Kiss, Don't Tell | JJK

33 | in endings and promises

33

IN ENDINGS AND PROMISES

FOURTEEN YEARS EARLIER . . .

Perhaps I could really say that everything fell apart when I was eight years old.

But I wasn't sure when it exactly started. Or how fast.

I was hiding inside a cabinet at that time, waiting for my father to come home. One of my favorite pastimes when I was younger was to play hide and seek just before my father comes home. It became a habit, or maybe a routine. He'd bring along with him his piece of flower, before sauntering off to find me in the most unconventional and surprising places.

And somehow, he'd still manage to find me.

It was a little later than his usual time for coming home, but I didn't think much about it then. I mean, some things can't be helped, right?

There were so many possibilities at that time. Work, an old friend you haven't seen in years, maybe covering for a shift of an old coworker. It all seemed plausible, these reasons, when you were eight and unassuming.

And so I waited. I got lost in my own little world, expecting everything to be fine. After all, a child could only do so much. My mother, though, I wasn't sure. She has this downcast look on her face, and she didn't hum in the kitchen that day. Only spacing out at times. And when I had tried to tug her long skirt, she'd fix me a smile, saying everything was alright.

Just focus on your schoolworks, dear. No need to mind me.

Lies. They were all lies. One could see it in the way she lowers her gaze, or how she doesn't skip around. But what could I do? I was only eight.

And then my father came home. He was staggering to his feet, a little shaken and sluggish. And I wondered if something had happened. Dad rarely drinks alcohol. But these past few weeks, he was on a roll. Again, I didn't understand this. Why would he drink something he hates?

No one ever told me a thing.

No one ever made me understand.

No one told me how my family was crumbling.

That night he didn't bring with him two pieces of flowers. No, just the scent of alcohol and a brooding look in his eyes as he glared at someone—my mother, perhaps. Did he forget to bring flowers again? It's been a week.

I had decided to wait a little further in the cabinet, tucking my chin to the top of my knees as I hugged myself, sneaking glances through the small space that allowed me to see the scenery. I couldn't hear what they were talking about.

All I heard was one phrase, my father's words. Words that I never knew hurt and stung when I was eight. Words that I never knew could change everything completely.

I can't do this anymore. I'm leaving.

I had been too naive to realize this. A part of me was thinking he was going to quit his job, maybe his job had taken the better of him and he can't do this anymore. Maybe the reason why my mother had cried so much that night was because she was trying to make Dad see how losing his job could affect us.

I thought wrong. I guess.

Because after that night, every trace of my father seemed to vanish. His clothes, his strewn shoes near the doorway, the midnight blue toothbrush placed on the glass in our bathroom. All gone. Like he never existed.