I sit close to my mother, what was once an act of comfort now one of curiosity, hovering just outside her comfort zone as I watch the screen expectantly.

At eighteen years old most people would find this very strange behavior, but there’s something you need to know if you are to understand any of this. My Dad has been in the Air Force since before I was born and now he is deployed to Iraq for no less than four months.

He hasn’t been gone like this since my sister was a toddler, and just to give you some perspective, she’s thirteen now.

He’s only been gone a few weeks but it feels much longer. So when mom sat down with the laptop to check If he’d e-mailed us I felt hopeful.

As mom struggled to open an attachment she realized that he was logged on, meaning they could talk through the military messenger equivalent, called ‘portal’.

This drew my attention more than anything, the possibility of maybe getting to talk to him made my heart ache.

I watched intently as mom tried to remember how to log in and then waited impatiently as the first few lines scrolled by.

At about this point she notices me reading over her shoulder.

She wants me to stop, that much is obvious. She tells me her and dad don’t… and leaves the sentence hanging.

By the time she looks up I’m already at the stares, I wonder if I said anything, if I did it was with fake cheer and understanding, With that unfinished sentence a flood of anger and sadness was released and it confused me.

Grabbing a towel and wash cloth I head for the shower, glad my sister doesn’t come out as tears sting my eyes.

I strip down, tossing my clothes to a corner where I know they won’t get wet and step into the shower, letting the hot water wash over my body, it relaxes me, makes me feel better.

But not much, not enough.

I hate crying, I really do, it confuses me and makes me even more self conscious than I already am. But this time the sadness is mixed with a fury that surprises me.

I let myself slide to the floor, sobbing gently as the hot water washes away the tears before they can run down my cheek as I hug my legs to my chest.

As the tears come so does the anger, which builds and quickly surpasses the sorrow, mixing with the tears that now circle the drain a my toes.

The words come then, the ones that I never thought would be spoken aloud now escaped, said in a low, quiet, but powerful tone that I knew could not be heard over the showers spray by anyone but me.
“You and dad don’t what?” I growl, the question I had been aching to ask, “What the fuck don’t you have that I do? What the hell makes you think this is any worse for you than for me? What makes you think I’m any less deserving of his time?”

The edge of my voice grows sharper with each query, the anger finally finding an escape, memories surface, little things that had hurt nonetheless which I had tried hard not to think about.

“How the hell is this harder on you? YOU get to talk to him; you know what’s going on. I’d rather know and be terrified than to worry in ignorance I have no calls to look forward to, no messages waiting for me when I get home, do you think you’re the only one who lay’s awake at night and cries?”

Dad gets two calls a week to call us and we get two calls to talk to him, totaling four every week, he has been gone for quite a few weeks now and I have talked to him all of ones, for no more than four or five sentences, at which point I realized he wanted to talk to mom more and I passed her the phone.

The joy I had felt when I’d heard his voice was amazing, and so very painful. I can suppress any number of thoughts or emotions but not when the cause is thrust so bluntly in my face.

My rant done, the tears and anger had solidified and now sat heavily in my throat, threatening to spill out again given the slightest provocation, with a final sob I quickly washed myself and toweled off.

As I entered my room I felt exhausted in some profound way, my body felt heavy and something more than that was weighing down on me.

I am a wonderful faker, not a liar, but a faker I really suck at lying. I am talented at keeping myself happy when it feels like I am being crushed. I am the cheery, goofy one, that is the role I play and it is easier to fake that role than to admit I hurt.

So even though the resentment still burns just below the surface I smile for my mother and say I love you good night. The words are honest; the love is honest, so is the feeling I put into them. But there is a hurt that she put there without knowing and I never want her to know and by not telling her I feel like I’m lying to her.

But now it is late and the heaviness is not as bad as it once was and I curl up beneath my blankets and turn off the light, and in the pitch black I cry.