(I wrote this and submitted on accident without logging in. I tried to delete that prompt and rewrite it here.)

Last night I stood on my balcony overlooking Central Park. My skin tightened under the charcoal face mask, and I could practically feel my pores shrinking. The air was stale and thick, but the twinkling city lights calmed me.

This morning, I found myself standing in the smallest city center I’ve ever seen. A small stone church stood proudly at one end of the street while the other end seemed to disappear amongst the acres of farmland. I forced my way into the only coffee shop I could find.

“One latte with extra foam and oat milk,” I snapped, flipping through Instagram.

“We don’t serve that here, Sugar”, the barista scoffed. Her fingers danced across the tiled countertop impatiently. “We have black coffee. Would you like cream and sugar?”

“Ugh, fine. Stevia, no cream.” I rolled my eyes.

“We have sugar. Take it or leave it.”

As I went about my day, I grew increasingly desperate. There was one clothing store, and everything was itchy and obnoxious and sold with a side of groceries. I couldn’t find a single dry bar, and my hair was crying for attention. Everyone here stopped me to chat. Couldn’t they see how busy I am? Apparently not…

Then it happened. Just as the sun started to set. Blues and purples and pinks danced across the sky. My breath seemed to slow as it got darker. Dots of light began to sprinkle their way across the sky.”, growing brighter with every second. I could feel all of my problems slipping away. No lattes? No problem. Lost my gorgeous city apartment to developers? Who cares. I thought nothing could compare to my city lights. Boy, was I wrong! If every night gave me these stars, I knew I could adapt. I can adapt.

“Tonight will be our last sunset. You will never see me again.” I watched the ocean’s rhythmic waves crash into the rocky shore before me. Its normally soothing sounds deafened me. I could taste the salty, ocean air on my tongue. Time slowly brought out a waning moon and the distant stars. “One last sunset,” I whispered to myself. “We were supposed to have one last sunset.”

Some things never change. A leopard’s spot, a zebra’s stripes, my mother’s hatred toward my father. She let him destroy her, and she took me down with her. It wasn’t until I was older that I truly understood her grief. She let it build within her, like a fire that threatened to take everything around her down, and that included me. She burned me when she self-destructed. I tried to understand her and her pain. I know he cheated. I know he slept with his boss, a man she could never compete with. But I never understood how she could torch everything and everyone around him. Around us. I was just a child, but she ripped me from the only home I had ever known. Before I even knew what had happened, we were sneaking away under the cover of night, slinking across the mountains that border my old hometown and my new home. Or at least I thought this would be my new home. A new home usually meant change. And we did change. A little bit. We changed our names. We changed our backgrounds. We even rewrote the narrative on how my father died. But she never changed. Her hatred grew, and she eventually took it out on me. She abandoned me for days at a time just so she wouldn’t have to recognize that I am my father’s son. We looked alike, laughed alike, and had that same hero’s complex she found disgusting. I devoted myself to being who I thought my father was, a selfless man who gave his life trying to save the lives of innocent bystanders. I tried to be as good of a person as I could be, just to spite her. One day, he found her. My mother had an accomplice. He was a gun-for-hire known as the Phantom. He found us in a cute little café a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower. I recognized the scar on his neck from when he gave us our new names almost a decade prior. I can’t recall much of that day. I was only a teenager then. But I recall the color draining from my mother’s face, almost like her fire had been extinguished. Somehow we slipped away without him noticing. Somehow we got out of the country. Despite our best efforts, he found us a year later in New York. I’ve spent almost half my life trying to forget what he did to her. My mother was gone, just like my father, but I refuse to run from the Phantom anymore. I’m tired of finding new homes. I guess you could say some things never change, but I’m determined to break the cycle…