Lights Out

“What did you eat when you were pregnant with her,” Siya’s father teases. He turns to Siya, “It’s 1:00 in the morning and you have a ball of energy.” She didn’t.

“A lot of chilly peppers,” her mother returns his joke with a hint of a smirk. 

Siya rolls over onto her back on the bed and props herself on her elbow, “That’s right.” Siya’s mother doesn’t miss her playful wink as the sentence slithers off her tongue. To break the deserted silence, she interjects, “So what’s new with you guys?” 

Their upper lips push inward, “Nothing new, you know it all.” Siya rolls her eyes in displeasure. 

Her father slaps her upper arm in effort to irritate her like he always did, “You tell us. Any breaking news?” 

She sighs dramatically, “Nope. All the same.” 

“You studying for the SAT? How’s that going?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.” Her dejection almost seemed true to them, but they never sought too deeply to notice.

“So just chilling then?” Siya purses her lips and as the heat digs claws into her neck, she nods. When her father starts shaking his head in slight hysterics, she does the same.

“I’m going out to eat tomorrow with Sive, Flavia, and Luna tomorrow.” Her mother nods. Siya had three friends from school, they were kind, opposite of everything she was. Except they didn’t know her past her bubbly personality.

Her father dips his chin to insert himself in the conversation but it ends before he can. 

“How was work,” Siya asks her father who’d come back at midnight after closing the Indian restaurant they owned down the block. She always asked that question, every day.

“It was okay, it got busy in the middle and then back to being slow.” Siya bobs again in answer. 

“So mom, are you going to get a haircut,” Siya cuts in randomly which gets her eyes of disapproval and alarm from her mother. Her father peeks between their faces. Siya circles to him, “I thought you said you wouldn’t hold us to your boundaries.” Siya always desired for her mother to explore instead of being cooped up with her introverted husband and being attached to the life that wasn’t hers.

“Yeah, so she can get a haircut. Do whatever you want,” he says quietly yet surely. Siya’s eyebrow raises and she leers at her mother who appeared unconvinced. 

“So I can go dye my hair?” 

“I said boundaries. I didn’t say I wouldn’t stop you from doing stupid things.” Siya and her mother were skeptical that he could ever change his policies that they didn’t have to even follow. 

Siya wasn’t astonished at his refusal. “When I leave for college, watch me.” 

“Yeah, that’s what you want.” He scratches the back of his head. “You want to fly without our leash, I got it.” Her eyes turned the shade of her blood that was boiling. The rays glimmered of her unvoiced eyes that no one seemed to hear or see. He wasn’t wrong but she would never actually let go of their hand, no matter how far she went.

“You didn’t sleep yet,” her mother’s high pitched voice says to Siya’s brother who’d just entered the bedroom. He crawls into the covers and up against their mother, shaking the entire bed. 

“You’re going to break the bed, you cow,” says her father with gritted teeth and they all roar with laughter. Her brother’s smugness fades as he proceeds to snuggle in.

“Well? You have school tomorrow and then you’re not going to wake up,” her mother reprimands vexingly. Her brother doesn’t say anything, wanting to ignore her. 

Siya’s eyes shift from the ticking clock to her father, to which she makes a bunch of unusual faces that he’s aware of later. He peers down at her and widens his eyes as in response to what she was doing. 

“So... who’s going to do the dishes,” he questions, that sparks a stillness in the room. He looks at Siya and she stares back. As everyone watches her, she starts doing one of the random dance moves she’d learned from a few apps. Her mother smirks at her father and he rubs his forehead in mock disappointment. Suddenly, too fast for them to notice, Siya lifts and wiggles her head side to side in front of his face. He gives her an annoyed look, seeking to fake slap her and they all begin to cackle. It was refreshing for Siya to see them laugh, when they rarely did for they were always consumed with the worries of tomorrow. 

