Crystal

"Tring." A sound of a spoon joint with the other. It was the last spoon washed by Crystal. That night was like her other ordinary night, washing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen, her routine after she worked in a factory. Her mother left the kitchen with the mess after she cooked for her husband's employees and she was sleeping when Crystal was home. She felt tired and needed to wake up in the early morning for the next day to start her routine. Crystal's father had a workshop for repairing and modifying cars beside their house and he was hiring nine employees. He thought that giving his workers lunch was cheaper than giving them a meal allowance. So he asked his wife to serve meals for them. His father thought that she was just a mistress, and a mistress must support her husband. Nothing is wrong with it as long as both of them get a benefit, but her mother didn't have it except as a wife for someone. Her routine drowned her in a maze without exit, just through day by day, no desire. Crystal thought that her father was a dictator. Every single rule in their house was based on him. Her mother didn't have any voice in every decision he had made, she had no power to make it. He thought serving meals for his workers didn't need a lot of effort. He thought it was easy. Just increase the number of ingredients in the meal that she usually serves for the family members, so there would be a larger number of meals to serve to his workers. And the workshop wasn't far away from the main house, so he thought it was perfect. The workshop and the main house were only separated by a large dining room and the kitchen. Crystal wiped her chin to remove her dark brown hair, which had escaped from her ponytail with her wrist because her hands were wet. Crystal had just finished her routine, she would leave the kitchen, but she saw the connecting door between the dining room and the workshop office was opened, so she walked to the door. She wanted to close it and lock it before going to the main house, but she heard people talking in the workshop when her hand touched the door. She noticed the voices were of her father and her younger brother chatting in the workshop, so she let it open and didn't want to know what they were talking about. It was useless and she never had a place between them. She was sure they were talking about cars and engines or something else that they didn't want Crystal to know about. She left the connecting door and went to the refrigerator. She felt hungry. She wanted to get some milk in it, her dinner for that night. No meal left for her and she didn't know if the others had dinner or not. She only knew about cleaning the mess, but for some time she found meals that she could eat for dinner, but not for that night, so she took milk as her dinner. Her tired body didn't want to make a meal for dinner, just wanted to rest. She shut the refrigerator door after she got a glass of milk. She was holding the glass and walking to her room. Her tired body was missing her room so much. She opened her room and she smelled a sweet floral fragrant aroma, the scent of her body mist. That scent was from the rest of her body mist when she sprayed it on her body that morning before going to work. Not all of them touched her body. Some of them fell on the floor or had been trapped in the air of her room. She took a deep breath and let the familiar aroma touch the sense in her nose. It made her more relieved and comfortable. The aroma was like a notification that no one had come into her room. She drank half a glass of milk while walking to the table to put the glass on it. "Huff..." She exhaled after she threw her body on the mattress. Her eyes were on the ceiling and her mind was empty, she didn't think about anything, she just wanted to rest her body. Suddenly, she remembered about her bank account. She got up and took her phone on the table to check the balance of her bank account. She was saving some money to study at university. Her father didn't want to give her the funds for it. She knew her father had the ability for it and didn't want to give it, but he was so generous to her brother. And she didn't want to beg anything from her father because she knew that would be useless. She preferred keeping her energy to finding another way to get it. That was the reason why she worked at the factory. She wanted to collect money to go to university. Why did he not want to give her money? She thought it was because of gender discrimination. Her father was a conservative man, her brother was a male, so he would continue his business, handling his workshop. Crystal was a female, she was not suitable for the engine and anything about automotive and someday she would marry someone, so she wasn't available as the heir of his business. He also thought investing in her education was useless for him. He knew Crystal got out every day for work, but he didn't know where she worked. He let her do what she wanted to do as long as not to make any trouble for their family and didn't do any criminal act. He would kick her out of the house if she caused any trouble for the family. He only knew that her work place was a little bit far from their house because she went out of the house in the morning and home at night and no one of his relations in their small town reported to him that her daughter worked for them. He didn't realize his treatment made Crystal more strong than her brother, her mindset and her soul were stronger than her brother, she was more capable of handling anything, but her father was right about her appearance. She was pretty and did not match the engine, petrol and oil, she looked so girly. "Huff..." Crystal exhaled and threw her body on the bed again after she found the balance in her bank account. She threw her phone beside her. The balance was still not enough. It could only pay for the first year at university without the cost of living. She wanted to study at a university outside of her town. She wanted to escape from that house. She felt sickened with her house. She was fed up seeing her weak mother do her routine every day. She wanted