Chapter 5 — Five Years of Pursuing Love

11Those years were really difficult, countless late night dreams felt like just a nightmare. When my mother married that father, she had a brief period of happiness. At that time, to protect her family and the life she thought was stable, she had to sacrifice me to achieve temporary peace. That man also brought a daughter, two years older than me. In front of him, mother always praised her with beautiful words. And it takes both praising and putting me down to lift her up. She's bad at studying, so mom can praise her for not being a competitive student, unlike me, who's always a bookworm. She spends a lot of money, buys a lot of clothes, mom can praise her for being beautiful, not like me, not like a girl. Things like that are countless. Every day in that house, I couldn't get enough work done. When I come home from school, I have to wash clothes for the whole family and clean the house. When eating, I have to eat leftover food from the previous day, to practice frugality. Until one day, my mother lost twelve hundred dong. As soon as I got home, she pulled me back. Opened my bag and dumped all the stuff out. She held my hand tightly, using all her strength, I was in pain, wanted to struggle but didn't have the strength. The slaps continuously hit my face. She interrogated me like a criminal: "Where did the money go? Where did it go?" I have absolutely no idea where her money is, she doesn't allow me to enter her room. How do I know where that money is? But no one listened to my explanation. When she was tired from slapping, she used a coat hanger to hit her. When the coat hanger broke, she used a broom to hit her. She beat me until I cowered on the floor, like a boiled shrimp, holding my head, enduring her release. I begged her to stop. I said, "Mom, I really don't know! I don't know!" "Mom, can you stop hitting me?" But my plea only made her more excited. Until she was exhausted, until the broom was filled with blood from my nose. When father and son returned, they were frightened by this scene. His daughter then had nightmares for several days. Then she had a high fever, and finally could not bear the psychological pressure, she confessed to her father about the amount of twelve hundred dong. The truth seems to have become clear. But no one needs the truth. My mother turned into a gentle mother, caressing her head: "Silly child, if you need money, tell me! Why don't you give it to me? I'm so scared, it makes me feel so guilty..." I stood next to her, like a passerby, witnessing the scene of "a gentle mother and a filial child." A feeling of disgust rose from my stomach. I rushed out. Just feel uncomfortable all over. I sat down on a flower bed in the neighborhood, scratched my skin and vomited. Couldn't vomit anything. Helplessness overwhelmed me. I don't know how to get out of this situation. "Juvenile," "mother and child" are the words that bonded me to her. She treated me like a chicken, a duck, a fish. That night I didn't go home to eat, but I had nowhere to go. I can only walk around the neighborhood, around familiar streets. But there is no road that leads me to a place of my own. Walk until it gets dark, until the number of people on the road dwindles. In the end I still had to go home. Opening the door, I saw her sitting on the sofa. She looked at me with angry eyes: "Do you still know the way home? Is it useless to raise you? Hit me, you still remember the enemy, if you're good then don't come back..." I didn't know how to answer, in the end her current husband's daughter said she was too noisy. I just entered the smallest room in this house. This house was divided between her and that father after the divorce. That so-called older sister is in my old room

I. And I'm currently in the room where I used to keep my miscellaneous items. Initially they said that this house would be left to me. But now in my house, I can only stay in the storage room. I felt like I couldn't bear it another day. Luc Hac Minh is right. I am an ambitious, scheming person. No one likes me, no one chooses me. No problem. I choose myself. I loathe eating leftovers. I also want to buy nice and clean clothes. I abhor being put down and insulted every day. In the neighborhood, there was a recent case of parents being deprived of custody of their children due to violence. As if my mother's treatment of me wasn't bad enough. That child seemed to have been freed when he fell from a high floor. I stared into the distance from our fourth floor. We live in an old apartment complex with very loose management. The people on the first floor are building a canopy. When school is over, I even help them a little. Hopefully that roof will be sturdy. So that when I fall, it can hold me a little longer! 12Every day after school I look down through the window. The fear of jumping down from here is not equal to a hopeless life. I still think, if I succeed. My mother will be deprived of custody. Who will accept me? Does my father only exist in my distant memory? What if the situation gets worse? Then we will find another way.