I will never forgive them… or at least I thought so.

I had just gotten into another argument with them. It was a fight different from others—where words were sharper, wounds were deeper. I had finally told my parents that I wanted to leave this world, and they did not take it well.

Why would they take it well? How could they? Is it even possible to stay calm when your only daughter wants to take the life you worked so hard to give her? My mind ruminated that night. I felt like the ungrateful child they've always called me. They must've been hurt. I must've hurt them. Why did I hate them so much in the first place anyway?

With guilt flooding my entire being, teardrops slid down my face as I forced myself to reflect on today's fight in my journal. Soon enough, I found myself on the bedside my mother slept on. She was already getting ready to sleep, so I took my chances.

“Mommy,” I mumbled.

“Oh, ano? Bakit?” She let out a weary reply. It was 2 A.M. after all.

“I'm sorry,” I managed to get my words out before feeling more tears well up in my eyes. What was I sorry for when they were the ones who hurt me? I was sorry for hating them when they adored me more than I was aware of.

“Okay lang ‘yan. Normal lang naman magalit sa pamilya mo,” she said with an unusually gentle tone as she held me, “pero, Faustine, ‘wag mo naman sabihin na hindi ka namin love. Ikaw nga ang unica hija namin, diba?”

My mother went on and on like she always did, which had always annoyed me until this night. She had never held me with such love, especially when such guilt had been pouring out of me for not having thought they had loved me. My parents have all this time—my father working hard every day just to give us the privilege he never experienced, and my mother waking up early every morning just to make our baon for school, or at the very least, see us off with a " chill lang " and a " God bless ". All my life, I had hated them. All my life, I had hated myself for hating them. Now, I have the chance to start anew. We both do.