“I’m not doing it,” Siya calls out quickly. Her brother looks the other way unbothered. “What,” she asks as her father looks at her in bewildered amusement. Siya would always look another way when they made fun of her or said things that slit through her layers. 

“You’re the laziest person in this household.” Her mother and brother snicker in their corner. Siya rolls her eyes to the back of her head at his comment. She’d have to stay up late again due to making time for her parents, the workload from her school never seemed to lessen and her parents didn’t make it easier when they undermined the amount of work she did. It stung her and swelled her hurting heart. 

“He didn’t do anything, I’m sure he can do it.” 

He gestures to her brother, “He does a lot of other things that you don’t do.” He starts counting on his fingers, “Laundry, cleaning the bathroom…” Siya knew him cleaning was a rarity, they were never home to see but they always had so much to say.

“And? I didn’t ask, all I know is that it’s not my job,” Siya sits up on the bed, next to her father. 

Her father jokingly scoffs, “Yeah, he’s the maid around here.” Her mother joins in and their chuckling links. Siya's nails dig into her palm to prevent the real pain from dripping down her cheeks. She was shaped into a girl who had instilled limits and social anxiety, for her defense failed her in front of her sacrificial parents. 

Siya shrugs, “I don’t care.” Her father taps her shoulder, to get rid of the conversation that he’d started as he frequently did. 

“What did you do,” her dad gestures to her brother. 

“I did homework and played a bit with my friends.” His orbs often revealed the truth he hid behind. 

Her father smirks, “Yeah yeah, do whatever you want.” He knew his son was lying about the amount of time he’d spent in leisure, but decided not to move ahead with it. 

“Yeah, your carefree attitude is what got him here,” Siya adds in. They’d always been lenient with him, more than they’d ever been with her. 

“No, he has a heart of gold. He’ll do something with his life, I know.” He was so sure of himself, he had been with Siya too and was proved right. Siya didn’t have to turn to her brother to feel him desperately concealing his smile, the smile that sparked his overconfidence at times. No one saw his ways or methods the way Siya did. “He’s like a copy machine that copies everything he’s ever looked at. He has a brain that’s running in the wrong direction, that’s all.” 

Though, Siya doubted her father would be right this time. People eventually ran out of the luck they so proudly carried in their pockets. Siya had made a long journey to get to where she was, changing her entire lifestyle and mindset because of high school. At the time, it determined the course of her life. Now it was college.

Siya constantly steals glances at her mother, sometimes mouthing if she was okay and Siya would receive a nod even if she could see through the facade. Her mother’s quietness spoke a thousand words, which Siya repeatedly listened to. 

Siya dumps imaginary cotton into her ears after her brother leaves, since they start talking about the restaurant their concentration always seems to shift to. She was now laying between them, her mind closed into the whirlpool of her stress. 

Not asking about it, they usher her upstairs, “Go to sleep Siya.” Without another word, Siya gives them a last look over and exits the room. 

“Goodnight,” Siya shouts from the living room. They never said it first.

“Night,” they say seconds after each other. 

As soon as Siya reached the top of the stairs, if it wasn’t eerily dark, you’d notice that her face had gone blank of the sunshine she was downstairs. 

Siya exhaustedly smiles as she slides under the security of her blankets, where not even the ghosts could touch her. The tears that slip down her hot cheeks and over her nose, stain the white clouds under her. Trying so hard to muffle the noises and running a hand over her face, attempting to comfort herself. 

They would miss her. She was the only one who bothered to be their therapist and please them, because she’d grown up loving her parents with her whole heart. Willing to do whatever it took to make them feel proud and fulfill the dreams that she soon realized weren’t hers. No one wiped the rainy droplets, smoothed her hair back in consolation, or whispered reassuring sugar in her ear. Yet everyone around her knew the feeling. 

Maybe her pain wasn’t as severe as the agony of the patients she’d seen at hospitals or it was blurred because she had a roof over her head. But it was hers. And as much as she dreamed and wished, she couldn’t run away from its haunting.