*This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.*
Twenty-five years ago, a little brick house stood on the corner of the street. The flowers out front blossomed brighter than all the others around it. Their purples, pinks, yellows, oranges, and blue petals shone under the sunlight and sparkled in the rain. Each brick of the house’s frame was fresh and new. The people inside were, too.
Mom and Dad never stopped smiling. They loved each other with all their heart, always finding an excuse to kiss each other or hold hands. Their little girl always wore the cutest dresses paired with even cuter flats. Not a single tear was shed out of sadness those years. Each day, their emotions floated and soared as high as the planes in the sky. Nothing could bring them down. Or so they thought.
The little girl noticed the first crack in the mainframe when she was eight. Mom was at work, and Dad’s face turned redder than she’d ever seen before in her life. He yelled at her, blaming her.
“You know this is all your fault, isn’t it? Did you do this? We can’t afford to move!”
She ran upstairs, wiping away her first known tears of sorrow. She kicked off her shoes and threw them into her closet, hugging the pillow closer to her chest. Looking across the room to her own lilac colored walls, the crack was extending. It grew like poison ivy on the trees. It was slowly invading their quaint little paradise.
On the girl’s sixteenth birthday, nearly every inch of their house was covered in cracks. She was embarrassed to invite her friends over. Mom and Dad argued over what kind of cake to buy her. Then they argued about how much money it was. Mom said it didn’t matter as long as she was happy. Dad said it was too much to spend. She read over the thoughtful notes on her birthday card from them, but the happiness rooted deep within her wouldn’t come out of hiding. Mom and Dad didn’t notice though. Their voices elevated and the girl rose to the second floor.
Holding the pillow to her chest, there were no tears left to cry. Instead, her hand scribbled down more notes into her dream notebook. She left it in her underwear drawer, knowing they wouldn’t find it. She also left her escape fund, stuffed like a turkey in one of her old socks. They would never find out. Not until she was already long gone.
Her eighteenth year was nearly too much to bear. A stack of papers from Daddy’s lawyer arrived at the house as Dad tossed his last suitcase into the back of his minivan. The girl spent most of her time handing dinner plates to hungry people at the restaurant in town, ignoring the ignorant comments of fellow classmates of hers. By the time she graduated, everyone would leave the broken home. It was starting to crumble around them, little pieces of the wallpaper descending to the wooden floors and the staircase cracking a little more than before. Even Dad coming back wouldn’t fix it.
A cap and gown and a long afternoon spent under the sun later, the girl posed for pictures with a fake smile to die for. Mom even invited Dad, who didn’t show up till halfway through after he was called. His flowers were wilted and gray, but so was his effect on the mood when she noticed him. The girl played the main role that day, knowing tomorrow she would slip into the background, carrying her escape fund and her belongings in only a backpack.
The next morning, the dew stuck to the leaves like it was holding on for dear life. Her mother hung onto her coffee cup as the girl came down the staircase, backpack on and her face as pale as the cloudy skies that Saturday. The cracks in the wall were mirroring the cracks on her mother’s face, all the lines of stress and pain that had grown over the years. Every comment her father said, every argument spewed off in this house was another line that appeared on her.
They said their goodbyes and there wasn’t a dry eye in that broken home. The girl walked out that door, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. She knew where she came from: a deteriorating home, one that was beyond repair or any amount of handy work from anyone.
And yet she knew who she was, and where she was going: a place with new walls, new flooring, and somewhere no one knew her name. She wouldn’t need to tape herself up or glue back the broken pieces around her. She only needed to remember one thing: the walls around her may be broken, but she never will be.
