Chapter 5

My head was spinning, like it was about to explode, and for what felt like forever, I couldn't hear a thing.

He slapped me so hard, I ended up with a mild concussion.

In that moment, I remembered when I first came back home at twelve. I accused Grandma of letting those traffickers take me.

Back then, my dad slapped me the same way.

I thought things would've changed after all these years.

I thought my dad meant it when he said we could actually talk things out.

He promised to take me abroad for Christmas, and said he wanted to fix things between us.

I believed he'd finally be good to me, protect me, and trust me for real.

I thought he'd finally stand up for me, make sure nobody messed with me again.

So, it was still the same after all these years.

Nothing had changed at all.

Blood started to seep from the corner of my mouth, and it was a while before I could hear again.

I heard my dad's last furious words to me. "You're like that kidnapper, cold, heartless, selfish, and vicious."

Cold, heartless, selfish, and vicious.

This was the same dad who claimed he wanted to make peace with me.

But without caring about the truth, he hurled those vicious words at me, as if I was the villain all along.

Cold, heartless, selfish, and vicious. That was what he thought of me.

I let out a soft, bitter laugh.

I guess I finally didn't love my dad anymore.

I'd lived nineteen years.

All these years, I'd been quietly measuring how much love I still had for him.

Was it fading away, or was it somehow growing stronger?

Was it a little, or was it far too much?

It suddenly hit me that there was nothing left.

Not a single bit left.

I didn't love this family, or any of these so-called family members, anymore.

I didn't hope for his love or care anymore.

I didn't wish he'd see me for who I am, or listen to me for once.

After a long pause, I finally spoke up, "Dad, I'm not going abroad. I'm going to visit my foster dad on Christmas Eve."

He ignored me from then on.

At the crack of dawn on Christmas Eve, he took Grandma and Ryan and left for abroad.

Now, two weeks later, he was finally back.

He kept digging through my bedroom, turning everything upside down like he was desperate to find something.

He crouched down to check under my bed.

He refused to believe I hadn't come back.

He would never believe I was dead.

When I was about to die, I couldn't believe it either.

That day, I went to the prison to see my foster dad, but all I got was his ashes.

The cops said they'd tried reaching out to my dad, but he wanted nothing to do with anything about my foster dad.

He hung up on them before they could finish talking.

I left the prison clutching my foster dad's ashes, so out of it I wandered off in the wrong direction.

On some deserted stretch of road, I ended up getting jumped by a mugger.

When he kicked me to the ground, I thought it was my heart acting up again. Nothing a quick rescue couldn't fix.

So I dialed 911 first, then called the police.

I waited for someone to come save me.

My family was overseas, too far away to help, and they wouldn't have cared enough to come for me anyway.

But in the end, my face was covered in blood.

The mugger finally ripped what I was holding right out of my hands.

But when he finally saw what I'd been guarding with my life, it turned out to be nothing but an unlucky urn full of ashes.

The guy, furious and frustrated, kicked me hard in the chest, then, still pissed, scattered the ashes all over the ground.

After that, I lay by the roadside, waiting for the cops to rescue me.

I watched as the evening breeze picked up, silent and unnoticed.

It scattered the last of my foster dad's ashes, blowing them away until there was nothing left to gather.

I watched as the ashes disappeared, and I could feel the life and warmth slowly slipping out of me.

As everything blurred, it felt like I was drifting back to years ago.

He'd come home from the fields at dusk, carrying a kettle half-filled with muddy water and tadpoles for me.

Watching me envy the other kids flying their kites, he sat by my bed late into the night, tinkering with a homemade kite for me.

But later, the neighbor kid trampled it, crushing my precious kite.

I was so mad, I ended up scratching his face.

It came back to me when the boy's parents showed up at our door; my foster dad stood between us, protecting me.

When he said, "My girl would never bully anyone," and stood in front of me like that, he was like my sky, always there to shield me from the storm.

But now, it felt like my sky came crashing down.

I was rushed to the ER, and I could feel my body jolting off the bed from the defibrillator's shock.

But my breath faded away before I made it through the ER doors.

My dad tore through every inch of that cluttered little room I used to sleep in, checking every nook and cranny.

It wasn't until he'd searched everywhere that he had to face the fact that I wasn't here.

For all these days, I hadn't come back.