It frustrates me because I imagine her incessantly and ponder on how she would deal with my everyday situations. She is so prominent in my thoughts that I feel as if she should have a name. How about Alexa? The name people call me when they don’t remember mine; Alexia. Even her name is perfect-- it doesn’t need to be autocorrected like mine. She’s close enough to be me, but she is not: Alexa is just pure imagination.
I wonder what she would have done when my mom came into my home, the home that I once called my grandmother’s, with tears in her eyes and bruises that the blind could have seen. I just sat there, straight-faced and quiet, listening to her talking to her closest friends about her boyfriend at the time-- how he dragged her down two flights of stairs, how she submissively pleaded for help, to her closest friends. My skin was boiling, my veins felt like were popping, and my brain was tearing apart. My heart ached from the same bruises that my mother wore. The torture I felt while she recounted the events.
       

I wonder what Alexa would have done. She wouldn’t have listened to the the conversations constant silence. She would have said something. She definitely wouldn’t have let this boyfriend, who looked like a criminal in a white man’s eyes, come back inside of her home like I did. It took two and a half weeks, which must’ve felt like years to Romeo and Juliet, for him to skip into my mother’s arms, bruised and forgiving. She also probably wouldn’t have felt resentment for her mother or called her stupid. I blamed my mom for loving a man who wasn’t my father.
         

Once I only had love for my father. He is a short man, but always came across as the tallest man I’d known, but the more pain he put me through, the smaller he would get. He dreamed and always expressed those dreams. Everyone held it against him; what was a forty-something year-old man dreaming for, anyway? They always made it seem as if he was crazy or stupid, and at times, I would believe them. Alexa wouldn’t have let those people indoctrinate her into thinking that my dad was unintelligent. She wouldn’t have just as much deploration for her dad as love for him.
        

He left my sister and I on my oldest sister’s doorstep with unrepentance and the woman, who was a cause of my parent’s separation. My body trembled and ached with every step I took towards my sister’s door. A deep chasm opened in my heart, and he wasn’t able to fix it. There was only one thing I could think: I am never going to see him again, after all, you can hardly ever see an ant. I didn’t know if I should love him or hate him, so I did both. I bet Alexa would have decided between love or hate.
          

Here I am, always seeking attention and thinking of a girl who doesn’t. I don’t know who I am, but maybe Alexa would know.