She doesn't know.

“You don't know! Look, she is not as good as you think. She behaves like that just because you are here.”

“What do you mean? Don't say such a thing about your sister! You are the one who never help me. It's up to you if you don't like her, but remember that she is your sister. Don't make her a scapegoat!”

“Scapegoat? Please, you know she has problem—a mental problem. Why does it make you blind!?”

“Blind!? Young Lady, watch your words! You are talking to your mother now!”

“I know. I AM sorry!”

“Bailey Robinson!”

“You just don't know! Why do you never listen to me!? Just once! Please, listen to me!”

“Okay, I'm listening!”

“I've tried to hold back from whatever she did when you were not home. But now, I can't hold it anymore. She is a monster.”

“Bai—“

“Ssh! You've promised. Look, you gave us tasks. She cooked, I washed the dishes. She washed the laundry, I cleaned the whole room. But, if you think she did it all well, you're wrong. If her mood is not good, she would cook for herself and I must cook for myself. She would make everywhere dirty, while I must clean her mess again and again. She worked for herself. She didn't care about me. She doesn't care.”

“Look, Honey. You know what's going on. You know she—“

“I know! Stop! Don't remind me about it! I don't want to care anymore! Do you think I can take it all!? I could then, but no more. You only have her in your mind, heart, life... I am like nothing to you. I'm not angry with you. I'm angry with her... and with your way to give her attention she needs. If she's around, I can't feel your love. It's different.”

“Why don't you say it directly, instead of making a cheap drama like that?” William stops my imagination.

I turn my head. He doesn't see me. He is concentrating with the book in his hand, which he's read on my bed now. I sigh. “I can't do that, William. She will not listen.”

“Who knows?” William doesn't move from his book. “She is your mother. You know she loves you. Moreover, it's your fault too if you express your anger to her. You should express it directly to Kaitlin.”

I want to say something to argue, but I don't. “No, William. I think... I too hate her that I don't want to make any conversation with her. I feel alone, you know? I need help. But if I tell my parent about what she had done when they weren't home, they'll think I'm a tattle-tale. She'll get the 'throne' in their heart. I'll be dumped.”

I can see William stop reading. He puts his book and now sits on the edge of my bed. “Okay, so the monologues you just said are really monologues, huh? What's your plan?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. I don't know what to do. I can't tell my mother, nor my father, but I can't hold it anymore.”

“You know what you need? A hideaway. I think you need your heart and your mind. I can leave you both alone.”

“What?”

“Trust me, you need more time to think.”

William leaves the room.

***

I take a walk at the park, alone. Few days ago, I began a war toward my mother. This all started when my sister, Kaitlin, came home from out of town. She has ADHD, and I remember once when my mother found out about it, she immediately changed her attitude toward Kaitlin. She immediately did everything to Kaitlin—pour all her love and attention, and I was asked to understand the situation. I could understand, but the more days left, I thought Kaitlin used the opportunity to take all the attention of my parents, especially my mother, and I started to hate her. My mother always compliment, protect, and do everything to please Kaitlin.

I know it's my fault if I talked rudely to my mother just because I was angry. I deeply regret it. But, every time I want to be better, there's always Kaitlin's attitude that made me angry again. I only want one thing: she leaves. Stay with her just makes my life's more messed up. I think, the only way out is to live in different places. She leaves, or I'll leave.

Something makes me stumble, interrupts my thoughts. I turn my head and find a girl looks at me with a guilty face. It's my schoolmate, Keke. “Sorry,” she says, “are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” I smile to her. Keke pulls her foot out of the way—the foot that made me stumbled. “I'm okay, don't worry.”

Keke shifts slightly on a park bench, motions for me to sit down. “You can sit here, Bailey. I'm truly sorry.” Some people told me before that Keke was changed. She was a girl who was popular for her bad attitude in school, but reportedly she was getting enlightened when she met her cousin who was imprisoned. It has proved to me that it's not only a rumor.

“Thank you, Keke.” I sit next to her.

“What were you thinking?” she asks. “You were daydreaming, weren't you?” Keke looks at my eyes. Her big dark brown eyes catch mine. It's like she traps me with her sight. “Do you have a problem? You can talk to me.”

She is incredibly changed, I say to myself. But I'm not a kind of person who is easy to tell everybody about my problem. I can't tell Keke about it. “No, it's nothing.” I take my eyes from her. I smile, try to change the topic. “By the way, what are you doing here?”

At first she is still trying to catch my eyes, but then she follows my gaze toward the pond and says, “I'm waiting for David. We'll have lunch together. You want to join us?” she turns her head to me and smiles.

“I—“

“Hey, Keke,” David appears from the same direction as mine. “Well, hello, Bailey. What's up?” David is Keke's best friend. He was a bad boy before, but he was getting enlightened, same as Keke. They're a match couple, I think.

I smile to him. “Not much. Just took a little walk.”

“Well, that's good. Keke, are you ready?” David goes from me to Keke. He seems remember something. He turns to me again and says, “Hey, have you had lunch, Bailey? Why don't you join us to have some lunch?”

“I don't know, I—“

“Ah, come on,” Keke takes my arm and pull it. “It's good to have lunch with friends.”

In the end, I give up and follow them. We stop at a cheap restaurant. According to my knowledge, David and Keke always come out with Cole and Amber. They were known as a gang with their bad behavior. But, this afternoon it seems only two of them.

