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The television light flickered as the couple in it enveloped each other in a long and passionate kiss. Their lips molded into each other like a fitted glove before they breathlessly broke apart and exchanged heated “I love yous.” Their eyes were dreamy but fiery as they gazed deeply at each other — as if nothing else mattered at that moment standing beneath the moonlight alongside the shimmering sheen of the river’s inky surface.

Tch. She scoffed. Love like that didn’t exist in the real world, so pure, untainted, and true. In the real world, love was fleeting and fickle. Love was burdened by so many unfilled responsibilities: bills to pay, a family to support, and so many broken promises. Everything good always came to an end. Love always came to an end. Reality was so cold. 

But she still watched such movies because she enjoyed ridiculing other people’s oblivion. It comforted her and made her feel in control knowing that she wouldn’t make the same mistakes ever again. 

She was wearing a fitted tank top and loose shorts to battle the mid-summer’s heat. Her mom had refused to turn on the air condition to save on electricity costs. She was sprawled ungraciously on the worn flowery couch with her legs propped on the wooden coffee table as she chewed on a stiff piece of beef jerky. The heat was putting her in a sour mood. 

“Get your foot off the table,” her mother scolded, swatting at her daughter’s foot as if it were an insect instead. “Girls shouldn’t sit like that.” 

But before she could bite back with a comment on how she was being sexist, her mom turned off the TV with a quick click. 

“Hey! I was watching that!” she wailed. 

“Stop watching this kind of stuff,” her mother said. “They’re no good for you.” She murmured about setting unrealistic expectations for young impressionable girls. 

But despite what her mom thought, she knew better than anyone not to set high expectations. She had expected her family to stay whole even when her parents’ growing distance hinted at a doomed alternative. It had done nothing but sent her hopes crashing down when he wasn’t there that morning when she woke up.

But she understood why he had left. Their apartment in Brooklyn had always seemed too small for the three of them. He has never been too fond of settling down and there always seemed to be something missing in their lives. What they had wasn’t enough and he yearned for something more. 

.

What angered her was that he had promised to bring her along. Together they had romanticized about taking a road trip across the country someday. He had described to her all the places they could go, all the sights they could see, and all the foods they could eat. He told her there was no limit in the world that could stop them. But waking up to all his stuff gone with no explanation and her mom in the kitchen pretending like nothing had happened felt like betrayal, like someone had just poured a bucket of ice-cold water on her and she was finally awake from a beautiful illusion. It lit a fire inside of her. It made her so angry she wanted to scream.

But she could already hear her mother’s voice echoing. “We’re better off without him.” Without him. Without him. Ever since he left, her mom acted like nothing had changed, like their worlds didn’t just completely turn upside down. But she could tell that her mother wasn’t the emotionless robot she pretended to be. The bags under her eyes were subtly darker and her shoulders were a slight bit droopier as if she carried the world’s weight on them.

“He’s dead to me,” her mother had said when her daughter asked what had happened between them. 

“He’s dead to me,” she had repeated to herself that night, the words rolling easily off her tongue. She was slowly beginning to believe it for herself.

“Make yourself useful and take out the trash. I’m going to set the table,” her mom said as she set the night’s dinner on the coffee table. Her family had developed a habit of dining in front of the TV. 

“It’s too hot to go outside!” she countered. “Can’t I just do it tomorrow?”

“Three flights of stairs aren’t going to kill you,” her mother said as she retreated into the kitchen.

At times like this, she found her mother irritating. She had already taken a shower and didn’t want to bother with walking down three flights of stairs to take out the trash when she could just bring it out the next day as she was heading out. Her mother had become extra strict with maintaining a clean home after he left. It was as if she thought tidiness could hide their broken home.

With an aggravated groan, she pulled herself off the couch and into the kitchen where they kept the garbage bin. 

The air outside was damp with a hint of a sour aftertaste from the garbage piling up. She tossed the bag od trash into the metal bins lining the outside of their apartment building. 

Meow. She looked down and saw the stray cat that had been hiding outside their apartment building for months. He would have taken him in if it weren’t for her mom’s allergies. Instead, he built the cat a small shelter from cardboard boxes lined next to the garbage bins. He had so much more guilt for leaving the stupid cat outside than when he abandoned his own family. 

“What do you want Stupid,” the name had eventually stuck after calling him “the stupid cat” for so long. 

Stupid pawed at her leg with her skinny paw. “It’s mine. You can’t have it,” she was still chewing on her piece of beef jerky and held it higher to provoke him.

But he continued mewing and nuzzled his nose into her foot. She stared at Stupid with hatred. She found him pathetic; all he did was beg for love and attention when it was clear no one cared anymore. 

But the worst part was that she saw herself in Stupid. All she wanted was for things to go back to the way they still loved each other, when he still loved her. Like the stupid cat, she yearned to be loved by those who didn’t care. 

“I. Don’t. Like. You.” she stressed each syllable to the cat as if it would make the four-legged creature understand any better. But what she really meant was “I’m. Not. Like. You.”

“I would be nicer to him if I were you,” a voice said. “He bites.”

She froze at the familiarity of the voice; it was gruff but held the same gentle undertone that she loved so much. 

There was a tightness in her stomach and a lump in her throat as she slowly turned her head up, fearful that if she looked too fast he would slip away again. 

Standing on the street, the sunset’s glow casted a golden glow over his features. His skin was a shade tanner, his hair a little longer, and the wrinkles by his eyes a little more pronounced. But regardless, it was the same baggy old clothes, the same twinkle in his eyes, and the same lopsided smile. 

“Dad?”