All I Want

Carla remembers the day her life turned upside down, a day etched in her memory bank, a day that occasionally flashed behind her eyelids when closing her eyes at night in discomfort, cradled against the pavement and stone wall of a dilapidated building that stood longer than she’d been alive. Clutching a sheer sheet to gather warmth from the elements, the sky darkened as night fell, pinpricks of light decorating and designing patterns across the sky. The city began to bustle with life, conversations with intermittent laughter of men and women blending together, creating a vibrant hum that funnily enough eased Carla’s anxiety. It was when the silence came that her anxiety would skyrocket. Silence meant she was alone. Alone in a world that had thrown her out. Thrown her out to be forgotten. To become nothing. To be swallowed by the darkness and disappear.

She squeezed her eyes tight, shaking her head as the memory of that day wiggled free, easing out from the depths of her soul, showing her that horrible, horrible day. Again. A day her parents, the ones who should love her unconditionally, regardless of her shortcomings, of any disagreements and differences, had angrily confronted her, dismissing her ‘choices’ in life.

She’d been wrong about her parents. So wrong.

“Mom. Dad. I need to speak with you. It’s very important,” Carla motioned for her parents to take a seat. She needed them to be relaxed and comfortable because she was about to confess her inner being, her secret long kept, and expose it to the two people who had nurtured and raised her. Everything would change when she let the words slip out. She’d practiced her dialogue for weeks until she felt she was ready.

“Well, what is it honey?” her father asked, concern marring his features.

“Is this about you moving away for college?” Carla’s mother asked, “because if it is, it’s normal. But don’t worry, honey. We’re a phone call away if you need anything.”

Carla smiled, her mom’s remark encouraging her to speak her truth before leaving to start the rest of her life.

“No, that’s not it. Well, not all of it. I need to tell you something. Something I’ve been hiding from you both, but since I’m leaving and I won’t see you guys all the time, I feel that I must reveal it.” She took a deep breath, settling her nerves and focusing her attention on her parent’s faces as the words slipped past her lips, “I’m gay…I like girls”

Her father was the first to speak, “...what!?” He shifted in his seat to get closer to Carla, “Honey, is this a joke?” Her father’s features morphed from concern to exasperation, a gleam of light shining in his eyes.

“Of course, it is, hun,” her mother’s voice danced nervously, trying to appease her husband’s growing anger at a seemingly naïve joke from their grown daughter.

“No, I’m not joking, mom. This is who I am. Haven’t you ever wondered why I never had a boyfriend? Why I have never talked about any crushes,” Carla spoke hesitantly, but with conviction. She had accepted herself. She just needed her parents acceptance, too.

“You just haven’t met the right boy, honey,” her mother chuckled, “once you do, you’ll come out of this phase you're having. You’ll get married, have children and wonder why you even thought of this silly nonsense.”

Carla could feel anger boiling within, prickling her skin from beneath and traveling along her chest to reach her face, covering her cheeks with heat. “NO! It is not a phase. I’ve known I liked girls since I was a child. It won’t just go away. This is me. Your daughter. I’m still the same person. The only difference is that you know I like girls.” She inhaled a breath through her nostrils, quieting the growing ember of outrage.

“...Get out….get out now!” her father who’d remained silent during her mother’s tirade uttered first, then screamed at the top of his lungs, “no daughter of mine will disgrace this family’s name. I want you out tonight! You hear me!” Her father glared at her as if she was a complete stranger, someone who happened to walk into the wrong house. An intruder who had encroached the boundaries of his home, and was ready to defend his territory.

Shocked, flabbergasted at her father’s angry response, Carla could only stand unsteadily on her feet, her heart plummeting to the floor as she crossed the living room to her bedroom to pack a few of her belongings. One of them her most precious belonging, a little black book that contained all of her thoughts, all of her secrets and musings, her desires, her dreams engraving each page. Carla wanted to collapse in despair, a numbness beginning to sink into the pit of her stomach at the reality of her situation. Her parents were abandoning her. No, they had abandoned her. Kicking her out to live in the streets, knowing she had nowhere else to go and no money to pay for shelter. She held her tears in, an effort that took all her self restraint to remain calm given her dire situation.

With a few clothes to last a couple days, a thin sheet to cover her in recent warm nights and some necessities to maintain cleanliness, she walked out the front door with no goodbye, no acknowledgement of her departure from the only home she ever knew. Just silence.

