When I Was Fifteen

 

When I was fifteen, I saw my mother cry hysterically and my father yell ferociously. I sat nervously pressed against my locked bedroom door as I heard glass break against the tile floors and doors slam so hard the windows shook. The chaos behind my strawberry frosting colored door was louder than the rapid beating of my breaking heart. I don’t exactly know where it went wrong or why their love diminished, but that day I learned that love wasn’t invincible. The next day my father stood at the front door with his clothes packed in a duffle bag and asked me to choose sides. When I chose my mother he stopped calling, he stopped visiting–he stopped being my father. That day I learned that words dig deeper than knives and that they can leave the biggest scars. In the end, I learned that the people you love don’t always stay.