7 June 2025
“Coward.”
It wasn’t rage that gave the word weight. It was everything else: grief, disappointment, the hollow space where hope used to be.
Ever present, her 'majesty', a constant reminder that I'm forsaken to be burdened by her company, but the accusation wasn’t meant for her. It was for my father, who at the time was in the adjacent room, conversing with a man I couldn’t quite place. He felt familiar, warm and friendly, but something in his demeanour obscured his identity. This figure still lingers on the edges of my memory, half-formed and unresolved.
I knew I was making a scene. My voice carried over the noise of what seemed to be an endless, crowded and growing party, full of unfamiliar faces. They parted around me like I was contagious, as if my madness might stain their spotless little worlds.
I stormed forward, determined to confront my father. But when I turned, I saw my siblings, my greatest allies, my rocks, watching silently. Their eyes were sympathetic, but they remained distant, unwilling to meet me at the summit of the emotional mountain I was climbing.
“Coward!” I shouted again, a sudden feeling of isolation had emboldened me with the courage when standing face to face with the man I idolised.
He stared back, unfazed. Maybe even with disgust. He handed his glass, whatever poison numbed him that night, and passed it to his still unplaceable friend.
I waited. Expectant at first, on edge, ready for the argument of my life, but time kept going and nothing happened, expectation turned to desperation. Please. I begged, but only in my head. Please see me. But he just stared. Cold. Distant. The space between us was barely a few metres, yet it felt like an ocean had settled in between.
Frustration started to rise, no, something deeper. That resident anger, the one that never leaves. I fled the party, shoving through a crowd of strangers whose eyes clung to me like accusations and judgment. None of whose opinions matter in the slightest.
Once more, I searched for support from my siblings, from my mother, the one this whole spectacle was meant to defend. But they turned their backs. Why, in this moment of need, I do not know.
A rush of shame and embarrassment flooded through me. A fleeting thought cut through: “Am I overreacting again?”
That was short-lived; the thought was cut short. Fuck that. I am sick and tired, lonely beyond words, missing the warmth of the man who was my everything before all of this. So, fuck that.
I was ready to unleash every emotion, every ounce of fury on whoever dared to stand in front of me.
But my body betrayed me. My feet moved first, not toward the fight, but away from it.
Now I’m outside. The rain falls hard. The fog is thick and low, clinging to the ground like smoke from a fire long since burned out. Everything is dim. And I can’t tell if I’m being swallowed by the night, or if I’ve just disappeared into it.
The fog envelops me, hides me from view.
Then footsteps. Frantic. Nearby.
I turn. It’s my dad.
My idol. My hero.
His hair is soaked with rain, and there’s panic in his eyes.
A thought crosses my mind: his father took his own life.
Is he afraid of losing his only son the same way?
Guilt tugs at me, sharp and immediate. I call to him.
“Your mother and sisters are leaving. You should do the same,” is all he says.
The panic has vanished from his eyes, calm now, steady. I wonder if I only imagined it. His voice is unfazed. Unbroken. Everything I am not.
Leave? He wants me to leave.
The anger builds again.
He’s choosing them. No, he’s choosing her. Once again.
“Why!” I scream.
“Why can’t you just stand up for us? Just once!”
I scream it again. And again.
Tears pour down my face, and the rain does nothing to hide them.
Deep sobs rise and fall as I struggle to breathe between my crying and my words. I sound like an infant.
I can’t bring myself to look at him. I drop to my knees on the wet, unrelenting road.
I take a breath mostly because if I don’t, I’ll pass out.
I’m about to scream again when.
Hands cup my face.
They bring my gaze upward.
It’s him.
My dad.
My hero.
My idol.
But his face isn’t calm anymore.
It’s pleading.
Pleading for me to understand something I never will.
And finally, he speaks.
“I can’t.”
This is when I wake.