Introduction
On Earth, there lived a young woman named Lina Falls. To most people, there was nothing extraordinary about her. She wasn’t famous, wealthy, powerful, or someone the world would stop to notice. She was simply a twenty-one-year-old woman living near Brooklyn, trying to make something of herself.
But Lina had spent most of her life feeling like the person everyone could easily overlook.
Growing up, her home was never the warm and comforting place she wished it could have been. Her mother spent most of her time away from home, working long hours caring for elderly people. Whenever she wasn’t working, drinking became one of the ways she escaped from her own problems. Lina’s father was different. After Lina’s younger sister was born, he worked less and spent much of his time smoking, playing video games, or sitting in front of the television. His anger could fill a room quickly, and affection was something Lina rarely felt she could depend on.
Lina noticed something else as she grew older.
Her father seemed capable of being proud.
Just not always of her.
Whenever school held parent-teacher conferences, he could speak proudly about his youngest daughter and everything she was accomplishing. With Lina, however, the conversations often seemed to become about what she wasn’t doing. She wasn’t trying hard enough. She wasn’t accomplishing enough. She wasn’t living up to whatever expectations had been placed upon her.
No matter how much effort Lina believed she was giving, someone always seemed to expect more.
Eventually, her parents divorced. Her mother left Brooklyn and began a new life with her boyfriend, Adam Gloom, while Lina, her younger sister, and their father temporarily moved into their aunt’s home in another part of the area.
A different home did not mean a different life.
Lina found herself constantly compared to the people around her, especially her younger sister and cousin. Their accomplishments were celebrated while Lina’s mistakes seemed impossible for anyone to forget. When something went wrong, Lina often felt as though she received the harshest judgment.
By thirteen, years of frustration had begun changing her.
Between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, Lina became rebellious. She started caring more about what she wanted instead of constantly trying to satisfy everyone around her. She dated. She experimented with smoking once. She pushed against rules and expectations. Her behavior eventually contributed to her being placed in a mental hospital.
But rebellion did not make her feel less alone.
School wasn’t an escape either.
Lina was bullied, struck by other students, and frequently found herself isolated from people her own age. At home she felt judged. At school she felt unwanted. She tried to work hard academically, hoping that accomplishing something might finally be enough for her father and aunt.
It never seemed to be.
As years passed, Lina eventually graduated from college in early education and became a primary aide teacher. It was something she had worked for—something that was hers. Yet even adulthood couldn’t silence the comparisons.
Her aunt questioned when Lina would finally move out. When would she make more money? When would she become more successful?
And then there was Lina’s younger sister.
She had chosen modeling and seemed to represent everything Lina believed her family admired: beauty, success, independence and a future worth bragging about. Lina tried to pretend the comparisons didn’t hurt anymore.
They did.
Now twenty-one and on summer vacation from her school job, Lina spent her days working nine-to-five shifts at a restaurant to earn extra money. Occasionally, after work, she drank. Sometimes she stayed away from home longer than she needed to.
Anything to delay walking through that door.
And somewhere during that summer, Lina stopped trying to become the daughter everyone wanted. The modest blue-and-white clothing disappeared first. Then her long brown hair changed. Dark clothing filled her closet. Black makeup surrounded her bright blue eyes. Gothic jewelry, boots, darker hairstyles, and clothing her family would never have imagined her wearing became part of the person staring back at her from the mirror.
She began reading more. She wandered outside at night. Sometimes she stayed gone for hours simply because nighttime felt quieter than home.
For the first time, Lina wasn’t asking herself whether her family approved.
She already knew the answer.
Her father lectured her.
Her aunt criticized her.
And when her mother made one of her monthly visits and saw what Lina had become, disappointment appeared there too. Rather than trying to understand why her daughter had changed so drastically, Lina felt that her mother simply turned more of her attention toward the daughter who hadn’t disappointed her.
They all chose her younger sister. Again.
Then something inside Lina finally cracked…
For years, she had swallowed her anger. She had listened to comparisons, criticism, lectures, and reminders of everything everyone believed she should have become. She had convinced herself that if she worked harder, behaved better, graduated, found a job, or became independent enough, eventually somebody would look at her and say:
I’m proud of you.
But standing there now, watching her family together, Lina began to wonder why she had spent so many years begging for something they seemed capable of giving everyone except her.
The sadness didn’t disappear.
It hardened.
And for the first time, Lina didn’t look at her family wishing she could be more like them.
She looked at them and felt something else.
Resentment.
