Riding a skateboard was my only way to get around, my lifeline in the suburban labyrinth of Cerritos, California. The streets didn’t offer a straight shot home; instead, they twisted and turned into an endless maze, each bend a reflection of the tangled life waiting for me back at the house.
The house wasn’t home. Not really. My father’s stay-at-home wife had made sure of that. She avoided me with surgical precision, taking long showers or locking herself away for hours at a time, refusing to speak to me. Weeks would pass without a word, all because I had made the mistake of being honest during therapy.
I had told the therapist, bluntly and without hesitation, “My father is fun. He’s different when she’s not around.” For a fleeting moment, I believed in the sanctity of a “circle of truth,” but it was a lie. She had been playing me all along, and now she was armed with a new weapon: my words.
Here it came, the inevitable fallout. She complained to my father, spinning tales of how hard she worked to have dinner ready by 5:00 p.m., only for me to come home late and disrespect her efforts. My father, ever the gutless mediator, didn’t question her or defend me.
“This house is made of rules,” he said, his voice carrying the hollow authority of someone reciting a line. “And if you break them, you can’t live here.”
It was a setup, plain and simple.
I was 15 years old, caught in a relationship with a girl named Gina, who was leagues ahead of me in every way. That afternoon, we were lying under a tree at the park, her worldliness both intoxicating and intimidating. I glanced at my watch, realizing I had less than 15 minutes to race through the maze and get home on time.
The thought of missing another dinner—a joyless affair consisting of 600-calorie meals and a perpetually broken chicken leg—spurred me into action. I kicked off on my skateboard, weaving through traffic and dodging potholes, my heart pounding in sync with the rhythm of the wheels.
But it didn’t matter how fast I went. When I reached the house, the door was locked.
I knocked, hoping for some shred of mercy, but my father appeared, his face a mask of disappointment tinged with self-righteousness. He didn’t open the door fully, just stepped out, pulling it shut behind him.
“I told you what would happen if you didn’t follow the rule,” he said.
His hand clamped around the back of my neck as he walked me down the driveway, each step heavy with finality. When we reached the curb, he let go and pointed to the street.
That was it. My second abandonment.
I stood there, skateboard in hand, the weight of his rejection pressing down on me like a physical force. Without a word, I flipped the board into the air, caught it, and dropped it back onto the pavement. The action felt symbolic—a punctuation mark on a moment that would define me.
As I skated away, leaving behind the locked door and the hollow house, I couldn’t help but wonder if he felt any regret. Maybe he thought he was teaching me a lesson. Maybe he thought this was for my own good. Or maybe he was just trying to earn a good lay from his wife as a reward for siding with her.
Whatever his reasons, I was done. Alone again, I knew I’d have to find a new place to sleep, a new way to survive. Abandoned once more by the man who was supposed to protect me.
This time, though, I wasn’t just leaving the house—I was leaving the hope that things would ever change.