An uptick of wind blew past Carla’s legs, lifting the thin cover from her ankles, the cold air of early winter’s icy skeleton hands reaching out to drag her down death’s door. Coming out of deep sleep, the remembered past fading rapidly as she became conscious of her surroundings, her imagination envisioned an old wizened man, bent at the knees with hunched shoulders and a sickly pallor of blue mottled skin, inducing a shiver to run from her ankles up to her chest. Carla snapped her eyes open, promptly searching around her with a keen awareness, relaxing only when she deemed her current environment safe.

Sitting with her knees against her chest and her hands on her cheeks, she placed her head against her knees and let out a long sigh. She couldn’t stay here for long. With winter nearing, she was endangering her life, the possibility of hypothermia fast on her mind, with another current of icy wind dragging against her exposed skin. Gathering her meager belongings, she made her way to the local library, an attempt to hunt and secure a job, any job to get out of her present condition. Walking a distance not far from her night’s dwelling, she crossed the entrance into the small but crowded library. A few individuals clustered together turned their faces away from her appearance, another shaking their head, a reproachful look covering his features.

Carla ignored the degrading looks from the ignorant individual, stepping towards an empty computer spot and seated herself, focusing her mind on the agenda ahead: apply to as many jobs as she could in the limited time the library allowed on their computers. She roughly had up to two hours before one of the librarians uprooted her from her spot, proclaiming library policies being upheld, but she knew underneath all of the polite mannerisms they exhibited that she was being judged for her appearance, and she couldn’t blame them. It’d been awhile since she had a good bath and her clothes had gone through an ordeal since leaving her home, with spots of ketchup and mustard decorating the side of her loose black T-shirt and threads popping out from the seams, leaving holes to expose parts of her hidden body.

Logging into her accounts, she spent the first half hour clicking back and forth between job applications, inputting information about herself that was readily available, but having a hard time supplying the essentials. She did not have them, being a homeless young adult with no help besides shelters that only bestowed limited supplies that were available through donations. She had no home address or a phone number to give, a requirement in most, if not all job applications.

Carla closed her eyes, silently praying to whoever was listening for a helping hand, anything to get her on her feet, to give her a sign that there were better days ahead for her, and that this was only a minor hiccup. Inwardly sulking that no one was listening, she shook her head and regained her focus on the computer screen. Scrolling through the web, searching for more applications, an ad grabbed her attention, her eyes trained on the words. ‘ARE YOU A WRITER? But don’t think you’re good enough...Have you let those dreams die? This is your sign! We are currently searching for new writers. Enter the contest by submitting a portion of your manuscript and if you win, you are guaranteed $20,000 and a contract with our publishing company. Don’t let those dreams whither, PURSUE THEM. We’re waiting for you.’ At the center of the ad was a hand reaching out, almost as if it was reaching down to help someone up. Tears sprung from under her eyelids, a sense that this was the sign she was just praying for.

Mustering her strength to keep her composure, she wiped her eyes with her right arm, bending down from her chair to bring up her bookbag. Within it held her dying dream, one that she had clutched to during the first few days after being abandoned. As time passed, those dreams faded, survival kicking into full gear as worry of where her next meal and shelter would be. In her bag, laid a small black book containing words from her previous life. Cracking it open to the first page and placing it before her on the desk, she opened a word document and began typing away, transferring every word written across the pages into the document. An hour later, she managed to type a large portion of her journal, saved the document and sent it to the listed email address provided on the advertisement.

With a few minutes to spare, she searched for a few more applications to fill out, but her mind was exclusively on her little black book. Her hopes and dreams had just been laid bare, exposed to strangers to read and judge. Had she made a mistake?

Two weeks had passed since her writing submission, but it preyed on her thoughts every day, images of strangers snickering at her as she walked by, people who had delved into her manuscript and laughed at the audacity of her thinking she was a capable writer. Today was the day a decision would be reached by the publishers, a day she had come to dread. Negative thoughts reverberated and bounced around in her head as she made her way slowly to the small library. There she found the room’s occupancy minimal and thanked her lucky stars that there would be no audience to another one of her failures.

Grabbing a chair, she took a seat before the computer and logged into her email account, where a new email awaited her, producing an overwhelming sense of anxiety overtaking her body. Shifting the mouse to overlay the icon, she clicked the email open and read silently.

A few moments later, a smile began to appear on her features, a smile that had not made an appearance since after her predicament. She could feel the anxiety melting, transforming into an excitement. An excitement of her new future, one where she was accepted for who she was. That was all she wanted. Acceptance. And this miracle before her eyes gave her that.

“This is all I want,” Carla mumbled to no one in particular, “Thank you!” Carla hugged herself, thinking back to her journey here, her strength to persevere to reach this point and thanked herself silently.