To Be Loved

Prologue

"All I have ever longed for is to be loved, to have someone who will love me for my true self—someone who will make me feel safe, happy, and contained. All I have asked for is a place I can call home, but what I get instead is physical and emotional pain. How could people be this vile? How could a family do this to their own child? How could they hurt their own flesh and blood and tear them down for their own benefits? All I have yearned to own is to be happy and to be loved. I hoped to have a peaceful life and long, comfortable nights without worrying about what is going to happen to me tomorrow or what I’m going to face. That's what I need."

After she finished reading the letter, she looked at her students and found them having different expressions and emotions, from sadness to pity. While others seemed devoid of any human feelings.

However, some students who seemed lost in their thoughts managed to catch her attention; she could clearly see their

turmoil emitting from every cell in their body, and that turmoil was telling her how life hit them hard and didn’t show mercy on their fragile bodies, and that dazed look that consumed their eyes led her to remember her own past and how she used to carry the same look for a good period of time.

A glimpse of the past.

"If you cross that door, then consider you have no family; you will be dead to us." Her father shouted at her.

She looked at her feet, thinking, What did she hope to hear from him? She turned around and looked at him dead in the eyes. "Have I ever been alive to you, dad? Have you ever for once treated me as your daughter, a part of this family?" She said it with a trembling voice.

Her father was fuming with anger. "Then leave, and put that in your mind; the moment you close this door behind you, you are DEAD TO US," he yelled at her. She only looked at him dejectedly but was more determined to never stay. She reached her limit; she looked at her brother and mother, who were holding him to prevent him from reaching her, and smiled brokenly.

She knew at this moment that he would never change. She looked boldly at him directly into his eyes, still foolishly hoping to find any kind of emotion other than anger, but her hope backfired on her. At this moment, she knew that it was over; there’s no turning back.

She smiled miserably, then nodded her head and said, "My plane will take off next week on Sunday at 3 PM." Then she opened the door and left.

"She is dead to us, and we are to her; I don't want to hear her name in this house; AM I CLEAR?" She heard his harsh words as well as the crying sound of her mother.

"Don't lose hope. Jasmine, there is still some time left; don't lose hope." She still hopes he will change, and she knows it will only ruin her in the end. She wiped her tears and left the whole building without giving it a second glance.

Another memory.

She was wiping her tears that were running down her face like a fall, and she doesn’t know why they won’t stop no matter how she tries to. She believed that her ability to produce tears had malfunctioned after she bawled her eyes out many times in the past.

She answered the phone, which has been ringing non-stop. When she heard Sarah’s voice, she said breathlessly, "Sarah, I was a tool for them; I wasn’t wanted from the beginning." She was scratching her chest to make the pain in her heart stop.

She believed that if she got to know the whole truth she wished to know, she would be at ease and wouldn’t feel any pain after everything was out to the light, and she hoped to get the peace she had longed for, but it totally backfired and burned her from the inside out and broke the cold façade she has been wearing all the whole time since she had come back.

Her shattered and wailing voice tore Sarah’s heart, and she wished she hadn’t let her go alone or let her leave in the first place. Jasmine's muffled and crying voice could be heard by the other people in the living room, and that made them worried about her.

"Jasmine, where are you now, honey? You are not alone, right?" Sarah wiped her tears and asked tenderly, hoping that she wasn’t alone and that there would be anyone around her. She could tell she was going through a breakdown and was afraid that something would happen to her, but Jasmine was too deep in her pity to comprehend what Sarah was telling her.

"I was a tool for both of them; she had me to make sure her husband wouldn’t leave her and would be tied down to her by his children, and he made my life a LIVING HELL because he doesn’t love her and I looked like her; oh, he’s also mad at himself for thinking like that and couldn’t know how to make things good between us; what a lame excuse." She laughed loudly, and her laugh was bad for Sarah’s heart, and the same goes for the others.

Sarah’s hand gripped tightly on the phone, trying to control her trembling voice, and she asked Jasmine in a calm voice.

"Tell me, where are you right now, and where are you staying? I will come to you, baby. Just tell me, and I will be there as soon as possible." Still, Jass was in her own world and started to repeat the same world over and over again.

"What should I do to stop this pain? Help me, please, someone, anyone. I need it to stop." She let the phone slip from her hand and broke down in tears.