The Wedding Issue

Chapter Twenty Three - Empire State of Mind

I always thought that pain was a state of mind that I could easily control if I truly believed it didn't control me. Most days, it worked like a charm. But in a day like today, I let it fuel my rage. It wasn't just pain anymore; it was a raw, innocent anger and I let it out in the form of tears. I let the salty liquid moisturize my cheeks all the way down to my chin until it dripped on my uniform.

My mother forgot to pick me up from school again, so I had to reach out to my dad and ask him to pick me up instead. He had to cut a very important meeting short and would "discuss" it with my mother later. She had passed out from all the alcohol she drank that morning.

I wiped away all my tears quickly as I didn't want my dad to see them. He always yelled louder at my mom whenever he saw me cry and she would yell twice as loud back. It did more harm and no good, and so I put on a brave little face despite the palpable pain in my chest.

'Why does mom hate me?', I asked my dad, who was lost in thought staring outside the window

'Why would you say such an absurd thing?', he looked at me curiously.

'Can you actually look me in the eye and tell me that she doesn't think that I'm more of a burden than a daughter?'

He sighed heavily and looked the other way. He never bothered to defend her, because he knew that I was right. My mother's idea of love was damaging and abnormal. Or maybe she didn't show it at all because she has no idea what love is. How was I supposed to justify her actions? I was only twelve years old.

Being a preteen without a reliable mother was something of a nuisance. I had to have "the talk" with my guidance counsellor rather than my mother because my father thought that having that conversation with my mother wasn't going to be healthy for me. My father practically had a heart attack when he heard my deafening screams from the bathroom. I had only just started menstruating and was under the impression that I was bleeding to death. You can only imagine the horrors of that situation.

Not a week goes by and then I had another traumatic incident with my mother; total abandonment. She left me waiting in front of the school gates for two whole hours before the school's janitor took notice of me and helped my contact my father.

'Are you hungry?', he asked instead, abruptly changing the topic.

I shook my head. My appetite abandoned me today. I didn't feel like doing my homework either. In fact, my spirit felt severely broken.

'I know what might cheer you up', he said and asked the driver to head to the Empire State Building.

It seemed dangerously, dizzyingly high from where I was standing. I clutched my father's hand so tight that it sweat from anxiety.

'Are we really going to go all the way up?'

'Only to the 86th floor', he said sarcastically.

Climbing the elevator to the 86th floor took forever and ever and ever. The elevator must've stopped at least a dozen times, with people flowing in and out like a school of fish. Every time the elevator dings my heart skips a beat. That's when I realized just how high the 86th floor was.

'What if we fall?', I asked him as the doors finally swung open.

'Then we'll learn how to fly', he said.

But his words were lost to me the moment I saw the view before my eyes. No matter where I looked, I could see New York; it wrapped itself around me like a soft, cuddly blanket. I never realized just how big Central Park was. It was enormous. And Times Square seemed just as lively and exciting in daytime as it did in nighttime. The Statue of Liberty stood tall and proud like she has been doing since the beginning of time. It all looked so real, yet it felt like I was living in a fairy-tale land.