Who We Are

2

"We're almost there."

Lara opened her eyes at her father's voice, blinking as they slowly adjusted to the dim lighting inside the car. Wincing at the slight stiffness on her neck, she looked outside and saw that it was already dark. The digital clock on the dashboard showed that it was just past six. How long exactly had they traveled?

Lara knew that her father's family, his real family, lived in another city, but she hadn't really expected the drive to be that long, partly because she really hadn't been to any place outside the town she grew up in.

If she had been given the choice, she would've been happy enough to stay and live on her own. After all, her mom had left her a small amount of money and she could look for a job and work her way through her education. She knew it probably wouldn't be as easy as she thought it seemed, but the idea of it was definitely better as opposed to the prospect of living with her father. 

She didn't want it, but she'd made a promise.

After the diagnosis, her mom knew she wouldn't last long, so when Lara's father showed up months after she started chemo, they both agreed that Lara should stay with him if something ever happened to her. She made Lara promise she'd go with him, and so she did.

She didn't mind the thought of starting all over again in a new place with new people since she really wouldn't be leaving anything special behind. She knew a number of people her age in school but she really didn't have any close friends. Well there were the memories of her childhood and her mom, but then again, ceasing to dwell in the place of good memories doesn't really make the memories less worth remembering, does it? Wherever she goes, her mom will always be in her heart, because no matter what happens, no one can ever replace her.

Lara was okay with leaving, but it was one thing to move into a new house and another to live in the home of your dad's other family: both a home and a family that you apparently don't belong to.

"Are you alright?" she heard her father ask, snapping her out of her thoughts just as the car wheeled into the entrance of an extremely fancy neighborhood.

Lara couldn't help but gasp.

"This--," she began, totally forgetting about her father's question as she leaned out of her seat to get a further look of the luxurious multi-million dollar view outside, "---is where you live?"

It was already dark but the lights coming off the expensive-looking windows of the properties as well as the lamps strategically placed and scattered around the neighborhood to light up the whole place made everything look like something out of a fancy Hollywood movie.

Lara eyed each of the houses they passed in awe and wondered how someone could possibly afford to live in a place like that.

She knew that her father was a neurosurgeon and that his wife was a doctor, but she didn't know they were actually that rich. 

They rounded a curb and pulled into the driveway of a huge modern looking house with lights coming off the large floor to ceiling windows of the upper floors. It was certainly one of the most gorgeously lavish houses she'd ever seen in her life and the idea of actually living in it was a prospect that seemed too hard to grasp.

This was the life her father's other family lived and it looked so incredibly perfect compared to the simple life she lived with her mother.

Lara didn't care that she grew up in a small house situated in a small neighborhood of a small town. She was with her mom and they were happy, but remembering all those years she spent longing for the love of a father never knowing that he was living such a happy luxurious life with his other family, completely indifferent to the idea that somewhere out there he had a daughter who wanted nothing more than to have a father just like his other children did made Lara feel extremely sick.