“Anything in your big sized skull? When you do college application already?” my mom yelled into my ear, with a drop of her angry saliva landing on my nose bridge, her usually already mean looking face now looked horrifying. Words upon words are trying to force their way out of my mouth to retaliate against her, I would maybe yell back saying I don’t understand shit she’s saying because her horrible grammar and how her words doesn’t comprehend in my awesome brain or maybe even correcting her sentence into a grammatically correct one. However my ‘big sized skull’ is smarter than to let my words flow out, nothing is worse than having the satisfaction of saying what I want and then getting a beating for it later.
I gave my sister Dara, a desperate look over my bowl of rice; she in return gave me a knowing look and a weak smile that never reached her eyes. There I was, just sitting at the dinner table avoiding all eye contact, making myself as invisible as I possibly can until the end of dinner. That impossible feat was almost achieved, but no, my mom has to bring up the topic of college applications.
“So you applied to all top ranking universities and colleges yet?” she interrogated with her seemingly always-snobby voice.
“No ma, I don’t want to apply to some of them.” I replied softly.
“WHAT YOU MEAN NO, YOU HAVE TO. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE.” In her anger fueled scream attack, more spit landed on my dry cracked turkey or mutant sized gigantic drumstick mounted on top of my pile of rice.
“Okay, I will.” I replied knowingly that I wouldn’t do what I just said, sticking my chopstick into the drumstick, I tried to pry it apart to get to the inner meat avoiding where I thought her spit landed.
“STOP DOING THAT, JUST EAT YOUR CHICKEN” she threw me a dirty look with her wrinkled eyes that never seemed to rest.
My dad just sat there with his brow furrowed, not even looking up as my mom’s anger broke the mood at the dinner table, sometimes I wonder if my mom is actually my step mom, or maybe I’m just entirely adopted. Seriously where in the world will you find such a family that is always degrading their youngest daughter? Maybe it’s because of my mom’s age she’s nearly 70, which is way too old even in my eyes to be my mom, she’s probably in her late life crisis where she needs to get all her rage out on me, or her menopause that fuels her anger.
I wonder sometimes late at night, why my parents had me at such a late age. They didn’t worry that maybe I will come out all weird or deformed because how old the mom was? They certainly did not think of how I would get made fun of for having such old parents every time there was a parent teacher conference.
Sometimes I just wish it were only my sister Dara and I living together, even though we are 14 years apart, we always have bonded in a way that other sisters never have and never will. Most of the time, Dara consulted me and cared for me like what a mom should have been doing. She always did the best for me and cared for me in a way my mom never has, she always consulted me after my mom’s fits of rage towards me.
My sister’s a nurse at a near by hospital and lives at home sharing a bedroom with me, not because she doesn’t have the ability to move out and get her own place, but because I begged her to not leave me in this hellhole by myself. Maybe it was my selfishness or persistence, I managed to make my sister stay with me for the past 7 years, she and I will finally have a breathe of freedom after I go off to college somewhere far, beyond reach from my parents. That wish will become true because I worked so hard to get good grades and study in order to live away from home.
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I sat front row next to Dara, surrounded by family members I never really cared to remember, I watched as my distance cousin or aunt laid a flower on top of the casket.
I fumbled with my cue cards that outlined what I should say for the speech honored my mom that passed away, according to movies right now I should be wearing dark sunglasses and weak in my family members arms from crying. I tried my best to remember the good times I had with my mom, there weren’t much moments to choose from. I have to admit I have always hated my mom for always yelling and scolding me, I haven’t had much of a conversation with either of my parents after I went off to college. It was just my sister that I kept in contact weekly,
