She Does This Thing Every Damn Time
Not a girl, not yet a woman
We have guests over today.
Just some relatives passing through; the kind that sit all day and talk too loudly about other people’s kids.
The kind that always ask, “So what are you doing with yourself now?” and smile politely while judging the answer.
My mom loves having people over. She becomes a version of herself that feels like it came straight from the white side of the Bible. Smiling too hard. Offering too much food. Telling too many stories I wish she’d keep to herself.
And to keep up her act, the house has to look pristine. Our house is this old colonial-style with faded white paint peeling on the edges and a garden she never tends to but always complains about. Inside, every surface gleams, but the place feels sterile; too clean, too boring like perfect; like a museum where no one’s allowed to touch anything.
For that, she becomes cleanzilla.
Complaining about everything. Anything.
Right now, she’s ranting about how the windows have spider webs and that I forgot to check if they were closed before she got back from work. Like I fucking care about her windows.
And because of that, she woke up with a cold and now she can’t work normally.
Yeah... what a surprise.
Another nice way to say, deal with everything, Raphael.
Perfect little puppet that I am, I have to do it. Because I’m too cowardly to fight, complain, or even leave. I just do what she asks of me.
Then I cry inside. I think my heart is already swimming in the waters of a thousand oceans.
What else can I do?
And I hate crying because it makes me feel so stupid. Like if anybody asked, “Why are you crying, Raph?” I wouldn’t know what to say.
Sometimes I wonder if my pain is even legit. That I’m just some ungrateful brat. That someone somewhere else is going through worse; and I'm here complaining about a mom who cares about me.
But I just want a life. My own life.
A moment when I don’t feel like I’m being robbed of my choices every fucking time.
What if I died right now? What would people remember me for? Being my mother’s child. That’s it. She was Mrs. Abigail Mallory’s daughter. That’s it.
I feel like the biggest failure and...
“Raphael.”
Of course, mommy dear had to call me.
Now I have to leave my room for some aunt who’s sleeping over, which means I’ll have to share a bed with mommy.
Hmmmmm. It’s only for the weekend.
A weekend to remember; to remember I lose my room every time a guest stays over. A painful reminder of my situation.
And, of course, she does this thing.
Every. Damn. Time.
She belittles me in front of them. Not in a mean way, no. She acts sweet. But it’s honey on aloes vera, like she’s reminding everyone that I’m still her immature little girl.
“Raphael! Come help me with the drinks and make sure you don’t spill it this time, okay?”
I froze.
I could feel the smile freeze on my face, too.
The uncle laughed. “Still spilling juice on your clothes little Raph?,” he said.
“Thank God we have a washing machine ” she replied, smiling like it was a joke.
But it wasn’t.
It was her way of shrinking me in front of an audience; making sure no one mistakes me for a grown woman who deserves respect, privacy, or independence.
I wanted to leave the room.
I wanted to say something sharp.
I wanted to pour the juice down the drain and walk out barefoot.
But I didn’t.
I got the damn drinks.
Smiled like it didn’t bother me.
And while they laughed about someone else’s divorce and someone else’s daughter who got fat, I counted my breaths and waited for it to end.
Later, in the kitchen, I asked her,
“Do you have to do that in front of people?”
She looked up from rinsing plates.
“Do what?”
“Treat me like I’m twelve.”
“I was joking,” she said, like it wasn’t the thousandth joke with the same punchline.
“You never joke about anyone else like that.”
“Oh come on Raphael” she said. “You’re too sensitive these days.”
Too sensitive.
I dried my hands and left the room.
That night I just sat on my bed, staring at the same crack in the ceiling I always stare at.
My room is small, with pale pink walls that my mom chose; insisting it’s “soft and feminine,” but it feels like a cage painted in sugar. The curtains are lace, frayed at the edges, letting in the pale moonlight that makes the room feel colder, lonelier.
There’s a little vanity in the corner, cluttered with cheap perfumes and costume jewelry she gave me, none of which I ever wear.
My books lie stacked on the floor because there’s no shelf. The floor creaks under me, and I feel like the whole room is holding its breath, waiting for me to disappear.
I need something to change.
Not something big. Not some fairytale.
Just… a break in the loop.
A conversation with a stranger. A phone call that isn’t a relative calling because they can't reach mom.
A flirt.
Oh God, a damn flirt!
When was the last time a man even dared look at me with desire? Or the last time I wore something sexy?
I got so frustrated, restless at night, that I found myself lost in reckless habits.
For someone sleeping in a room covered with pink, my thoughts are anything but pink. Maybe kink.
I need some real...
Don’t go there now. Frustrations all over my head again.
I need something to shake the dust off my head.
Off me.
-----
The next day, I went out to buy tomatoes.
She asked me to. Of course she did.
I didn’t want to. I was still sore from the day before; but I went anyway. Because saying no felt harder than leaving the house. And I got some fresh air.
At the store I was welcomed by noises. Male voices. So I turned around to see what it was about.
And that’s where I saw him.
At the corner store, under a flickering neon sign that buzzed low in the hot afternoon air.
He was arguing with the vendor about a charger that didn’t work.
He looked like he didn’t belong here. His hair was messy; like he hadn’t cared to brush it that morning. His shirt was wrinkled, untucked and faded in places, like an old concert tee.
