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ignored me when it suited their needs, but I never doubted their love. They shaped me as a person, made me who I was – there is no greater love. I didn’t understand the kind of love that you wanted from me – a love born from a forced dependency and not grown over time with trust and affection. No! I would never love you – the girl I was, the one that woke up every day to the sounds of her mother’s voice calling out to her could never love someone like you. But I had wondered how much longer I’d be that girl. How much longer could I hold on to myself?
    The light filtering under the door cast a shadow as you paced back and forth impatiently. Your feet were soft and methodical, not making a single thud or creak on the floorboard, they were practiced in the art of sneaking. A talent I could only conclude you’d spent many years mastering. With every hint at the person I could see you shaping into, the less I understood you.
    The water circling my body had been warm and inviting. Bright lights danced across its surface, casting dull rainbows against the side of the tub. I sank back into the water letting it rise to my chin, and the bottom of the white shirt I still wore floated up to the top of the water – the rainbows danced across its wrinkles. I just laid there staring at the ceiling, trying my best not to think about where I was or how I was going to get out. I had no idea what else to do besides live in the moment that I was currently stuck in. A tiny girl, that’s all I was. I wasn’t strong or formidable, what power did I have to control where my life had gone?
    Bumps started to appear on my skin as the water turned cold with time. Small tremors in my stomach quickly spread throughout my body as the chill crept deep into my bones. It didn’t hurt, my body was as numb as my mind. Finally I let my head sink below the water line, I knew the water should have felt cold against my face, but all I felt was the lack of air choking my lungs, and it actually felt good. I’d been so overcome with myself and the emotions playing through my head that I was unable to control – this I had been able to control.
    I blinked and watched the room slowly disappear and then return perfectly in focus. A room I didn’t want to see, a room that I had wished was merely a dream. I blinked a second time and let my eyes remain closed. My mother’s face moved across the backs of my eyelids. Her brown hair shimmering in the bright afternoon sun, my father appeared next to her with a smile stretched across his face. In perfectly synced movements, they both spread their arms out calling me into their embrace. I wanted to reach out to them, to feel them real and tangible. All of our petty problems born from teenage angst disappeared in the air surrounding us. No longer arguing because I wanted a later curfew, or because of that boy I said I liked whose arms bore several tattoos, not even the battle for independence that I later knew I wasn’t ready for seemed to stand between us – my sheltered life that I railed against had fluttered away to be replaced with a longing to have it back.
    I moved toward them, pulled by an invisible string that tied us as one entity. I wanted everything to end right there, just like that, with my parents and an overwhelming sense of love and belonging – but it didn’t.
    My body leapt and I watched as my parents slowly faded from my sight. I heard your voice desperately chanting in my ear.
    “You’re okay. You’d never leave me. I left you alone too long, that’s it – the isolation. I’m sorry, all my fault … all my fault.”
    Then everything had disappeared and I felt myself drifting, my mind flipping through memories searching for one to latch on to.
    I was back at the mall, one of those first days that you showed up at the department store where I worked – always the same time, every day just before lunch. But one specific day stuck out to me. I hadn’t yet become comfortable with your