By Emma Delahanty

The Other Side: Honorable Mention

“Do you really need that right now?” she hissed. 

After the words left her mouth, it felt like time stood still, as everyone looked at me waiting for my reply. I felt naked, the invisible line had been crossed. As the five of us stood on the corner of Waverly and Broadway, with the rain splashing on us, I felt like I only had three options: (1) continue and pretend like nothing happened, (2) go to the shop and get the forbidden drink, or (3) go home. I chose three. As I said my goodbyes, and turned towards the train station, my heart raced, hoping that someone would come after me, that no one would let me leave alone. Of course, no one did. So, I left, waiting for the local N, cold, wet, and alone. 

I arrived to the lifeless place that I used to call home, but now it’s just a house, a place that I sleep, and continued to wait for something to change. I took a burning shower and poured myself a drink. I sat on the couch where the cushion sinks in, covered with my safety blanket, safety drink in hand, and pressed the first movie that popped up on Netflix. My eyes were glued to the screen, but my mind was somewhere else. I was drowning in my thoughts. A death, a divorce, a daughter who continues to pressure me, it was all becoming too much, I couldn’t take it anymore. So, I did what I’ve always done, I sat, and I drank, and I waited for all my problems to go away, but as I soon learned, they wouldn’t, this time no amount of liquor could take the pain away. 

My eyes where closing, until I heard the locks on the door click open, and my heart started to pound, fearing what to say. Then I heard her giggle, as she took off her shoes, and it felt like the eruption finally came. I felt angry. I hated that she treated me as though I was below her, I hated that she wanted to be the adult but didn’t understand the first thing about marriage let alone divorce, and most of all I hated that she couldn’t hold my hand as I cried the way I held hers. With her blank eyes she looked at me, waiting for me to say something, and at first, I didn’t, I let her walk away, but then she came back. “Why did you leave today?” she asked me. It felt like an explosion. 

I felt my cheeks turn red, my heart began to pace, and it was a challenge to hold the tears in, but I had to. “Why did I leave? I left because for the past month your nagging and comments made me go mad. I am tired of you pretending that you know better, I am tired of you thinking that I don’t know how to control myself. I am an adult. I have held my tongue long enough. I am tired of it all. This was the one day that I could go out, see friends, just forget, and you ruined it. You do what you always do, care only about yourself.” 

I think at the end I started to yell, but that was the only way to keep the tears from falling. I don’t know if I meant everything I said, but as she stared at me with the same blank eyes, I knew that what was said needed to be said. She left, no words spoken, and hibernated in her room. As I sat in the living room, I wished that I had a room that I could go to hibernate in, a place that I could call my own. But as I looked at the two closed doors, one to my daughter’s  room and the other to my now ex-husband’s room, I realized I only had the couch that was falling apart. The openness of the room, which connects to the kitchen and the hallway, made it seem like eyes were all over me, even though I was alone. So, I sat silently letting the tears fall, as I listened to the creeks in the floorboard so that no one would catch me. 

The next day I did what anyone would do, I called my mom. I needed my mommy to listen to me, to tell me that everything was going to be all right.  Instead, what she told me was that my daughter is the monster that she is because she is the pure copy of me. So that night, I called my daughter into the living room, and we sat, the two monsters, in our own world, in our own pain, never to talk about the situation again.