Do angels exist in the world? What about God? Because without God, there can be no angels.

    Then what was she?

    Once upon a time, although it was short-lived, Krystal believed in God. She believed in going to churches every Sunday morning, praying before dinner, praying before sleeping and praying for a good day when she woke up tangled beneath her warm sheets every morning. She had complete and unshaken faith in what the bible taught, and everything that her parents had told her when she questioned about Christ Himself.

    There was a time, when she simply believed.

    But there was also a time, when that belief of hers turned its back on Krystal and slammed its door in her face. It turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the wailing girl at the other side as she banged her soft, tiny hands on the closed door until they started to bleed, until her heart started to give out upon realization that everything she had ever depended on and put her faith in, was nothing but a big, fat lie.

    The nightmare began after the abrupt death of her mother. She was a child at the time, so young that she hadn't grasped on the concept of death just yet. And everything had happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly that it all came to her as nothing but a big blur. She remembered asking her father on her mother's whereabouts and what she was doing. And she remembered that all she ever got as a reply was more sobs, and more wailing. And how they never stopped. Even when she didn't bring her mother up in a conversation with her father, he would just break down into a crying mess out of the blue and start bringing his fist up towards the dry wall of their apartment.

    Occasionally, on what felt like better days, he would reach out his trembling arms, pull her close until she could feel the intake of sharp breaths of her father down her neck and how his tears used to wet her shirts while he caressed her locks. Then, she would hear him say in the softest, most quiet whisper, "Kryssie, she's not coming back. Your mommy, she's not coming back."

    Krystal at the time, didn't and couldn't comprehend her father's confusing words or why he was speaking to her in that manner. All she saw through her naive eyes was a big, grown man of six and half feet tall, crouched like a dying person next to what used to be her mother's favorite couch with a hand over his chest, gripping into the fabric of his shirt tightly like that part of the shirt hurt, like that part of his body hurt. And that the pain was so unbearable, he could do nothing else but hold onto himself, or at least attempt to. Krystal would always run up to his side, put a hand on his back and rub up and down, asking him not to cry, but he never listened.

    As she got older, many things became clearer to her. Her memory, filled with pictures and thoughts that didn't used to make sense to her, slowly fit into everything else like a puzzle piece that was missing all along. She realized then, when her father told her that her mother wasn't coming back, he failed to mention that he wouldn't be either.

    Because when her mother left, so did a big part of her father. And unfortunately for young Krystal, it was the part that made her father a father that went out through the front door and never came back.

    And so, the drinking began. Then, the unemployment. Then, the apartment evacuation. Then, the move. Then, more drinking. Then, the beating. Then... 

    It was horrible. And torturous. And hellish. If Krystal had to paint a picture of how hell looked like, it would be the one-room apartment that her father had dragged her into and forced her to call it her home.

    She had no privacy in there. No room to hide, no corner to silently cry at. It was a small, cramped space with a puny-looking single bed and a divider that lead to what civilized and privileged people would call a bathroom, but in Krystal's awful reality, it was just a dirty toilet bowl, shower, sink and mirror stuck to one of the four walls of the apartment, hid behind a big, white-colored mounting board. 

    In harsher but never the more truth-telling words, Krystal ate, slept, pooped and showered in the exact same room. Her father though, was never home enough to do all that other than the sleeping part, so she practically had the whole place to herself, when she was lucky. When she was really, really lucky.

    At times when her father took his leave late in the evening to only return a few days later, he would lock the apartment door and take the brass key with him. When he remembered, he would leave some crackers around, but other times he just left without so much as a word. However, that still put Krystal at ease, knowing that she'd be all alone in the apartment with nothing around that could put her life or body in jeopardy. 

    She didn't care if she had to go days without eating, at least there was water, and her hunger was almost always overshadowed by her relief of being alone. But like life, all good things come to an end.

    Krystal dreaded the moment when she could hear the horrible jingling of her father's key outside the apartment door. She always waited in paralyzing fear for him to find the right key after much fumbling around and to insert it into the metal keyhole. As soon as the door opened and the heavy boots of her father stepped into the bare apartment floor, Krystal had to prepare herself for two possible outcomes. 

