Roseville.

My hometown where I decided to take a break from the chaos of my life.

After my initial fight with Philip, I had gone back to my apartment. It was within the silence of those four walls when truth reared its head.

Philip not only lied to me, but he also made his folks lie too. They played a part in his concocted narrative. Everyone lied to me.

In the dreariness of my room, I sat and comprehended how much trust I put in Philip. And how easy it was for him to break it. Not a flinch on his face when he lie woven chronicle.

I was still in the dark to know the rationale behind all of it.

But I knew better now.

I knew I had to draw back, move ahead and clear my head about our relationship. The so-called relationship where Philip kept dropping me messages daily. His good mornings woke me up and his good nights tucked me back to sleep.

He would never text me anywhere between those times, probably giving me space.

For most girls, messages like these would mean the world. Only I was able to pierce behind the veil of those texts. The knowledge about his operated sight danced in my mind every time I saw his morning and evening greetings. Though Philip was giving me space, he was also constantly reminding me of his lie.

One lie.

It was not any infidelity or a scandal that broke us apart. Neither did we fall out of love. All it took was one rotten secret to tear off the love I had as a second skin.

"Can I come in?" Dad's cloaked voice emerged from behind my room's closed door. He walked in after a knock when I didn't answer.

His eyes lingered over the walls of my room. Pink-colored walls enlivened with a soft, shimmering hue from the sunlight streaming through the opposite side. The morning air was warm and hung upon us, perspiring everyone's brows and foreheads.

Dad towed the beads of sweat from his forehead, his thumb rolled over his brows. He sat at the corner of my bed, watching the wind chime trying hard to flutter in the humid air and play music - the task it was assigned.

For eight months, I hadn't been home.

Although my room - the pink palace I called my room with posters of great Rockstars from Axel Rose to Slash, Madonna and Britney peeling from the sides; the fluffy pale-colored carpet, all things remained the same - the people who resided in the house changed.

Dad had put on more weight around his torso. Well, he was never a built man and his growing potbelly was due to consumption of sweets and trans-fat which mom loved cooking with. His shrunken eyes remind me of the hard work he still did.

Printed news was running out of business all around the country. For a small town like Roseville, the business didn't have much to bite into with everyone switching to reading news on their mobile apps.

With the company letting go of employees every few months, it was only a matter of time when they sacked dad too. Mom was doing better - running the saloon business on her own. But as the rest of the town kids flocked in pursuit of bigger, better and shinier jobs in the cities, the only townies left were a bunch of older women who would clutch their pearls upon told the prices of the new range of hair dyes.

Financially, mom and dad barely remained afloat. Barely living paycheck to paycheck.

With my salary, they had a chance of going out for dinners once a week and buying something fancier for the house but that was the extent of it.

People would consider sous chefs to be paid in diamonds and gold. The reality was different. Unless accomplished and recognized, nobody was paid that much.

"How are you doing?" Dad turned to me, creaking my old bed.

Since my arrival, I was cooped up in the bedroom, only going into the kitchen for food. Even most of my dinners were consumed in my room where I tried hard to escape my folk's questioning Philip and my future plans.

"I'm fine dad." I shrugged and pouted my lower lip. He slid closer, leaning an arm to a side and slanting over, watching me.

"You can tell me the truth," he said, smiling slyly as if he was able to decipher my answer. My lie.

"I'm telling the truth. I am doing fine."

"Then why don't you..." He leaned back into a straightened positing. Sliding off his loafers, dad coiled his right leg up on the bed. His left stayed dangling. "Come sit with us. We never got to see you since you arrived. It's like you are here physically but mentally you're lost somewhere."

It wasn't hard to understand something was wrong with me. Growing up, my room was a place I would barely stay in. I would always run around the house. Even as a teenager, I wasn't a brooding kid and stayed out in the open unlike many in my class, who appeared to have found lost paradises inside their rooms.

I was never a cooped up girl.

All that changed with one single decision.

Now, all I want to do was stay indoors. Talk to nobody and get out of this place as soon as I was done with my leaves. In a way, it felt as if I was not home but in some motel, holed up till my vacation ended.

Heartbreaks had a weird way of taking a toll on anyone. I was not the exception. I was the rule. And the rule meant suffering.

"I'm sorry for not spending time with you guys," I was willing to admit my mistake. After all, I came home to see my folks, spend time with them. "So from tonight, I'll cook dinner and we'll gather around the dinner table and talk like before."

