I'm Ok

FOUR YEARS LATER-
The city, at night time, is the most lonesome thing you can ever experience. It's so big and vast that no matter how much you wander, no matter how many people you meet or see or hear, you'll always feel alone. It's not like when you're out in the middle of god knows where, where people and other life tend to be scarce. When you're alone and you're in a city, and you see other people laughing and talking, or hear the sound of a horn or a car radio- you get this sense like you were placed there because you're meant to be alone and all these non-lonely things are taunting you with what you can not have.
In a city, you are swallowed up.
In a city, no one can see you. You don't exist. You take up space but you don't matter.
It's a hard life because there's things that are always going on, events that are always happening, people always meeting up with other people, however, you aren't a part of any of it. It really is a nauseating feeling.
You hear someone laugh from several blocks away and it echoes across the streets and when you are a creature designed to be alone, you want nothing more than to laugh along. But it hurts because you want nothing more than to do so, but it just hurts too much. There's a price for laughing, or for smiling genuinely. It costs you something to be with someone- even if it's for a little while. It costs you. Because you're a soulless creature that takes up space but doesn't matter.
God doesn't want creatures like us to be happy, he wants us to be strong. And the only way for us to gain strength is to hurt for a little while...
"Couldn't sleep?" she asked, coming to stand beside me. The January air nipped at my cheeks and damp red hair, and softly tugged at my over-sized sweater. Lydia and I stared out across the blanketed city as I shrugged in response. I leaned with my forearm resting against the frost-bitten railing, a bottle of beer in my hand. I gazed blindly out, only taking note of how unusually dark it felt here in New York. There was not even a moon. Dark circles hung heavily underneath my eyes, exhaustion shadowed over me like a grey blanket.
"Lydia, do you ever feel like something . . . strange, is going on? Like something's... different." I spoke up out of nowhere. My best friend put an arm around me with a sad smile. I shook my head with a heavy sigh. We've both been through this before, and how this conversation would end. And the fact that I was feeling the warm buzz of the alcohol trickle through my viens and surround me with it's sweet embrace had given me the urge to bring it up once more. "Something feels sort of off tonight..."
"Perhaps your balance, maybe?" she teased.
"No."
"Then what?" Lydia asked, arching her thinly plucked brow.
"That's just it, Lydi, I wish I knew." I rubbed my eyes then lifted the bottle to my lips and took a long swig of it. I set it down, looking out once more at the city scape and cleared my throat. Lydia studied me carefully, then nodded that older-sister kind of way that silently says 'I get it'. But before she could actually do so, the old screen door groaned on it's rusty track and there appeared a little girl, Anna, clutching her stuffed Lion as she rubbed her eyes sleepily.
"Momo?" Her small voice called quietly. I handed Lydia my drink and scooped the little girl up in my arms, adjusting her sleeper and pulling the oversized jacket I was wearing around the both of us. She immediately nestled into me, her head nestled into the crook of my neck.
"What's wrong, baby girl?" I asked her, smoothing down some wisps of dark brown hair.
"Momo, I sad." the little girl mumbled into my chest.
"Hm?" I hummed. "How come?"
"Bad dream, Momo." Little Olivia whimpered. I cuddled her close to me, turning to my roommate, silently telling her that I'd be right back. Lydia shrugged, stealing a sip of my drink.
I carried Livi inside our cramped apartment and into her little room. It pained me, honestly, to see how empty and bare her room was.
I mean, I pictured myself spoiling my little girl. Like, her walls would have been painted a sweet, pastel green, and her tiny toddler bed would be a creamy yellow with pale, rose-colored curtains hanging over a window seat where I'd read to her every morning with a steaming mug of tea. I pictured my little girl having a white bookshelf in the corner over stocked with Dr. Suess and Scooby Doo books and pictures that she was in the process of coloring strewn across the floor along with crayons. I'd read her bedtime stories at night and then tuck her into bed and sing her lullabies till she's asleep...
Its not like that, though. The room her and I share has grey, dingy walls with puke-colored carpet with mysterious stains and one single light bulb in the center of the ceiling. The room seemed no bigger than a jail cell, and it had one bed in the middle across from the window, and one wardrobe with our few things in it. Olivia- or Livi as she's sometimes called- has one her one little drawing book and her little plush lion named Daniel.
But Olivia was a happy little girl, and the most beautiful child my eyes have ever seen. Olivia had turned three in January and was growing up way too fast for me. I hated that part, yet loved every moment.
"Momo, can I asks you a'somphing?" Livi asked. I set her down on the bed, tucking her in. I smiled and nodded, sitting down next to her and played with her brown locks. "Cole has a daddy, you know." She states matter-of-factually. I nod slowly, peering down at her. "Well where's my daddy?"
I almost choked as my body went cold. Livi looked up at me, watching my reaction in confusion. Genuine curiosity flashed through her round brown eyes and bore into me. That question knocked me over completely. "What do you mean, baby?" Olivia sat up and repeated. "Where's my daddy, Momo?"
I sighed to myself. I laid down next to her, propping my head up on my hand.
"Not all families have daddies, Livi,"
"Uh-Huh! Cole says so! He saids that a Momo can't have a baby without a daddy!" Olivia declared, crossing her pudgy arms across her chest as she did so. The terrible three...
I arched a brow. "Okay, well..."
"He also saids a daddy ha-"
"Okay!" I said, covering her mouth with my hand before she could go into detail, only to get a bunch of spit all over it. "Ew," I sigh. I wasn't too appalled by it, though, being a mom makes you kind of used to it. After all, I've handled worse.
"Why don't you lay down and get some sleep, baby girl. Momo's-"
"I not tired, Momo!" Livi complained.
"Yes you are, Momo is too."
"Okay.." she yawned, seeming to remember the hour. I handed Livi her little lion, re-tucking the blankets around her. I gently gave her a kiss and turned back to rejoin Lydia when Olivia's little voice called me back.
"What is it, baby girl?"
"I drew you a picture." she whispered, pulling out a folded paper from behind her pillow and sets it lazily beside her as she fell asleep. I set to the side and smiled at my little girl.
My little girl...
I had dozens of her little drawings.
Livi.. she was advanced for her age. Highly skilled- something I could never really comprehend. I had no artistic ability, she got that from him. She bore almost an exact resemblance as well: the raven hair, the brown eyes, an eye for color and a love for ink, a passion for music. She had his shy smile and his open heart.
I just couldn't seem to escape the memories of him. But I wasn't going to run. Not this time. I've done enough of that in my life. I wasn't going to let her live the life that I had.
I rejoined her out on the out on the porch a few minutes later and let out a heavy sigh- the slow, long releasing kind. "Lydia, can I ask you something?"
"I can't guarantee an answer, but yeah."
I rolled my eyes at my friend's remark, grateful for her ability to always lighten up my mood- even if its only slight. I rand my fingers through my knotted mane of red curls in thought before I spoke. "Am I doing this right?" I asked. "I mean all of this- how I'm raising her, working two shifts a day, never being home, and.."
"Get some sleep, Mason." Lydia said. "You're doing the only way you know how, and Livi loves you for that."
That made me happy. I've made a lot of mistakes, trusted the wrong people, and had a rougher start than most, but from those mistakes came the most beautiful little girl. And that, I wouldn't change any of it.

When you're given an option, you pick one. When you're given a choice, you make one. When you're given a chance, you take it. And when you find hope, you protect it.

Notes