    One, he stuffs his keys into his front pocket and shuffles his way to the bed until his feet hit into one of the leg stand and he drops onto the dusty spring mattress, his dead weight making a loud thud as he came in contact with the bed. 

    Two, he stuffs his keys into his front pocket and shuffles his way around the apartment until he finds Krystal pushed up against one of the walls, body trembling with fear and drags her by the hair until they reach the bed and he forcibly pushes her down onto it.

    Krystal never tried to run. She never tried to escape. Where would she run to? Where would she escape to? All that would ever come face to face with were the dreadful grey cemented walls of her apartment or the ugly, brown leather belt held between the cruel fingers of her father.

    There was a no way out. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. There was no angel sent from the heavens above.

    At least not until she met her.

    It was only because of her, that Krystal had started to mend the holes in her faith. And it was only because of her, that Krystal had started to believe again, because if she was determined to think that there was no God, and there was no such holy person called Jesus Christ who had once walked the surface of the earth, then how else would have angels existed? 

      Because there she was, kneeling next to the bathtub, scrubbing down the back of Krystal's thin, weary body; in the kitchen, preparing a nice, warm meal to fill Krystal's empty stomach; by the fireplace, with Krystal enveloped in her loving arms, telling her stories about an age of fire-breathing dragons and damsels in distress.

    If angels didn't exist, then what was Mrs. Robinson?

    Mrs. Robinson, who took her in without the slightest hesitation, who watched her gobble down the first real meal she had in years with nothing but sympathy in her eyes, and not disgust and repulsion, who stayed up all night with her arms securely around the tiny girl because she was afraid that all this was going to disappear the moment she closed her eyes. 

    Who gave her love, protection and shelter that she needed more than anyone else in the world; that she deserved more than anyone else in the world.

    In the end, Krystal discovered that there indeed, was a way out. Also, at the end of every tunnel, there was bound to be a light, no matter how dark it might have been before.

    And that the heavens above did finally send an angel down. 

    She was called Mrs. Robinson.

    And she was the brightest, loveliest and the most beautiful angel both earth and Krystal ever had the pleasure to make an acquaintance with. Even heaven was no exception. 

    Because she was the only person in the whole universe, other than God, that was willing to be there for Krystal when nobody did, not even her own father whose blood ran through her veins and whose existence was one of the two reasons why Krystal was born into this world in the first place. Sometimes, she even wondered if God was really there because truth be told, it never felt like He was. The only one that ever made Krystal feel like she had someone to turn to, someone who always had her back no matter what she did or where she came from, was Mrs. Robinson. 

    Because of her, Krystal learned that dreams were meant to be dreamt and most definitely meant to be pursued. And that even the hopeless had as much right to hope as everyone else on the planet. 

     Without Mrs. Robinson, she wouldn't have realized that it was perfectly okay to be hopeless, as long as she never, ever stopped hoping. 

She ran towards the stairs, her legs moving themselves one step after another and urging each another to go faster, to pick up the pace. She didn't want to be down here any longer than she had to be. Curse those damn stairs! Why couldn't they be outside the lawn or something? Why did stairs have to be inside houses?

    Her hand grabbed onto the wooden banister and she pulled her body weight up onto the steps of the stairs. One step, two step, and ten more to go before she was out of sight from the living room. Hopefully, she'd make it just in time to the top of the stairs before anyone caught sight of her. Before she caught sight of her.

    Unfortunately for Amber, the moment she stepped onto her fifth step, a yell came from underneath her and without even trying, she could already tell that it was came all the way from the kitchen. "Amber Josephine Liu!" She heard from the stairs she was ascending. Throwing her head back and releasing a loud, heavy sigh, she unwillingly dragged her feet back down the stairs and towards the source of the voice. 

    Her mother stood by the sink with an apron strapped around her waist, the sight of her hands lost in the pool of detergent bubbles. Amber stumbled loudly, and very dramatically into the kitchen, as if she wanted to be seen by her mother with a written sign hanging from her neck saying, 'look what the cat dragged in'. She stopped by the refrigerator and leaned against the cool electronic appliance. "What?"

