A Timeless Ending

I pulled up beside the curb and parked. Waiting, I took in my surroundings. A small parking lot packed with vehicles, long windows on a rectangular building, and trees without leaves. I turned the radio off in my old Honda, wondering when I'll be able to stop waiting for a new car. The paint was chipped, the exterior was ruined by dents from hail, and there are strange noises that come from under the hood. However, it much resembled me.

Waiting. Normal people who live regular lives grow sick of waiting for everyday things. They take advantage of simplicity, of the convenient and easy things in life. However, my life is anything but normal. I'm waiting for the day I can be free from this cage, from society expecting me to keep my head held high when all I actually want to do is burrow beneath the Earth's crust and sleep. I remember waiting. As a child, that was all I did.

I was six, waiting for someone to save me. Anybody, like the superheroes that I saw on television, the police that are supposed to help civilians, or my mother. Someone who was supposed to be the embodiment of love and patience, like I saw other mothers at school. They always looked to their kids with gentlness and care, something I had yet to discover in my childhood. I waited on her to dig me out, to find me. She was there, apart of my life, but she was just as lost as I was. Am.

Thinking about what I had to be saved from churned my stomach. I just remember spending most of my childhood curled up in a ball, trying to make myself disappear from the man who twisted my life while waiting for someone to intervene. My mother sat there waiting for it to be over. While I waited to die. But, it never happened.

I glanced at the clock, 3:15. Just have to wait a little longer, but my thoughts kept circling full force to that moment. Like it always does, when I'm waiting on something. When I have a moment to myself, looking for some peace. But, its always out of my reach.

When I had given up hope, when waiting had just become a habit, my hero had showed and rescued me from him. My father. They took him away and asked me if I was okay. Like I was important enough to matter. I was ten at the time, but I still didn't understand his question because that was the first time anyone asked me if I was okay. My dead eyes just stared at him in return, my face showing no emotion because I felt none. The time to wait was over, I was free, but it didn't feel that way. They said give it time. Time heals all wounds. I believed them. What they and I, myself, didn't realize was that I will always be trapped, forever held down by the sadness and anger that comes with grief. Waiting for the day it releases me.

After that day, it was just my mother and I against the world. I hadn't thought much of her behavior. Her distant, and cold but warm presence. She was everything and nothing all at once. But, the world was too much for her to handle. A fifteen year old child who didn't understand, and people who expected too much of her, and a newborn was overwhelming on my mother. She didn't last long. She told me to go wait in the kitchen for lunch, and after three hours of sitting and the baby fussing, I decided to walk into her room. I saw my mother no longer waiting for the pain to be released, but just waiting for peace as she hung there.

I hoped she found it.

I rolled down my windows and turned the car off. I was growing restless as more people in their cars flooded in near me. The breeze felt good against my damp cheeks and I felt a little ashamed. I should be happy now, at peace even. I'm loved by my distant family, who I tried not to hold a grudge towards because it was only then did they step in after everything was over. Only after they realized there were two kids who needed saving were we adopted. Now, my twenty-one year old self should be more forgiving. Atleast, that's what they've said. People only say forgive when they don't understand that type of pain and darkness. Loneliness. It's suffocating. The world is suffocating. But it's okay. I don't blame them. No one understands eachothers stories that deeply. Their perception differs from mine. However, I should set an example, but the weight feels so heavy when I'm alone.

"Hey, sister," I was brought back to reality with a start as my little brother hopped in the car. He had a superman t-shirt on with a black jacket and pants. The school buses drove by, their engines loud and demanding. The teachers all hustled to their car, tired of waiting for the school day to end.

"Your eyes are red again, is it allergies?" I nodded in response. I had almost forgotten about Caden, the only person in the world that lifted my burdens without knowing. I had almost forgotten what I was waiting for, here at his school. In order to pick him up after his long day of studies. I'm constantly inspired by the love he has for this world and for me. It's enough to light to keep the darkness at bay. I'm always at peace when I'm with him, and it's never a burden to wait for him like I do when picking him up from school. Everytime I look at him I'm reminded by the sorrowful times in my life, but forever grateful that it was me who experienced it amd not my little brother. And always full of love.

"Are you okay?"