I’m standing on a stone path. Three roads sit before me. Three choices sit before me. I can feel that this is a dream, but everything is vivid and I know the roads mean something. I feel as if they’re important.
Unwillingly my eyes are forced to look down the first path. I see my parents and my brother. They stand close to each other and they beckon me to come with them. I try to follow, but something restrains me. Thoughts flood my mind.
For years I had sat aside miserably as my parents clung to my younger brother. I was adopted and through my whole life I never felt like I belonged to that family. They neglected me. They still neglect me.
I look down the second road, leaving my family behind. Down this road I see a beautiful city. Immediately I can name it as New York. My parents had taken me there when I was younger, before my brother was born and I had just felt like I belonged there. It became my favorite place in the whole world. I remember every feeling of happiness I had there and I soon try to stride forward towards the beautiful lights and buildings, but my eyes are averted and cast down the third road.
I stare confused down it. There is nothing, absolutely nothing. There is no sky or ground, only black, only darkness. I still look confused down that road. It doesn’t make sense to me. I look down each road once again and I know I must choose. I always have to make a choice.
I look at my family and as much as I think I want to leave them and runaway, I can’t. I long to see New York, to live there, but I know I will never be free. But, staying with my family is too painful. I don’t want to feel that pain of not belonging and feeling unloved. I look down the third road again.
That is my choice. Nothing. As long as there is nothing, I can’t feel anything. Finally, my legs move and I slowly walk down the third road, no longer a forked road…
My name is Eliza Mason. I have been sixteen for the past three years. Three years ago I died. Three years ago I had a dream that changed my life. It gave me a choice and I took the choice of nothing. I committed suicide. But, now I sit miserably aside with not quite something, but not quite nothing. I’m stuck in between the two.
For three years I have sat, immoveable, and watched the lives of my family go by. These years have caused me pain far above any I ever endured while living. Through this time I see that my choice of taking my life wasn’t actually my choice. I made it, but it wasn’t mine to make.
I sit now and watch once again a scene that has played in my families’ lives multiple times. My mother sits in my room, alone. My dad is at work and my brother is still at school. She does this every afternoon.
She sits there now, silent and emotionless. She sits on my bed and picks up a picture of me on the nightstand. Slowly, she strokes the glass and a small tear runs down her face. Eventually she starts to shake violently and her mouth opens, but I hear nothing.
That is another pain I must face through this time. My eyes are unable to blink so I witness every second of my families’ lives, but I can’t hear anything. I hear only silence. I see their mouths move, but no sound makes it to my ears.
I see my mother screaming and I feel as if I can almost hear her. She lies down on my bed and holds the frame to her chest. For another hour she sits there crying until her tears finally run dry. She then sets the picture back and wipes her face. She leaves the room and shuts the door slowly.
Another scene I witness every so often is my families weekly “get together”. Every Monday they sit together in the living room and they turn on a movie, my favorite movie. Silent tears always run down my dad’s cheeks, tears and shaking with my mom. Though my brother now just sits with emotionless eyes he once would sob into my mom’s shoulder.
Every day I experience new and old things, but every time I see it they cut deep into me. I may not be able to hear, but I can feel more than I have ever been able to feel before. I can even cry and I do most of the time. Every time I see my family cry I cry with them.
I never would have thought my family loved me so much. I had always felt as if they had neglected me, that because I was adopted I didn’t actually belong to their family. I was wrong though.
I did belong and I still do. They have never forgotten me, I see that every day. My mother sitting in my room every afternoon. My father silently looking at a picture of me in his wallet while at work. Even my brother has a picture of me sitting in his locker at school. He doesn’t even try to hide it. He evens shows it off to his friends.
I sit here every day and every night, looking at the love my family had and still has for me. I feel deep regret and more pain than I have ever felt. I love them, and I know I chose the wrong road. The first road was always the right one to take; I just didn’t sit to think if it really was. I refused to ever think that it was the right path. But, now I know it was and I will never be able to go back. I will forever sit by and watch with a broken heart as my family still loves me and keeps me in their broken hearts.
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