Discovery
I guess I should have known. The hair, the skin, the lips, the constant “wonder who you get
your features from”, wasn’t it signal enough? But now, holding the sheet in my hand, it still
came as a shock. The single word jumped mockingly off the page and continually spiralled
through my head: adopted… adopted… adopted…
I scrunched up the paper and shot it into the bin. Face planting the bed, what used to be the
comfort of my perfectly made duvet now seemed to suffocate me, like oil to the fire of
questions in my mind: how old I was, where I was really from, who my real parents were,
but most head-splicing of them all: Why did they never tell me? And more importantly, were
they ever planning to? At 17 years old, due to leave home in a year, were they planning on
forcing me to live a lie all my life?
I then realised how morbid it was that they had kept the letter: did it make them feel
validated? Like it was the same as outright telling me? Or was it that they hoped to show it
to me one day? More likely to be the former, I thought to myself. My brain was filling up.
Too much. It hurt.
“In and out,” I told myself, “In and out, like how Ms Kraughner told me.” I breathed and
breathed and breathed but it wasn’t getting any better. I stumbled over to the kitchen,
tripping over a squeaky toy on the way, until I finally found the sink. Water. Drink water.
But wait. My head swung to the back; my eyes fixed on the toy. A small imperfection, in a
room of perfection. Pick it up, said my mind. It’s bad enough you cannot control your
emotions, this is something you CAN do. I tried my hardest to fight it, but the trembling
began and the internal swooshing and fighting became overwhelming. I found that Ms
Kraughner’s lessons were in vain because I could not stop. My mind was slowly killing itself,
torn between logic and the one thing I hated, the one thing I was disillusioned to believe I
could fix, and the one thing that controlled me.
I slammed down my fist and spun back on my heel. In a single moment, the tap turned on,
water crashed into a cup, and I was gulping it down. As my joints loosened and my face
relaxed, the water spread coolness throughout my body and proved to be salvation for my
innards. I wiped my mouth, satisfied, and lifted myself. With a shaky, but controlled, breath,
I picked up the toy and dropped it into The Toy Box.
I smiled a small, triumphant smile. I am in control. My disorder is not.