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And I wonder what it's like to have that sort of order to their lives, to wake up and know what the day is going to be like. It used to always sound so boring to me, but now I crave that normalcy, to know when I wake up, how the day will end. Instead of having to constantly worry about what's going to happen, where and how.
A cab drives by and I jump to my numb feet and flag it down.
"Airport, please."
*
I buy a change of clothes at the airport. There had been one last first class seat from Hong Kong to London, and I paid with the stack of cash Ananya had picked up for me along with my passport.
I'd given her one last hug before she'd left, not knowing when I was going to see her again.
And when the plane takes off, I say goodbye to the life I'd worked so hard to create and back to the one I'd left behind so long ago.
It's been five years since I came back to London. I had no reason to come back here, I had no desire to.
But as the plane landed, I couldn’t help feel a stirring of curiosity as what life would look like now if I still lived here.
From the cab that takes me to a hotel, everything looks the same but different all at once.
A little like me.
After a shower, I head towards the place I came here to visit.
A school bell rings, and the kids swarm out of the doors for recess, chatting and laughing. There's a new playground set now in the park. Fancy, modern, with new games, and the wood chips on the ground have been replaced by a rubber mulch, much easier on the knees.
Everything else looks the same.
But it doesn’t feel that way anyway.
Because the one person who made this memory so beautiful, isn't here anymore.
The one safe place I thought I’d feel him closest to me doesn't exist anymore. And it takes me until this moment, having traveled half way around the world to realize, it was never about the place, but the person. And when my mother, in a drunken rant, told me about my paternity, she ripped everything I had ever known away from me.
And in this moment, I have never hated her more.
Hate her for telling me
Hate her for thinking that I could go on with my life, that nothing would change.
Hate her for driving the wedge between my father and I that would never really heal, no matter how much I loved him and he loved me. He did everything right by me, it was just impossible for me to handle knowing that I would never completely be what he wanted me to be.
Tears stream down my face as I mourn my dad, my mom and the relationship I might never ever be able to heal with my brother.
Finally, the tears dry, and this place takes on a new meaning for me. A place of goodbyes.
I get to my feet, looking back one last it when I hear a voice.
"Hello Kiara."
And he's here.
He found me, just when I felt like there was no one left who understood me.
He found me.
I run to him, and then I'm home.
***
