Chapter 1

There was a girl who’s tired of living; her family situation was a total mess. When her parents met each other, her mother was already taking care of her cousin. They eventually fell in love and her father also accepted the baby that she was raising and so did his family. After talking it out to each other’s families, they finally planned their wedding. A few months later they became a married couple and had a girl as their second child.

Her name was Angel Cruz. …..That’s how my life started obviously. Oh, about my cousin? They told me to address him as an older brother because he’s my brother by paper. I didn’t care if he’s not my brother by blood and we’re still cousins anyways, and besides, I always regard him as my one and only older brother. We were a happy family until my brother became a teen and my dad and mom got older. My dad would always fight with my brother and my mom would always cry. They would send him to our uncle’s place, and after months had passed they would say sorry to each other. I mean, that’s normal, right? Happens to every family, especially to Asians.

But that wasn’t the case; this happens every year just because dad would make the same mistake over and over again and chose to tell himself that he’s always right, because he’s the parent, the adult, and my brother’s just a teen who hadn’t even turned 18. I’m not saying that my brother didn’t make mistakes either; what I’m saying is that not all children or teens are the same, so don’t think that the way they disciplined you back in your days will work on your children as well in this generation. That’s just stupid, they kept on comparing the children back in their days and the children now. We live in a different generation now; don’t expect that everything is the same as the old generations. They kept on complaining about the children of this generation. It’s not even our fault that we got born into this generation where everything is toxic.

Nonstop blame for technologies and social media. They didn’t even notice that they’re also the ones at fault, sometimes or most of the time. It’s okay to make mistakes, that’s it’s normal unless you’re God or something; what’s not alright is not accepting reality.

So this has happened to my brother for the past….3-4 years of his life (the non-stop fighting). He wanted to leave that house no matter what; that he even threatened my uncle and mom to pick him up/let him leave or else he would commit suicide. I pretty much expected that, cause who wouldn't be tired, right? That night before he left the house, we watched some anime together. He warned me that the same thing would happen to me when I got older.

I told him that I knew that I was gonna end up in the same situation and that I wasn’t dumb as they think I am. I was just 12, so I told him that I’m just doing my best to act like how a 12-year-old would act and just go with the flow so that it’s not that obvious when I slowly start to show how introverted and emotionless I became so that they would think that it’s just part of “puberty”.

We tried to open up to them a lot of times back then, but they always shut us out and in the end, they’ll get mad at us; that’s when we realized that no matter what we do, our situation won’t change.

One day it happened again and it’s normal for us, but of course that doesn’t mean that we’re not getting tired and didn’t do any damage to our mental health- no, actually, you know what? They don’t even believe in depression, anxiety, and mental-related stuff, and so did we, because adults always say that it’s all “bullsh3t”. When my brother was staying at our uncle’s house, I happened to overhear my mom and dad’s conversation. It was about my brother’s studies.

Dad didn’t want my brother to continue studying. Mom eventually asked dad if they could talk about this because it’s my brother’s education that they’re talking about. My dad got angry, and because of his anger he shouted “then find that bastard!” I was shocked. I already had an idea about the situation, but I still continued on listening to their conversation cause their hella loud and just to be sure. My heart was pounding at that time and I was about to cry. My mother then replied as she shouted “You don’t know anything that had happened back then; you don’t know how much I’ve been through!” He then shouted at my mother “I don’t care!”. Then I heard my mother shouting her lungs out, and at that moment, I knew that my “cousin”, brother by paper, was actually my brother by blood. I couldn’t help but cry. I mean, I was 12. I was so angry at dad as I recalled a bad memory. How could he do that? Even if he’s not his child from blood, my brother still thinks of him as his own father, and he regarded him as his son.

The worst fight that they got into, which was recently before my brother left. It was when dad was about to explode when my brother decided to not do anything and just sleep 24 hours every day because he was so fed up with everything. He almost had thought of beating my brother where my brother could’ve died.

After a few days, they said sorry to each other and everything went back to how it used to be. My brother also gets to continue his studies at our uncle’s place. I felt bad for mom, she- no, they’ve been like this ever since they had me…..I know it’s sad I felt like I was the one who ruined everything and wondered how they would look like if I hadn’t been born, but of course, it wasn’t my fault at the same time because it’s not like I begged them to make “me”. Mom can’t leave dad because she loves him, even though she and her children are suffering. Don’t get me wrong, dad’s nice; the only thing that’s not nice about him is the way he thinks when we’re in these kinds of argument/fight situations.

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