to abduct her mother someday if she had an established life. She didn't know who had helped her mother when her mother got sick for a long time when she was working. When she was in high school, she skipped school to substitute for her mother to cook the meals for her father's workers. She couldn't skip work easily, like skipping school. She felt guilty if she must leave her mother to go to another city, but she also didn't want to sink herself deeper into her father's regime. It was not good for her. She needed to think about herself, her future. Crystal turned down her face to the pillow which she had been using. "Agrh!!!" She screamed on the pillow. She used the pillow as the silencer. She felt helpless. "Huff..." She exhaled and got back to her position before. She felt better after she shed her emotion on the pillow. She didn't want to give up. She thought she would go to university next year if she could not go that year. She determined that she must have more education. "Yeah..." She nodded her head on the pillow, she thought that she would take a part-time job for the cost of living for a long time at university. But another question came into her mind. How about the fee for the second year at the university and then? "Agrhh..." She shook her head on the pillow and stomped her feet on the bed. She was so frustrated. She didn't know for how long she would have enough money? When will she reach her goal? It was the second year after she graduated from high school and she got her job ten months ago. It was difficult for her to get a job in her small town in the first year after she graduated from high school. She remembered that she had applied for a waitress in a cafe but the cafe owner knew her father. She got a discourse from him around thirty minutes with the tittle "better you to university first and you will have better job". He thought that she didn't want to study at university. He didn't know that the reason she was looking for a job was for that. He also didn't know how her father treated her, but how did he have that opinion? She thought if he didn't want to give that job to her, don't blame her. She wanted to run away from the one-way conversation that time. She also remembered when she gave him a flat smile while swearing in her mind. She didn't want to be rude to that man, she didn't want him to report it to her father and make it be a battle she never won. So she only let him talk to her, but she didn't want to listen to his every single word and she was busy with her mind. Because of that situation, she wondered, are all men like that? Or only men in her father's circle? She didn't give up and applied to another place, but unfortunately, the owner also knew her father. She didn't know how large her father's network was. She was sure not all of the people in her town knew about her father, but she couldn't sort out who knew her father or not. She thought that the second man was wiser. He didn't judge her like the man before, but he also smacked her in another way. He asked her if her father was bankrupt or had financial trouble? He said to her that he would help her father if he was in trouble because her father had helped him before. She said her father was okay and told that man she wanted to stand on her own feet, but that man explained to her if that work was not easy, he was sure that a girl in good condition like her couldn't handle it. 'Good condition?!' She didn't want to debate with him and let that job go. The two business owners in her town were enough to give her a lesson that she couldn't have any job in her small town easily. She didn't know what her father's image was before? But after she met two men who knew her father, she was sure that her father had a good image. She asked herself what they thought about her? 'A princess?' She wanted to yell to all the people that she wasn't a princess! She was only a house maid assistant in her parent's house! And the main maid was her mother! She was the one who needed help! Not her father! She felt lucky when she finally got a job in a factory in the suburbs ten months ago. It was a big factory and the owner was from another city, so she got that job. She didn't want to marry someone and would spend the rest of her life like her mother or getting old with packing packages in the factory because of her low education. She thought that she needed a weapon to keep strong and the weapon was education. She thought that having a weapon was better for going to war than bare hands. Crystal struggles with her life. She thought that life was a war. Love had never touched her heart before. She had never been in a relationship with a boy or a man before. She thought that she was not ready for it. She didn't want to attract some boy or man by just her appearance. She thought that she needed to be strong. She would have the power to against a man like her father if beyond of her predict she married someone like her father in her future. Without a weapon, she felt weak. She was a normal girl, a normal young woman, she was also interested in a boy or man, but that was it. When a boy or a man was interested in her, she never responded to them. She thought that she wasn't already in a relationship with a man. She also knew that her father would introgate her when a male would pick her up or drive her home. So to be single was better for her at that time. "Huff..." Crystal got up and drank the rest of the milk before going to take a bath and sleeping then. It was a Saturday night but she preferred to dip her body in the bathtub than go out and hang out with her friends. Actually, she hadn't a lot of friends. She had two best friends in high school and all of them were studying at a university outside of their town and they rarely contacted each other after they had graduated. She didn't make friends in her workplace, she didn't want to bond with them and they would know about her personal life. Of course, she felt lonely but she wasn't ready to throw herself into a relationship with a male. Dipping her body in the bathtub was better than dating a male for her. It helped her relax and shed her worries.