His shoes were scuffed. His accent hit every syllable oddly, like he’d just arrived from somewhere far away; or maybe gotten lost and was too proud to ask for directions.
He touched his hair frustrated.
Then glanced at me once, then twice.
“You know this guy?” he came closer and asked, pointing to the vendor. “He sold me this charger yesterday. It’s already dead.”
I shook my head.
“Sorry I can't help you.”
He smiled. A crooked, easy smile that showed a little too much weariness but also something kind in his eyes.
“No, I know. I just needed a reason to talk to you. And you look like you know a lot of...things.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Like what things?”
He shrugged.
“Like where to get real coffee around her.”
I laughed. Like I hadn't in ages.
“Nowhere,” I said. “We’re not that fancy.”
He laughed too.
“Fair enough.”
He bought a whiskey and walked out.
But before the door closed, he turned around and said,
“You should leave your number on the counter. In case you remember where to find that coffee.”
Then he disappeared.
Just like that.
I stood there, still holding the bag of tomatoes.
Was he flirting with me?
I turn around to check if anybody had witnessed it too.
He was flirting right???
For the first time in weeks, something in me didn’t feel stuck.
And that made me smile on my way back home.
---
Back at the house, back to the weekend nightmare.
Every time someone sleeps over, I’m exiled from my own pink prison.
It’s humiliating, but I don’t say it out loud.
I pack a small bag like a child going to camp, carrying only the essential.
I tiptoe through the dark halls, trying not to wake the guests.
My mom’s room is the last door on the right.
It’s her sanctuary, or so she says. The wallpaper is floral, roses and peonies in faded pastel that makes me want to gag.
She’s got lace doilies on every surface, knick-knacks collected from thrift shops and places she never lets me visit. The bedspread is embroidered with her name in elegant script. It all screams “perfect stuck-up housewife” from another era, a museum piece she’s trapped herself in.
I curl up on the edge of the bed.
She doesn’t notice, or pretends not to.
The thin mattress sighs under me.
I feel smaller than ever.
I dream of my own space, my own life; a life where I decide when and where I sleep.
I wonder if one day I’ll have a place that feels like me, not like a waiting room for someone else’s life.
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
I never sleep well when I have to share a bed with her. Her breath is loud, almost irritated, even in sleep. The air in her room is stuffy, heavy with lavender spray and judgment. The mattress sinks in the middle, pulling me closer to her than I want to be. I try to shift my weight, roll toward the edge, but it creaks with every movement, like it’s protesting my discomfort.
I lie there for what feels like hours, my back to her, my mind spinning.
At some point, I give up.
I slip out from under the blanket, careful not to wake her. I pull on a hoodie and tiptoe out, my feet cold against the tiles. The hallway is dim and quiet.
In the kitchen, I open the back door and step outside.
The night air hits me like a cool balm. I lean against the doorframe and look up at the sky.
The stars are scattered like glitter across black velvet. So many of them. So far away. And yet, somehow, they feel closer than anyone in this house.
I let myself imagine a different version of me. One the world knows by name.
A woman who signs books for lines of people, each one holding something I wrote that changed them, moved them, made them feel seen.
A woman who doesn’t sleep in her mother’s room because her own bed was given away to a visiting aunt.
A woman who writes openly, proudly.
Who travels the country doing book tours, speaking in libraries and small-town bookstores and going to festivals. A woman who lives loud and doesn’t apologize for it.
I dream of going to Coachella; standing barefoot in the dust, music vibrating in my chest, dancing under the sun with thousands of strangers who don’t know me and don’t care.
At home, I can’t even play music out loud.
Mom hates my playlists. “Too noisy. Not classy. Not fitting ” she says.
Once, I mentioned wanting to be a writer. Just casually. Just once.
She laughed. “A writer? You? That’s ridiculous. What would you even write about, Raphael?”
And the worst part is, she didn’t even say it to be cruel. She said it like it was fact. Like it was helpful.
And I believed her. Almost.
So I stopped talking about it.
Now, I write in secret.
Late at night, in the Notes app on my phone. Or in old books.
Sometimes I worry that if I stop writing, I’ll stop existing. That I’ll dissolve into the walls of this house, like dust.
But out here, under this sky, I remember her. That other me. The hopefully future me. The real me.
I whisper her name into my stories, just to see if it echoes back.
Maybe one day, I’ll be her.
Maybe one day, someone will read my stories, and they’ll know Raphael Mallory was never just her mother’s daughter.
She was something more.
Someone more.
But mom calls it ridiculous.
“Why waste your time being so delusional?” she says. “You need something realistic. A stable job. A man.”
She never asks what I want.
She only tells me what I should want.
And those dreams; the world tour, the life I want are dismissed like childish nonsense.
So when things get too heavy I chat with chatgpt. Because I don’t have true friends. Not really.
Growing up, I kept to myself.
I never made the connections I wanted.
I watched other kids laugh in groups, share secrets, and I was always on the outside.
I wonder if they think about me now.
If they remember me at all.
Sometimes, I wish I had someone to call at 2 a.m. Someone who’d tell me everything’s going to be okay without making it sound like a cliché.
But I don’t.
I’m alone with my thoughts, my frustrations, my secret desires.
So, when I met that guy at the corner store, it felt like a crack in the wall.
A small chance at something different.
Maybe even a little hope.
I don’t know what comes next.
But for the first time in a long time, I feel like maybe, just maybe, the story isn’t over.