"You cook for a living." Dismissively waving his hand around, dad fluttered his lips. "And we want to serve our daughter. So dinner is on me. Your mom would be working late. Something about Mrs. Gardener's weave falling off or something." Dad rolled his eyes, unsure of what it was Mrs. Gardner was doing to her hair, yet again.

"Fine." I sat up on my knees, shaking the bed and the mattress. "You cook, I'll clean."

Smiling, dad shook my hand. "Done. Not get out of the room. Let's take a walk."

"In this sun?" I exclaimed, looking through the salmon-colored, cotton curtains that floated up and down as if someone stood behind it, blowing it.

"You won't get tanned." Dad waved his hand and stood up. Lending me his hand, he pulled me off the bed. Surprisingly, he pulled me off my rut too. "And I guess, you girls have that suntan thing too."

"Sunscreen, dad," I rolled my eyes inwards. "We've been over this."

He walked out, raising his hands and chuckling. I was sure, it was dad's way to get mom and me to smile. He would utter terms which wouldn't make any sense and attach the term girl-stuff to it, only to make us laugh.

By now, he had coined terms like eyebrow curler, lip-ticks and lip boundary definer. The last one was my favorite.

After a change of attire, dad and I went out for a stroll.

The neighborhood hadn't changed much except for a few places around that now had trimmed hedges and a few houses where white cedar panels decorated the boundary.

Our house - our very very very fine house, didn't need any trimmed hedges or picket fences. We were content with our open lawn which outgrew into the walkway. It wasn't perfect but it was home. A place to be and a place to rest. Homes didn't require perfect. It just has to be.

Dad peeled my right hand from my side and placed it over his left, slanting it across his chest as we walked. My heart swelled, eyes misted as he silently reminded me of the two-year-old Daisy who conferred upon him the duty to always hold my hand while crossing the street.

He did it then and he did it even now.

We crossed to the other side, passing the racket of children playing and howling in the park. Closer to mom's saloon, dad's pace fastened as if he wasn't going to meet his wife but picking up his girlfriend for date night.

His posture straightened and the rhythm in his steps returned when he pushed the door opened and waved at his wife. Mom stood in awe, smiling before winking at me and hiding a pink hue on her cheeks, palming her face.

"We just came to say hello." Dad winked back, slowly sliding the door back into its closed position.

The inside of the saloon echoed with sounds of hoots and muffled laughter. Dad waited for that reaction from mom's customers. The moment it emerged, he held my hand in its previous position and resumed his walk.

"What was that about?" I asked, turning back to see if mom came to the door.

"I did it whenever I was home. I would just peep into her place of work, smile and walk out. Her lady friends would cheer after I leave and I know, she would have a hard time not blushing about me till closing time."

There it was. True love right in front of my eyes.

Twenty-two years of marriage and dad still acted as if it was just yesterday when he met mom. Even after such a long span of more than two decades, their love seemed to only grow deeper, stronger.

Watching their love for each other felt like standing under the cool shade of a tree that umbrellaed the scorching heat of truth.

The truth that my love life had come to a standstill. The man I trusted lied to me.

Dad's hold grew stronger as he turned and watched me stare into a distance.

"I forgot to ask, how is Philip?"

His question was a dagger that pierced inside me. No words could escape and only sighs were let out from my heaving lungs. "I...we...don't..."

"Did you break up?" His eyes touched his non-existent hairline. With the sun growing stronger as the day proceeded, we backtracked our steps to home. "I liked the guy. He is..."

Dad ate the remaining words, staring at the entrance of our driveway. He didn't turn to me to answer. Fishing out the house key, he moved ahead, leaving me in my former place of standing.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I just..." He sighed and walked back to me.

Sweat beads hung over his thick eyebrows but it didn't bother him. His peering vision scanned me. His left hand rose, uncreasing his temples while his right hand clutched the keychain, knuckles turning pale. Dad's stuttered.

"What is it, dad?"

"I just thought you both would go the distance," he said, tugging his fidgeting arm inside his jeans pocket.

My insides sank into the dispiriting, gut-wrenching hole from where it was difficult to pull myself up. I was stuck, replaying the carousel with Philip's memories attached to it. It would go round and round, turning up whenever I tried forgetting about him. About what he did.

Like a shooting pain beneath layers of my skin, it would course up everywhere, swallowing me whole.

"Well dad, not all of us are as lucky as you."

With that, I broke the chain of memories, liberating myself from the shackles of Philip's lie. 

~

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