    "Am I disturbing you? Is there really a need to use that tone around me all the time?" Her mother beamed without looking up at Amber, voice laced with annoyance as she continued washing the plates she held in her hand.

    "As a matter of fact, yes mother, you are kind of disturbing me," Amber replied quickly, hoping that the sooner they got over this, the quicker she could get up to her room and lock herself in until the sun rises again the next day. Not everyone had the time to bond with their less-than-loving mother on a typical school day. 

    Her mother stood with her back still facing Amber. She was still washing the dishes, but this time she did it silently, meaning she was either ignoring Amber's presence, or was ignoring Amber's disrespectful reply; both were of daily occurrence and nothing new to the blonde senior. 

    Seeing that there were no longer any exchange of words between she and her mother, Amber detached herself from the door of the refrigerator and turned the other way to leave. But it was like God had decided to himself, "I'm bored today, and so I shall amuse myself with Amber's pathetic life," because before Amber could take an actual step out the kitchen door, her mother did the most annoying thing she could ever do to Amber.

    "How was school?" She asked.

    Having heard that, Amber instantly halted in her tracks and let out a scoff. It was so loud that it even earned a look of displeasure from her mother who had now turned around to look at her daughter straight in the eye. "You want to know how was school?" Amber asked, still half-scoffing, half-laughing. She put a hand against the kitchen door. "You can't possibly be serious."

    "What kind of mother would I be if I didn't?" Her mother asked back, putting a hand on her hip. Strike one.

    "I don't know, mom. Why don't you enlighten me? What kind of mother would ask her daughter to, you said and I quote, 'stay away from the house because we're having a family dinner tonight'?" Amber laughed at how pathetic she sounded right now, but mostly at how pathetic her life really was. "You don't have to pretend to care, you know."

    "What do you want me to say, Amber? That I didn't want both sides of the family to know how much of a failure I've brought up my eldest daughter to become?" Both hands were placed firmly on her hips now. Strike two.

    "But mom, am I or am I not part of that family?" Amber shot back immediately.

    "Since when did you ever want to be a part of this family?"

    Amber rolled her eyes, knowing that it'd definitely annoy the heck out of her mother. "I didn't think it was a choice to be born into this hole," she spat, not caring what her mother was going to do to her, what she was going to say to her. She just wanted to get out of here and she wanted to get out of here now. 

    Her mother started taking off her yellow rubber gloves. Her face was hard and cold, making it impossible for Amber to pinpoint her exact feelings. When she was done with the gloves, she threw them to the side and let them hit the nearest cupboard with a loud 'splat'. Strike three.

    "Go to your room. Now," she said, her tone flat and monotonous. 

    "Gladly."

    With that, Amber stormed out of the kitchen and dashed for the stairs. Within seconds, she was already standing in front of her bedroom door, breathing heavily because she was tired after running up the stairs. She was tired of always running up the stairs. She pushed open the door and entered. Dropping her schoolbag at the side of the door, she then took off her hat, gave it a few brushes and hung it onto the her clothing rack. She turned her head over and looked at her bed. The sight of it was tempting. Very, very tempting, but she knew there was something else she had to do first.

    She went over to her studying desk, slowly trailing her fingers onto the smooth surface of the wooden furniture before letting them reach their desired destination. She stared down at the drawer and swallowed, contemplating if she should open it or not. No, you shouldn't.

    Her fingers linked themselves onto the latch and pulled on it, opening the drawer anyway. She solemnly reached her hand into it, shuffling her things around in search for that particular weapon. The weapon that could help her regain her peace, regain her composure. You really shouldn't.

    Regain, her sanity.

    A cold surface came in contact with her skin, the familiarity of it hauntingly comforting to Amber as she let her eyes closed, once again in a debate with her own thoughts. Should I?

    The sudden retraction of her hand, followed by the sound of the drawer being pushed closed posed an answer to her mental question. She quickly turned around and walked away, not wanting to prolong her time at being so near her drawer. The longer the time she spent there, the higher the chances of her will breaking, causing her to give in to temptation. And like most temptations, hers was also nothing less of a sin.

