I lay my head back against the headrest. My feet perched up on the dash. Tilting my head toward my mom, the most kindhearted woman I know and I am at peace. Her golden hair and illuminating smile spark a warm feeling of home inside me. She sings the Dixie Chicks off-key and a smile creeps onto my face and I begin to sing along. My mom always loved, hard. She always made me feel better about myself because how could such a beautiful, kindhearted woman make anything less? The day was cold and gloomy but inside this car, protected by 3640 lbs of steel was our sanctuary full of warmth. We drove home from a college visit that naturally sparked in both our hearts a feeling of sentiment. She gave my hand a tight squeeze and smiled at me. Naturally, the song ended and the next one began. But this song resonated with me, it made an impact on my life, and every time I heard it all the memories attached to it came fading back. “Strumming my pain with his fingers''. Suddenly my body shut down. Time slowed to a halt. The sanctuary had become a blank void filled with past memories. “Singing my life with his words” I turned my head to my mom and she was singing along to the melody oblivious of my panic. I try to collect myself but internally I am faced with a dilemma that hasn't been on my mind for 6 months. I was frozen, back in a place I once was before. I initially started to tear up and fear echoed throughout my body. “Telling my whole life with his words, killing me softly with his song”. My mind flashed back to a memory I prayed to forget. 

His screams bellowed throughout the car, my stomach instantly dropping. Spit flew from his mouth and threw his crooked yellow teeth. A monster's face morphed from the one I called dad. His face lit up red as if a light in my brain screaming STOP. I placed my shaky hands on the door for support and felt the lock click. I tilted my head against the ice-cold window as burning-hot tears streamed down my face and piled in my sweatshirt. That's the funny thing about tears, they're always moving, they're headed somewhere while we are stuck in our own minds. I can't tell you exactly what he said that day or any time he screamed at me in the car but I had learned over time to cancel out the ear-splitting screams that cut through my ear drum like a knife. I couldn’t help myself from curling into a ball, tucking my knees close to my chest, and rocking ever so slightly like a child. That same song bellowed in the background “killing me softly with his song”. My fingers curled into a tight fist, the whites of my knuckles beginning to show. I finally screamed back hoping for a stop to the noise but it only created a larger rage inside of him. The teardrops from my face began to puddle in my sweatshirt slowly collecting together to form a damp spot. My head pounded as emotions built up inside it, the words of the song burning into my soul.

My father was the kind of man who never believed he was in the wrong. Everything he did had backing or a person who would excuse that backing for him. I was the person who gave him backing for a long time, everything he did was okay because he was heartbroken even after 11 years. Sometimes I don’t understand how my mom stayed with my father for all that time. She left him when I was 5 years old. At that moment I was furious with my mom because she was breaking up my perfect view of my childhood life. I never understood what my mom had to go through until I became that person he was dependent on. After the divorce, my father moved in with my baba, his mother. She treated him how a mother should, she took care of him and did his laundry while he slept on her couch even with a perfectly good bed right up the stairs. My sister Taylor and I lived upstairs in the furnished attic next to my father's “gaming” room. He would stay up until 5 am every night screaming into his headset at fictional characters with guns. Every night we would ask him to quiet down for a wink of sleep but he always shooed us off and continued his fictional war. I miss the man I used to imagine my father was. A facade of my imagination. Don’t get me wrong I was happy with the relationship my father and I had for a while. But once I became the dependent figure in his life and he stopped caring if I ate, slept, or went to school that facade vanished and I saw his true character. My father is a good person. He is not a good father. He is not a good husband. But he is a good person. He doesn't understand the pain he inflicts on people but he makes up for it by throwing money he doesn't have at the situation. 

“I prayed that he would finish, but he just kept right on” My mind focuses back on the current situation instead of looking to better times. I can hold it in anymore. It all floods out. The words I have been bottling up for ages. I can't stop them but he does. He shuts me up with one holler filled with swear words and I am a child again, curling into my ball. His words are cutting through me, ripping me apart. I was as water runs down the side of the window, collecting other droplets as it falls. Even with my vocal pain silenced I can't help but feel it all inside. Parts of my heart rotted from his words, blackening with his screams. I realize no matter what I say and who I am I will never be enough for the man who is supposed to love me unconditionally. 

Tears are streaming down my face as my mom notices, immediately panicking. “Brookie what's wrong,” She says with concerned eyes, searching between mine for an answer. 

I can't do it anymore with dad. I can't. It breaks my heart every time I think of that little girl who was so unprotected and had no voice”

She listens, gripping my hand softly. “I never want to be that kid again, I can’t breathe when I am around him. I walk on eggshells trying to get him to love me as she loves her.” My father has favored Taylor, my sister, my whole life. She's not anything special to anyone else, but I have always found her to be everything I want to be. She is a 5’ 4’ deep brunette with boys surrounding her. She played softball her whole life and my father just ate that up. He loved to compare us and nearly every time favored her.

“It's not her fault that he doesn't and it's not her fault I am not exactly like her. But I can’t stop myself from thinking I will never be good enough for him.” My mom continues to squeeze my hand and tries to keep as much eye contact with me as possible while focusing on the road.

“When has he been a father to me in the past 2 years? I could be dead, I could have cancer, I could be so happy, I could be freaking pregnant. But, dad wouldn’t know any of it because he left me. He has given up every chance he has to be a father to me. I had constant torment and agony of him telling me I wasn't good enough my entire childhood. Do you know what it feels like to hate yourself at 9 years old because your sister is so much better in your own blood's eye? Do you know what it feels like to wake up every morning terrified to get in a car with him? Do you know how long I have been waiting for someone to save me?”. I search her eyes.

“Oh honey, I do know. I can never excuse the things your father does but I can always be here to listen. I understand you. I had to deal with that for a long time and even had to go through what you are right now.” She begins to cry and my heart shatters. “I will never excuse myself for bringing that man into your life and I am so sorry brooke. He broke me for years and I never realized it until it was too late. I will never regret having you two girls, you are my world. Im so sorry hunny.” Her words soothe my panic but can't stop the tears. No one ever listens to me the way my mom does. She doesn't just listen to me she feels my feelings with me and thinks through the process how I would. She tries her very best to understand me and make me feel heard. I never really understood my father until I got older and saw him for who he really was. He was a man scared of the truth. He wrapped himself in a blanket of lies covering the true fact that he was nothing more than a man who still lives with his mother at 47, still never went to college, still sleeps on the couch even though his bed is just upstairs, still screams at his children because he can't scream at his wife anymore because she left him. He will always and forever be the man I despise yet want to impress. I realized that random day on the way home from a college visit I can never be that perfect replica of my sister that he so desperately wants me to be. I can try to copy her movements in the mirror, play the sports she plays, and speak the way she speaks but deep down I can never be her and I am okay with that. I love who I am. I love my quirks and my unathletic ness, and I love how sometimes I can be just a little too loud in a situation because that's who I am. My father doesn't know this girl I have become. He doesn’t know how many times I laugh in a day, he doesn't know how much I dream to be a teacher, and he doesn’t know the care I have for the people around me who want me in their lives. I can’t change my father's opinion of me and I don’t want to anymore. I love who I am and he will never meet her.