[18]

“oh crap.”

i buried my face behind the steering wheel, thumping my forehead one, two, three times. fingers tapping nervously as i peeked out into mrs. lee’s front yard – her gate still intact. phew, that was close.

if my dad were alive, i know i’d feel his dagger-like glare berating me for my reckless driving, mom secretly smiling in the backseat. picture-perfect family you see in movies.

i miss them, all the time.

i released the keys, went down, got a basket of muffins in the backseat and left it above mrs. lee’s mailbox. here you go, mrs. lee, this is me showing gratitude for helping me practice my parallel parking.

i opened the door of the place i used to call home – but these now-plain, white walls make me feel like i’ve never been more alone.

i would normally make a beeline upstairs, avoiding whatever noticeable change has been done to the living room. but today was different.

my gaze lingered onto the worn-out couch, then to the coffee table across it, and finally onto the ottoman my dad used to rest his feet on whenever he watched his favorite shows. my eyes wandered deeper, gravitating towards the baby grand piano alongside the stairs, reminiscing how my mom used to play it on sundays.

sweeping clean the room, my eyes laid rest onto the staircase wall, where annual immortalizations of our family portraits hung still.

everything now a memory – all my sentences pref