dear jack • jack hughes

005

HOME?
Liana's Point of View
📍Toronto, Ontario Canada
May 2020

Here I am. On the street I grew up. It should seem familiar to me, but now all of a sudden, I feel like a stranger.

I stand in the cul-de-sac, many Fourth of July's have been spent throughout here playing with sparklers. Many winters have been spent playing hockey on the pavement. Riding bikes in the summertime, watching sunsets, telling secrets.

I remember these moments like they were yesterday, but yet... I feel like such a stranger. An outsider.

I wonder if someone has ever brought me up when talking to them, I mean I doubt it... but you know. Or maybe they've run into someone with the same name as me, do they remember me? Do they feel ashamed when they hear my name?

Before we all went off to grow up, we promised each other to never be strangers, but here we are. Years later with nothing but broken promises and laughs I can recognize anywhere.

I walk around to my backyard like I've done a million times. I wonder if they still live here. If they do, I don't know if I wouldn't want to talk to them. But I guess I have to because they are sitting right there.

"Liana?" My mom standings up from the chair on the lawn, my father does too. They look different. Not the happy parents I knew. I guess that's what happens when someone pops all of your bubble wrap.

The bubble wrap makes you think life is rainbows and sunshine. What I'm trying to say is, the bubble wrap is little naive you. Now, without the bubble wrap, you see things for what they really are.

"What are you doing here?" My father asks. I could ask him the same question. I could also ask what he wasn't doing here for all those years.

"My therapist told me I needed to come back here for closure." Once I start going to Umich, I will need to find a new therapist.

"You're going to therapy?" My mom asks. Her bangs grew out, and she got skinnier too.

"Yes, actually. Because of you two." I state. They share a look, one I can't read. If they stuck around, maybe I would know them better.

"My little flower, we are so sorry. We had to do what was best for you." She says. I can't take it anymore. The nickname, the bubble wrap, the apologies, them.

"No! Fuck that! My whole life everyone has told me it was because it was the best for me, but I don't believe that bullshit anymore!" When I'm mad, I tend to use my hands and arms to express how I'm feeling.

"Liana, listen. Please. We weren't mentally able to take care of you, we had to go." My father says.

"I was 10!" I pause. "10 years old! I was a child! I didn't fucking deserve that! I didn't even get an answer!" I say. If this is closure.. I don't know how to feel about it.

"Liana-"

"Where were you all those years, huh? How did it feel to leave your little flower confused and questioning everything because her parents disappeared?"

"A mental hospital," My mother says. "Liana, we are sorry, we should've explained this to you."

"Yeah, you should've." I say. "You weren't there for all the things you should've been there for. My first day of high school, my first period, prom, graduation, my first day of college, you weren't there. Ellen had to guide me through womanhood. And you're lucky she did a hell of a good job at it."

"Hunny, we're so sorry." My father says. Are they? I don't know what to believe from them.

"I needed you. I needed you both." Tears start to fill my eyes. "A-and you weren't there."

"But we're here now, little flower."

"I don't need you anymore. And stop calling me that, I'm not 10 anymore." I pause. "But hey, you wouldn't know that because you walked out of my life without an explanation."

"Please, don't be mad, Liana." How could I not? I was 10, I didn't deserve that.

"I'm not mad," I say. "You don't deserve for me to be mad at you. And I forgive you, but it's not for you, it's for me."

"So that's it then? You leave and we'll never see you again?" My dad asks.

"Yeah, exactly." I say. This is good, right? This is closure. I need this.

I take a breath. It's weird, this is really it. But I don't need them anymore. What they should've done for me, they didn't. I can survive on my own, no thanks to them.

I walk out of my backyard, and go to my real house. The one next door. I don't have a key, the door is locked.

I sit on the front step and look at the porch railing next to me. It's scratched. I was running and I fell. I hit my foot, well my shoe, off the the railing and it never got fixed.

I scraped my knee and Jack fixed it. He felt really bad because he was the one chasing me. He put a bandaid on it and kissed it.

Luke, Quinn, and Jack all out bandaids on their knee too so we could all match. It was kind of stupid, but it made me feel better. Like they were saying, you fit it here, don't worry.

Closure. I can't keep thinking about them. I have to let them go just like I did my parents and just like they did with me.

I guess that's why I don't get close to people often. I'm scared they'll leave me, and usually they do. I just want to find my people like everyone else has found their people.

Or maybe I'm nobody's person.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

idk what team to root for in the playoffs now that the devils and leafs are out

but it's crazy bc they both lost the series 4-1 and they both lost 3-2 in ot

anyway, i think i'll root for either the stars or oilers