. Single. Night. She was fragile and broken after the man who swore he'd love us unconditionally, and forever, walked out without so much as a goodbye.

I was fatherless. She: husbandless.

I was only eight at the time but those eleven years have truly shaped me into the person I am today and the broken and emptiness I once felt has now been replaced with hate and bitterness towards my father.

My mother did everything she could for us - even if that meant working two jobs, seven days a week. And even though we were barely surviving, living paycheck-to-paycheck, we made it work.

Things were great - for a while. And then April of last year my world went spiraling again. The woman who cared for me, loved me and took care of me her entire life - always putting herself second (in contrary to my father) was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident.

My mother's car collided with another, she spun right off the road and ploughed straight into a wooden oak tree. And for the first time since my father left, I felt my heart shatter into pieces. Tiny tiny pieces. I was broken.

I felt a lot of guilt over her death. A lot. When you're eighteen, you're still naive and, you still have the supposition that you're always to blame for things that go wrong, because you 'did something to cause it'. I couldn't articulate that at the time, but I felt like I was the person to blame: was it because I spent a minute too long in the coffee shop queue? I mean, if I would've rushed out of there just a little quicker, maybe we wouldn't have been on the road the same time as that drunken maniac who threw us off of it. Maybe my mother would still be alive. Maybe - just maybe - I could've saved her life. I spent a lot of time being angry at myself because I was so convinced of this. But then I came to the realisation that I can't continue blaming myself for things in the past. Maybe I could've been a little quicker - but I wasn't, and I can't change that.

I had many of my friends try to comfort me, but then you'd get that odd, awkward friend who doesn't know how to comfort anyone and would try to console you with 'that's life'. Well, Indeed. Indeed it is. Life is full of vicissitudes and caprice. One day, you could be here and gone the next - but she was just forty-one years old. She had so much of her life left to live. It's unfair that she had that taken away from her because I spent too long in that damn coffee shop queue, and it's unfair that that vulgar man was drinking and driving despite the huge campaigns that warn you about the effects, and it's unfair that it was her that had to die and not me.

In fact, I was named the miracle child. Both my mother and that despicable man lost their lives. But me? I got out without even a scratch. The police nor the doctors could explain it. They were astounded by it - "never seen a case like it", I recall them saying.

I knew losing someone, a parent or not, was hard. But it's almost overwhelming with the sudden outpour of love and affection from people you haven't seen in years. For a brief time, you allow it: you accept their 'I was just talking about visiting your mother the other week' excuses so they don't feel as bad about vaguely acknowledging her existence. But then it gets tiring - exhausting even. And you shut yourself away: at least, that's what I did.

I dropped out of university, even though I was just one month away from taking my final exams. The pressure was too much. The people were too much.

That's the thing about kindergarten and high school, and college, and university- people talk. Everyone knew about the loss of my mother and their sympathetic smiles wound me up. I didn't care about their sympathy, I just wanted to be looked at like I was normal again. Apparently though, that was too much to ask.

Even my teachers knew about it, and they would always excuse everything I did on my grief. Low score on a test? It's okay, you're grieving. Forgot to study? It's okay, you're grieving. Didn't do the assignment? It's okay, you're grieving.

Of course, to anyone, that seems like a perfect situation - until it's your situation and you get sick of everything being put down to grief. You're sick of everyone feeling sorry for you. You're sick of people you don't even know asking "how are you holding up?". You're sick of people.

This year, however, I want it to be different. I don't want anyone to know about me or my past. I don't want them to look in my direction and think, "oh, that's that girl who lost her mum and had her dad walk out on her". I just want to be a normal nineteen year old girl, trying her best to get along with life.

There will be obstacles, it's inevitable, but I want to make my mum as proud as she can be. I want her to look down at me and I want to make her smile. I want her to love me unconditionally, in the way my father never did. I want her to be able to watch me from above and know that even if I do mess up sometimes, I'm doing my best at living my life to the fullest. Because after all, that is what she would've wanted: she would've wanted me to be happy.

—
a/n: hey guys, short chapter just so you can get a taste of the story:) this was just a bit of background about her life and the stories going to start in the present in the next chapters!
new chapters will be uploaded every wednesday and sunday!