Sarah

   Sometimes a story does not start. Sometimes it was always there, like the hope that you’re born with, the traditions you’re born into. Sadly, hope will die easier for some people more than others. Tradition can be harder to break.

   Sarah came from a perfect family. They’d always excelled at everything, whether it was finishing a project first or beating everyone else in an election for mayor. Ah, yes… mayor. Her father was the mayor for as long as he could be. And her grandfather. And every other great- something that she could think of.

   Sarah had a perfect life. She had everything she could want, and parents that would provide it for her. Well, not everything, but everything money could buy. It was like her father’s saying: “Money might not be able to solve all problems, but it hasn’t failed me yet!” And she knew how much pressure was on her. She would be the next mayor of her town, a perfect reign, generations old.

   Perfect.

   Sarah was not perfect.

   Sarah was miserable.

   Her family might have excelled at everything, but it just meant that she wasn’t allowed to fail. She might have everything, but she would cry herself to sleep in a room that had been designed to buy her love. Her family might have a perfect reign in the town, but it was going to end with her.

   The broken chain. The problem child.

   Let me put this into some perspective, make it a bit clearer. Sarah was popular, most likely because of her influence. She smiled and participated in clubs and pretended to be interested when her father talked politics at the dinner table.

   Was she really interested? No. But one of her clubs was the Theater Club, and while she might not have wanted to be a politician of any kind, she wanted to be an actor. Just the thought of standing on stage, being someone else, thrilled her.

   It wasn’t so different from what her family wanted, was it? But it would still bring disgrace. Of course, when she told her parents what she wanted for the first time, at seventeen years old, she still wasn’t expecting the chaos that followed.

   Clank. A fork fell onto the floor. “No! Our family has a perfect reputation in this town, and you aren’t going to ruin it, you brat!”

   Those words were not from her father.

   They were from her mother.

   She hadn’t been prepared for that.

   But on the inside, she had been. 

   It didn’t hurt, per say. She had mostly broken insides, and any feeling was painful, as it bubbled up in a tingly way, bringing tears to her eyes. She could feel the bubbling now. She often felt it in that cursed household, where she couldn’t seem to be perfect.

   But that was only the beginning. The day after, she was pulled out of the Theater Club and got her bedroom television taken away, along with her dystopian and fantasy books.

   That brought up some anger she didn’t know she had. But she didn’t let it show. Books and television were her escapes, time to get away from her life, the expectations.

   She made another mistake.

   “Mother, can I please have my books back?” Just one or two. I can do so much with just one or two. “Or- or maybe can I go back to the Theater Club?”

   After the one-way shouting match that followed, she plodded back to her bedroom, where she promptly broke down. Her sense of perfection was starting to crack like a fissure in a mirror, like how she slammed her fist against an old one. It didn’t give her that tingly feeling. She felt nothing.

   Her father knocked and came in just as she collected herself. She kept herself guarded, worried about what argument was sure to come.

   It didn’t.

   He asked what was wrong, and while she didn’t answer at first, he wore her down eventually. She cried to him about everything he had missed.

   He always missed it. It wasn’t fair.

   It wasn’t fair.

   It wasn’t fair that he was never there, and it wasn’t fair that he told her to wear a smile. “Keep your face happy, or at least neutral, at all times,” he told her. “It doesn’t matter what’s going on inside. It’s one of my greatest skills, as is the truth with any politician.”

   She didn’t want to be a politician.

   She just wanted to be Sarah.

   She just wanted to be happy.

   On her eighteenth birthday, the last of her hope shattered. Every day had become increasingly loud, and not because of laughter.

   She avoided her mother at all times. Sarah couldn’t seem to find peace.

   She just wanted peace.

   He was never there.

   No one cared.

   It wasn’t fair.

   So Sarah was planning on leaving the household. She could sell what she had, and she already had a fair sum of money, from her father to show he cared.

   I will spare you the details, but here are a few snippets of conversation during dinner, which her father, of course, wasn’t there for.

   “Your father has told me himself how disheartened he was when you said you persisted in your dreams of acting.”

   “He- he... what?” He’d never told her this. He was all smiles. Keep your face happy.

   “Oh, yes. He’s very disappointed in you, Sarah. Sadly, it’s too late to start over.” The civil expression had dropped off of both of their faces at this point. Sarah on the verge of tears.

   Her mother wearing a cold smile.

   Sarah had let her emotions stay down for eighteen years.

   “I give up.” The mirror had cracked. The perfection was gone. It’s past repair, it wasn’t fair, he couldn’t make it there.

   And Sarah began to laugh. She laughed as her mother’s smile slipped off her face slowly. She laughed as everything stopped at once. She smiled as it came crashing down. Sarah laughed and laughed, and that was terrifying.

   But her screams were worse.

   Sarah never left.

   Sometimes a story does not end. Sometimes it just stops, like Sarah’s heart did that night. I won’t tell you how. Maybe one of her parents snapped. Maybe she did, up in her room with the high ceiling. Maybe she died trying to run away. Maybe it was an attack of some kind.

   But it didn’t matter.

   The chain was broken. There would be no one in her family that ran for any kind of office ever again. In the end, she got her wish. In the end everyone did.

   Sarah didn’t want to be a politician. She never was.

   Her parents didn’t want her to be an actor. She wasn’t that, either.

   Other people finally ran for office and changed town, maybe for the better.

   Maybe not.

   But she found peace.

   She just wanted peace.

   But her was never there, 

   And no one cared.

   She was so scared.

   It wasn’t fair.

   It’s never fair.