    She approached her twin-sized bed, stared gratefully at the soft sheets and even softer pillows before launching herself onto the cotton mattress. Her muscles relaxed upon contact with the comfortable haven and instantly, all weight she had felt crushing at both her shoulders, dragging her down before was now decreased, cut down, like most of it had found another poor soul to do their parasitizing activities on and had shifted away. She rolled her heavy body around the bed until her face was staring blankly up at the white ceiling of her bedroom. Suddenly, she felt like she could breathe again. Breathe without hurting, breathe without feeling the guilt to breathe. Just, normal breathing.

    But a few breaths into her okay-zone, and it started again. The thoughts. The memories. And Amber realized, like joy, the ability to breathe without obstruction was a blessing. A blessing that Amber obviously was deemed undeserving in the eyes of her and the universe's ultimate creator. She reached out her hand to grab hold of one of her smaller bolsters before slamming it across her face, stuffing her eyes and nose with the softness of it.

    "Where are you going?"

    Amber halted in her tracks and turned around, leaning her body against the wall of her living room as she looked up at her mother who stood by the stairs, a cream-colored, strapless dress with slight frills at its sides draped over her arm.

    "What is that?" Amber asked, unafraid to mask the slight tinge of mockery itching up to the surface.

    "I thought you had a dance? Junior prom, I heard from Barbra next door. I bought this beautiful dress--"

    "I'm not going to the dance," Amber cut her off. There wasn't any point in letting her mother give her a five page description of how wonderful this dinner dress was or how perfect it would look hugging itself onto Amber's torso as she walked gracefully into her school hall with the arm of her non-existent date linked securely with hers because she thought she had made it clear enough to everyone she knew(all three of her friends), including her family that she wasn't attending any dinner parties or lame school dances anytime soon. But obviously, she wasn't clear enough.

    "But it's prom, and as a girl of age, isn't it only right that you attend an event like this?" Her mother argued, a smile creeping up at the side of her lips. "Come up, I'll help you do your hair. It's short, but with all the right touches it'll be a beauty in no time," she said as she turned around to walk up the stairs, in hopes that Amber would be trailing behind like a good puppy.

    "Mom, I'm not going to the dance," Amber said again, voice firm and legs still rooted to the ground, a sign that she wasn't going anywhere her mother wanted her to. She should be well aware by now that a good puppy was the last thing that Amber would ever be. 

    "I said, come up. We'll do your hair and then maybe some make-up," her mother said, brushing her daughter off as she continued strutting up the stairs, not even casting a glance back down at the figure below her.

    Amber sighed. "No, I'm going out."

    "You can't possibly go to the dance looking like that," her mother voice sounded from the stairs.

    "Jesus, mom. I said I'm not going to the stupid dance. I'm just going out."

    The sound of her mother's footsteps on the stairs stopped. "Amber, you're going to come up right now and get into this dress that I have bought for you, and then you're going to sit quietly on the stool while I do your hair."

    "What part of 'I'm not going to the dance' do you not get?" Amber rolled her eyes in disbelief. "Yes, there's a dance at school, but no, I'm not going."

    "Why not?"

    "Because I don't want to! What's the point of going to a dance held every year at the exact same place with the exact same people?"

    "So, you think going out to 'hang' with your God-knows what friends at some alley looking like a, a cross-dresser has some sort of meaning to it?" Her mother stormed into sight from on top of the stairs.

    "What the heck is your problem? Is there something wrong with the way I dress?"

    "Of course there's something wrong with the way you dress. There's always something wrong with you!" Her mother exclaimed, flinging her arms up. "I don't understand why you have to be like that. Why can't you just be normal girl?"

    "What?" Amber's brows bunched together. Her mind was all over the place, not really knowing what was happening right now. Yes, she and her mother fought and argued like no tomorrow, but this had never happened before. Her mother had never actually brought up the topic of Amber's ual orientation. And now that she was, Amber could only stand there helplessly as she let her mind attempt to process whatever that might exit her mother's lips. 

    "Is it so hard to be normal, Amber? I don't see why you have to go out of your way to look like a, like a man," her mother said as she took one step down the stairs. "Do you want people to see you as one? Do you want people to think of you as a," she paused, as if to make things more dramatic than it already was, "lesbian?"