"You're not with Cole and Amber? It's usually four of you." I open up a conversation while waiting for our order.

They both stare at each other. David who replies first, "Yes, it's usually four of us, but Amber is now more often hanging out with her friends in the cheerleaders club."

"While Cole... we haven't seen him in recent days. I don't know, I heard he was going to move," Keke continues.

I nod and don't ask anything else. I've heard about the changes in Keke and David, also Amber who is currently active as a cheerleader, but I haven't heard anything about Cole. I actually also don't really care.

Our orders come, and we begin to eat. In the middle of lunch, Keke reopen the conversation. She says, "People are talking about us, right?"

"Huh?" I swallow the food in my mouth.

"That we changed. They talk about it, don't they?"

Now David is also looking at me with a mouthful of food.

I sigh and smile. "Yes, a bit. But it's not a bad discussion. They appreciate you guys change towards the better. Actually I'm surprised and amazed at you guys as well. How could you change that fast?"

David and Keke smile to each other.

“It's not that quick, Bailey,” David replies. “We've been through so many things. We've been so rude to our parents, we've been so bad to our friends and people around us. It's very hard to explain, but—“ David pause for a moment. Nobody interrupt. I can see something in David's eyes. “—I just can't see my mother dies because she has a bad boy like me.”

Everybody knows David's mother has cancer. David was very bad boy, and that was all what people knew about him. I don't know that he loves his mother so much. But I can see a sincere love in his eyes. That's a true love that I see in his eyes.

“Mother is our true love,” Keke says. “I'd ever curse my mom to die. That was the most terrible thing I've said to her. You might have known about my cousin, Kimberly. She said it was so bad to be in jail, and she missed her mother so much. I thought about it, thought about all I've done before, that I could go to jail if I got caught doing something bad, and that I wouldn't have anybody to protect me in jail. Kimberly said I must thought about my mom, listen to her, respect her, and imagine if one day she pass away and I'm not there for her. I would lose my world, I wouldn't have anything.”

“Mother is our world,” David stare at his plate.

Nobody continues to eat. We're drowning in our own minds. I thought about it too. Suddenly, I remember what William ever said to me long time ago:

“You know what the wise man said? The pleasure of God lies in the pleasure of the parents, and the wrath of God lies in the wrath of the parents.”

“So,” I say. “Now you stop the war toward your parents? How—“ I swallow. “—can you do it so easily?”

David chukles softly. “It's not easy. I'm in process too. I still often quarreled with my parents, even my mother, but I never want to keep the anger too long. I try, try, and try to show them that I can be a son they proud of. I—we—express our anger in other ways.”

“Other ways?”

“Keke writes songs,” David turn to Keke.

Keke nod and smile. “David joins the automotive club. We think, we must distribute our anger for positive things.”

“You'll be easily tired if you keep your anger. Moreover, I think if we keep the anger too long, not try to let it go, we'll make it bigger.”

“Sometimes you need to stop. You need to switch your mind to something that will make you forget the anger. Sometimes I call David and we talk about everything that's not related to the anger.”

“Actually, we try everything to make the anger controlled.”

I see faces in front of me. Two smile faces, happy faces, bright life faces.

I feel embarrassed. I feel so tiny.

***

Back at home, my mother is just coming home. “You've washed the dishes, Honey?” she asks.

“Yes,” I smile. After the conversation with David and Keke, I immediately also want to change myself like them. I want to be a better daughter.

She doesn't react to my smile. She doesn't even smile to me. I'm sad for this, but suddenly I can hear William whispers to my ear, “Don't let it put you down. It's a process, okay?”

I nod, take a deep breath, and sigh. “Okay,” I whisper back to him.

***

I'm folding napkins in the living room. Kaitlin is eating on the sofa, watching TV. My father hasn't been home.

“Bailey, please help me clean this mess,” my mother calls me from the kitchen. “A cat jumped on the window and broke some plates.”

“Okay, wait a minute,” I say.

“Mom, Bailey is still sitting there, not moving to help you,” Kaitlin says with a typical tone of a true tattle-tale.

I grab the napkin in my hand, try to hold back my anger. My mom doesn't say anything as well. That's when I realize that my mom knows the problem. She understands Kaitlin's problem. She knows what to do.

“Do like what your mother does,” William whispers in my ear again. “Just ignore her. Don't let the anger controls you. It's your anger. Control it.”

I nod and continue folding the napkins. I help my mom right after I'm finish with the napkins.

***

“You did it so well, Bailey,” William smiles to me when I'm about to go to bed.

“Thanks, but it's just the beginning,” I respond his smile. “I still have a long way to go. At least, I can try to control my emotion now. Don't be easily caught by one's attitude, right?”

“That's right,” William nods like a proud father. “So, you don't hate Kaitlin anymore?”

I pause a while before reply, “I don't know. I think I still hate her. Until I can bury all the hatred, I think I will ignore her if she try to annoy me. And about my mother, I think however she treats Kaitlin, I'm going to keep acting as her daughter. Maybe not the perfect one, but only the true one. Thanks for helping me, William.”

William walks toward me with a soft bright smile. “It's not me, Bailey. It's you.”

I close my eyes and find a little peace in my dream tonight.

***