I couldn’t explain myself, but I felt something.
I felt something strange and unsettling within me.
It had a voice of its own, echoing at the back of my head.
It brought up my past mistakes and shortcomings.
I could have been the daughter they wanted, letting them bully me.
I should have been the sperm that lost, that sperm that didn’t make it to the egg, only then would Felicia and Stephen have had joy.
Funny enough, we say things that we later regret.
Sometimes we say it out loud, and other times we say it only to ourselves, grumbling in our heads, just because there’s no one to listen to us as we rant.
I had the habit of talking to myself, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I missed my parents.
It was tough to fool myself into thinking I had moved on from them.
Though it was tough, it was only a mask to get myself going every day, it was a coping mechanism, and it was my way of adapting to abandonment.
That was the most stupid realization I had made this morning.
After all the evil things they had done to me, how could I be missing them?
My fingers balled into a fist, my knuckles squeezing the blinds apart as I stared out of the bedroom windows.
Droplets of rain pelted onto the streets, each drop confined to a precise pattern whereas a grownup like me was indecisive as to what to do with her life.
It was as if the world around me was being cleansed, washed anew.
But I was mad at myself for being a pushover, for being worst than a pushover.
Why couldn’t I make up my mind over important issues?
Sometimes, I felt like blaming my parents for rushing me into adulthood without any prior notice, without teaching me the basics of the world I was to live in.
They had left a kid to grow up in insecurities, becoming the adult she desperately needed, because her parents couldn’t fulfill their duties.
They had projected their insecurities onto me.
They had left a kid to become responsible and accountable at a very young age.
That was why the indecisiveness in me had gotten out of hand.
Deep within me, I was still a child.
I needed someone to tutor my inner self, to take her through the stages she missed and transition her to adulthood like everyone else.
Perhaps, my life would be different.
I gulped.
Sometimes, I felt like a burden.
I was a burden to Dwain, a burden to myself, a burden to everyone.
I was never one of those kids who considered herself lucky of having parents.
My parents were not different from teenagers still trying to navigate adulthood.
Felicia had gotten pregnant just before she could go to college, making it hard for her family not to look down on her with judgmental eyes.
They had asked her to abort and dedicate her life to growing the family business, but her stubbornness had kept her in the arms of Stephen who had just gotten an internship in a foreign company.
Around the same time, the family disowned her for her disobedience.
The high expectations from society had caused Felicia and Stephen to work day in and day out for earns needs, and to feed the family they were about to have, but they had never loved the idea of raising kids and did so just to silence the gossip.
Sometimes, I didn’t blame them for how they treated me, because they were new to parenting, talk less about adulthood, and of course, on every journey there were mistakes.
I believed they were just having a hard time bringing up children since they were equally just two little kids who didn’t have the opportunity to transition to adults.
I shook my head, smiling at the twisted memories.
Growing up in a household where I wasn’t welcomed taught me a lot of things.
It had taught me things I needed to know and things that weren’t of any use.
It had taught me to hate myself and everyone around me, to stay indoors and make no friends, to cry and sleep in a puddle of tears, to keep every worry to myself and not bother others, yet it had never taught me about making decisions.
That was why I paced through the room in search of strength and reasons to push through with my plan of telling Dwain the truth about my identity.
Ever since last night, after viewing the footage from March 15th, I thought I’d found peace within myself, but little did I know it was just the beginning of worry.
There were voices in my head, making fun of the situation I found myself in, but I knew too well that only action could silence these voices forever.
It was easy to fantasize about taking action, but when it came to actually taking action, I was a coward.
Right now, the circumstances were different.
I had to do everything in my power to act.
And the right thing to do was to open up to Dwain, not by telling him the whole truth at once, but by winning his trust with tiny bits of moments of my vulnerability.
This time, there would be no hesitation.
I won't hesitate.
Just like a bulb, an idea came to life at the back of my head.
I had to inform Dwain about my trip to that hotel.
It might involve a few lies, but the best way to tell a lie was to ground it in truth.
Even though I would tell him about the footage, I couldn’t disclose my true motives for going to Serenity Inn.
I wasn’t ready to explain why there was an Ellis who wasn't Elisabeth.
The biggest question was, how would he take it?
He would be mad, very mad at me, and to avoid such a scenario, I had to think clearly about how to initiate such a discussion.
After a brief minute of collecting flitting ideas, I sighed in relief.
I knew exactly what to do, and I needed to act fast.
No more lies, Ellis.
"Hey," I called out to Dwain, who was sitting on the couch, engrossed in the making of a PowerPoint presentation. "Let's go out for a walk in the rain."
He looked up from his screen, his eyes sparkling with surprise. "Are you serious? It's pouring out there."
I smiled at him, my face a picture of determination. "Come on, Sir. Horton. Let's have an adventure. We'll take umbrellas, and it'll be magical."
He laughed, unable to resist my infectious enthusiasm. "Alright, let’s do it."