I don’t understand. Why me? I don’t deserve this, or need this right now. I don’t feel like thinking, let alone talking, and it seems as though people go out of their way to input, tell me how I should feel. People say it wasn’t my fault, it was an accident, the pain will soon subside, or they understand. The nerve of some people! They understand? Those words make me furious because I know they are untrue. There is no one on the face of this planet that even comes close to understanding how I feel. Actually, they are all lies. It is my fault, it wasn’t an accident, and I will have to deal with the heart-wrenching pain for the rest of my existence.

The pain is well-deserved, I did, after all, kill my father. I killed my own father! What kind of animal am I? I never should have yelled, and he never would have left. Then, the crash would not have happened, and I would never have had to hear those terrible words that no child should ever have to hear. Those terrible words turned my little superficial, selfish world into a living, breathing hell.

We were fighting for some idiotic reason and it went too far. Oh, what I would give to change it now. All I really remember is the very last thing I said to my father.

I hate you.

Those words have been forever branded into my mind. I didn’t mean it, but I didn’t care. He looked as though I had taken a sword to his heart. Soon the surprise and pain turned to pity and sorrow. He then turned to leave, but not without saying something that turned my mind inside-out.

I love you.

All of these thoughts and memories burdened my mind to the point of breaking. I looked for relief in things that I knew would only dig me deeper into this never-ending cycle. Drugs comforted me the way I didn’t think people could. My life was spinning out of control. Everyone knew, but no one could get through the wall I placed in between myself and reality. I could no longer look my baby sister in the eye without danger of losing it. School was no longer in my vocabulary. All of the desperately needed friendships were pushed aside because I insisted on being alone. I was a lost cause, and through my eyes, no one cared.

But, someone was coming through much clearer than others. She was not put off by my rudeness or self-pity. There was something very strange about this person. Her name was Jenny, and she shared something that I vaguely remembered. She said the only way I could ever begin to recover was to talk to someone I could trust, and I told her I knew no one like that. She smiled and wrote an address on my hand. Then she left.

When I pulled up to this odd building, I suddenly became very scared. I began to pull out of the lot and go home when a hand knocked on my window. It was Jenny. She motioned for me to follow her. I got out of my truck and walked beside her toward the building. I looked around and noticed a big wooden ‘t’ in the middle of the lawn. Jenny called it a cross, but I was positive it was a ‘t’. I also saw several fathers with their daughters, which tugged me back into the blackness that I was fighting so hard to keep my head above. I felt as though I would faint, and then Jenny took hold of my arm. She gave me a smile that seemed to say ‘I believe in you, don’t give up.’ A foreign emotion flickered in my core. As I walked through the doors, that feeling enveloped me, making me almost whole.

That feeling was hope.