I’ll go crazy. It’s inevitable. No one cannot go crazy in a moment like this.

Denise Lieu spat out the piece of pillowcase that had inched into her mouth when she first started crying. At this point, she didn’t know whether they were tears of anger, or sadness, or just a mix of both. It was just feeling. Feeling with no name, but she felt familiar with it already.

Maybe it was just thought passing through liquid. Despair churning in the tears that needed to be shed. She felt as if she were watching someone else crying because it didn’t feel like her. It felt like a Denise-shadow, with twice the emotion that real Denise had. Not that anybody could see that, because the real Denise was alone, in her room, with the door locked. It seemed as if only cloth and polyester could understand her pain by soaking it in on weekends.

Because on this Sunday evening, Denise echoed her question of Saturday night by asking for permission to use her computer. Online. In between her words, Denise implied that the Internet would be mainly used for chatting to her friends.

The Internet was for The Game.

The friends were for relativity and companionship. The permission she had to gain was her father’s. Every thought and recycled word was in place on her tongue. Waiting and were key points to this battle that Denise engaged in every week. Unfortunately neither worked very well, and this was obvious in the reply her father gave her. He had drawn his words out slowly, not looking up from his dark green notebook, delivering his judgement like some prominent figure in a suit and tie.

You can use it, he said.

Except—without the Internet.

Just like Saturday’s words. He had said she would be able to use her computer online on Sunday, but Sunday’s words were the same. Promising but never keeping the promise. Denise’s father had turned his back to her, face bent over his notebook, holding an inch short pencil and muttering about the words that filled their lines. After that, she had turned back to her room, holding in a breath she never let back out.

And this was why Denise lay on her bed, staring at the softly rippling clothes in her open closet. The tears had dried and now she thought. Focused thoughts. Thoughts with such precise intent that she knew it would’ve made her father proud. She was thinking about the people who would be wondering where she was, online. Why she hadn’t kept her own promise.

I’ll be there tomorrow, she said.