Repetition Compulsion

9.

Instead of taking a cab back home to her apartment, Sera decided to walk around for a little bit. She was already on the upper East side of the city, so she decided to explore a little, just so she could see how the other half of the city lived. The buildings were tall, with edgy, modern designs. She soon realized that these were the buildings that she often looked at from her balcony back at her apartment. The streets were super quiet, almost as though no one was around, and the streets were ridiculously clean. So clean that Sera was even afraid to keep walking on them for fear of making them dirty.

She continued walking for a little while longer. She had no idea where it was she was walking to, but her legs sure did seem to know where they were going, so she didn't fight them. Instead, she let them lead the way.

She opened her purse and took out a cigarette to calm her raging thoughts. Besides what had just happened, Sera was also quite worried about the nightmare that had kept her up for half of the night. The nightmare was not something new, but that didn't stop it from consuming most of her thoughts.

In her dream, it was the night before her 11th birthday. It was a hot and rainy night, and Sera still had both of her parents as well as a new little sister. It was only a few minutes until she turned 11 and she was so excited, she couldn't sleep. There was about 5 minutes left until her official birthday when she heard her bedroom door creak open. Excited to see who was coming to wish her a happy birthday, but not wanting to reveal that she was still awake, Sera squinted her small eyes and peeped through her thick blankets.

What she saw was a hooded figure belonging to her father. At first, she almost burst out into giggles, because she thought for sure that she had been busted for missing her bed time. But she soon realized that her missing her bedtime was the least of her father's concerns. He simply opened the door, walked in, pulled out a book from his hooded coat, placed a kiss on the book and then placed the book on Sera's bedside table.

The next morning when she woke up, the book was the first thing that Sera noticed. It was a brand-new copy of the novel 'Timeless Tribulations'. She was a little confused as to why her dad would give her this as she was too young at the time to understand the various topics that were discussed in the book. She scanned the book for a while, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. When Sera opened the book, however, she found a personalized handwritten note from her father. It said:

Baby girl:

I have made so many mistakes in life, but you're the best mistake I have ever made. You have the strength of Destiny Wyatt. I know you may not understand much now, but I hope someday you do.

Remember:

No matter how hard life gets, don't let them break you. Don't ever let them break you.

-Dad.

It would have been so simple for her to ask him what it all meant. But she never got a chance because she never saw him again. Well, not in person anyway. But he constantly showed up in her dreams. Sera spent days and weeks crying, trying to figure out why her father had left. At some point in time, she blamed herself. She thought it was something that she did, but she could never quite figure out what. At another point in time, she became extremely obsessed with the book that had been left to her. She spent years obsessing over every single text in the book because she had convinced herself that her dad had not really left, but that he was hiding from something and that he had left her a clue in the book about where she could find him, or at least learn how to deal with his departure. Of course, she never found what she was looking for. But that never stopped her from looking anyway.

***

So, with all that in her mind, it was no wonder why Sera got so little sleep. She slept for about two hours, and then after that she was too traumatized to go back to sleep.

After a while of walking, she noticed that she was standing in front of a really familiar looking building. It wasn't familiar in the sense that she had been there before, but in the sense that the feelings she got when she saw the building felt really comforting and warm. It made sense that her feet had taken her there, especially after the night she had had. The place was familiar, therefore in a way Sera guessed that it was home.