    If Amber's mother had seen her face up close, she would have noticed the flash of pain that shot through her daughter's eyes as quick as lighting when her face contorted in disgust as she said the word, like it was venom, or a disease. She would have noticed how Amber's breathing turned shallow until her lungs completely stopped functioning, just so she could focus her all at keeping her composure, from falling apart. She would have noticed how Amber battled with herself, forcing herself to stand upright, with her chin held high and eyes clear and unshaken by the hurtful words of her mother despite how much her chest hurt because of them, and how badly her legs wanted to give out underneath her. 

    She would have noticed how badly her daughter's heart wanted to give out within her. 

    "Nobody's going to want you, Amber. Not when you're out looking like that. And you wouldn't even be able to get a job because no one would hire someone who looks like a goddamned dyke. I just," her mother's voice softened and her eyes purely focused at Amber, "I don't know what to do with you anymore. Do you know what the neighbors are saying about you? My friends tell me the exact same thing and sometimes I see you at home and I can't, I can't even look at you." Her mother closed her eyes and turned her head away with a heavy sigh. 

    "I can't look at someone who has such sick desires, such disgusting needs. Not even if that someone was my own daughter," she paused, waiting for the right moment to drive the blade deeper in, "especially if she was my own daughter."

    But she never did. She never noticed.

    Her mother never noticed that the stronger part of Amber had died that night, that the last part of her that was keeping it all together died in the hands of none other than the person she called her mother; the person who gave her her life; the person who was supposed to mean everything to her.

    She pushed the pillow harder, closer onto her face and took in one deep breath. Then, she screamed.

   "I never brought you up to do something so unnatural, so wrong."

    And screamed. 

   "Why couldn't you be a better daughter?"

    And screamed. 

   "Your ideal lifestyle is a sin. You're nothing but a goddamned sin. Don't you let anybody else tell you otherwise." 

    And screamed.

    "Do you have any idea how much easier our life would've been if you weren't here?"

    She stopped. Her screaming stopped. Amber dragged the pillow out of her face and sat up on her bed, eyes fixated at a direction ahead of her. 

    "I didn't fail at being a mother. You failed at being a daughter."

    She pushed herself out of bed and stumbled onto the cold, bedroom floor. With wobbly legs, she shuffled her way to her studying table.

    "Oh, that's right, it's not like you had any interest in being one anyway, right?"

    She pulled open one of the two drawers of her studying desk for the second time of the day. Only this time, she did it without the slightest hesitation. There was nothing that needed to be reconsidered. Amber knew what she wanted, knew what she needed and was there anything there to stop her? No. Nada. Non.

    So, she reached into her drawer, cleared all that was not needed out of their way and pulled it out. She watched intently as her fingers grazed themselves over the smooth, shinny object like she was in a daze, fascinating over the lethal weapon made of steel. In spite of the situation, a small, broken smile still managed to find its way to Amber's lips as she continued staring at the compelling piece of item held between her index finger and thumb.

    This piece was new. A little over a month old, if not mistaken. After Kyle's abrupt visit a while back, she discovered that her secret stash hidden underneath her bed had magically disappeared. So, she went on to buy a brand-new set. Of course, she mentioned this to Kyle before and had even confronted him about it, but the younger of the two kept his lips sealed and was defensive about the whole thing. Although he claimed that he had nothing to do with the disappearance of Amber's razor blades, she knew that he was the culprit. She knew it was him the moment she saw her little black box gone from under her bed, because there was no one else who could have done this. Who would have done this, because she had no one else.

    Amber had no one else but Kyle. Now that he was gone, she only had her drugs and her blades left. Nothing else could give her the comfort she needed. And now with all the drugs gone, the blades was all she had. The good ol' ever-trustworthy blades who never let her down.

    She put the metallic piece where she knew it belonged, where she craved for it to belong, easing herself to get used to the stiff coldness she felt on her left wrist. She breathed in before applying just the right amount of pressure needed for her to feel what she was dying to feel again.

    The pain. The confirmation of reality. The assurance of her sanity.

    Amber pressed onto the blade. And she pressed hard, before dragging it clear across the lined skin of her wrist.

    It has been too long.