Midnight Confessions

A story about a young girl who is living in the expectations of others. She tells her story from a child's point of view.

Layla sat, wrapping her arms around her knees in the middle of the bed. Her tears flowed uncontrollably, and her sleek fingers gripped even tighter around her knees. Her eyes glanced upwards at the ceiling and her mind floated off to what happened today... 

Layla came from quite a well-off family. She was born second, having an elder sister and a younger brother, her voice was often unheard in the family. Her siblings often took away most of the attention that was directed towards her by her mother. As a result, she felt as though she was not loved in the family; that she was the only one who felt she didn't fit it.

The situation had deteriorated these few years. Due to her schooling and her school mates, she started opening up from the inside. However, she could not really feel love and affection for anything that she had did or anyone whom she had met. The people she had met were just bystanders in her life, and the gaping emptiness that she had felt in her heart was incomparable. She couldn't really feel extreme joy in her life, and her life was painted in a dull, black and white colour. 

In her family, her brother and sister both had wonderful grades. Although her grades topped the class, her mother always told her off in a harsh, sharp tone, "Why can't you be more like your sister?" or "Be more like your brother..." Why wasn't she satisfied with what she was today? Was her siblings really more outstanding than her? Even today, when she tried asking her mother questions, her mother was busy pressing away at her handphone, chatting with people and following up her news - all of which were considered more important than a meagre question that she had wished to ask. And she had asked her 3 times today, all of which were responded with cold, hard silence. 

Did she really ask too much? 

Her mind drifted away to the incident a few days ago. Her mother had scolded her for being so unresponsive; for living her life without a dream; for trying to make her own decisions without consulting her mother. Her response was, of course, silence at first. However, after shouting at her, she retaliated in a sobbing, breaking voice. It was met with even more anger and scoldings. Amidst the heated and one-sided argument, her little brother even butted in a few times to express his discontent and disapproval at what she said. 

"What else do you want from me? Who do you want me to become?" Her inner self screamed at herself, trying to escape from that cage called 'Expectations'. She was living under the pretense of how other people saw her, not as Layla, but as the shadow of her sister. Even her brother, who had always taunted her with disrespect, was seen as an independent individual who was free from the shackles of her sister. Why was it her? 

Layla's tears soon dampened her nightgown, and the wetness of the fabric soon pulled her back from her train of thought. She sighed a long, weary sigh. Looking at her clenched hand, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of medication. Pills, antibiotics and coloured bottles of medicine were soon lined up neatly on her mattress. 

Layla stared at them intently. She had been secretly taking them from the fridge where her mother had decided to keep all the medication. Once, she had done something similar as well, but she just couldn't muster the courage to commit suicide. She had presumed that after crying her heart out, she would feel better, and that maybe she could graduate from becoming a puppet into someone who really had IDEALS. It was not so long ago that she started regretting her fickle decision. 

The pills beckoned to her, as though they could certainly provide one the haven and paradise they offered. Layla considered her options: to run away, to end it once and for all, or try to once again persuade her mother into giving her the attention and also respect she rightfully deserved - which could most probably end in failure. All 3 options were weighed heavily in her mind. It seems she had run out of any hope for her life. She could not see where she was going, neither could she see herself as herself in the mirror. It was as though she was a blind person wandering amongst the darkness; with no where to go and with completely no evidence of who she was. 

Layla glanced at the bottles again. It was all or nothing, her heart gently whispered to her. 

She reached out and gulped them down.