Storming down the hall, Lyla bit her lip and struggled to keep the words in. Fumingly, she slammed the door behind her, shutting out all the anger she had and letting loneliness consume her yet again. Her back slid down the freshly painted door and Lyla felt defeated, like a bird who’d never fly.
More like a bird whose mother didn’t know her, she thought.
Running her fingers through the hot pink fibers of the carpet she reminisced about how things used to be with her mother, when she was her best friend—her only friend, really. Lyla longed for the days when they would enter the mall as soon as the sun came up and leave when it closed, with a smile on their faces and not a penny spent.
You’d never be able to tell the two of them had ventured through the mall as much as they did by looking at Lyla’s cramped room. It made her sad sometimes, but she had gotten used to, especially in recent years. The only presents she ever received from her mom were all the colorful books that now haphazardly lined the walls. Lyla had never minded because her mother was all she ever needed. Although not filled with many toys and fancy things, Lyla’s home life had been better than most. She had a roof over her head, food on the table, and a mother that loved her. It’d never phased her as a little girl to make friends with other kids because she’d been raised with her mother as her best friend. If Lyla had known what she’d eventually have to go through, she might have tried a little harder a years ago.
Lyla got up from the floor, not bothering to wipe the resented tears off her face, and plopped face down onto her Febreze-scented bed. Throughout everything, one thing had never changed in the Tupperman household: the air freshener. If the house smelt like Tropical Hawaiian, it meant all was right in the world. Just thinking about it brought a smile to Lyla’s face. It amazed her how her life could flip upside down, yet her mother could stay the same woman she’d been for fourteen years. Rolling onto her back, Lyla watched as the sun started to set behind the neighbor’s house, as she had for so many nights before. The coming of night—not night itself— always made Lyla drowsy, resulting in many naps. Grabbing a book from in the crack along the side of the bed, Lyla flipped through the pages until she found her place. It was a collection of various short-stories that she’d read at least 100 times since she got it on her tenth birthday. Her books were very special to her, almost like companions who talked back in literature. What made fiction so alluring was the ability to lose herself in a story and escape her reality. The lives of the characters were far better than she believed hers was, and secretly, she envied them. Since she had memorized it long ago, Lyla’s eyes could zip across the pages and not miss a beat. Eventually, each line zipped slower, slower, and slower until the breeze of dusk finally swept her away…

It was a perfect spring day and bluebirds fluttered along the treetops, singing their melodious song. The leaves were smiling after the showers and the sun rose and glowed dazzlingly. Past the rolling green hilltops lay a small village nestled among fields of brazen corn. If joy was contagious, then everyone there was infected. There was one person who, sadly, was immune, and it was a girl named Lyla. Day by day she would sit in a dark, damp, basement, waiting for something to save her, but nothing ever happened. Spiders crawled, rats scurried, but Lyla. Never. Moved. No family, no friends made her existence a lonely one, all because of what raged inside her. There was a demon stirring, repelling all others. She had hidden it for so long and so well, but she couldn’t hold it in any longer. Word would spread around the village quicker than plague, her mother would disown her and Lyla would be damned to the underbelly of socie—

BANG! The shelf on the wall shook from the impact of her abrupt jolting. Half awake, Lyla groaned and rubbed her forehead in pain; she looked out the window and was shocked to see only 12 minutes had passed during her slumber. Figuring dinner wouldn’t be ready for at least another half hour, she crumpled back into bed and the setting sun lulled her to sleep yet again…

Far, far, away in a desolate land where the light does not shine, stood a tower of purple stone whose top could touch the heavens. Surrounding the tower was a brooding sky, barren trees, and a looming pit below, which enveloped the tower in a sphere of eternal night. The presence of life was scarce; in fact, there were no birds soaring in the sky, nor predators scavenging the land, but there existed two people. Across the pit by bridge stood a woman. Her beauty wasn’t obvious, but it was apparent to those who mattered.
Up spiraling layers of glass stairs, in the top of the tower, just below the cloud line resided a young girl named Lyla, trapped and scared. Everyday she’d look out the open window and see the woman, just out of reach, and the woman saw the girl’s fluorescent orange hair flowing out of the window like flames and wondered what was wrong. Some times the woman would try to reach her, but something always stopped her, like an invisible barrier, until she realized that the girl had to come to her—and so she waited in earnest.
Lyla spent her time thinking about an easier way to get out of the tower, but she was scared, scared of what might happen, scared of what might never happen, scared of the obstacles ahead of her. Lyla saw that there was a way out of the tower, but her fear always stopped her. What if she slipped on the glass stairs? What if she fell off the unbarred bridge? However, even on her most hopeless days, Lyla had not once considered just falling off the tower and into the abyss, because inside her, there was a burning flame of determination, and part defiance, and some days the flame wavered, and some times it seemed nonexistent, but it never blew out.
It was only on any average day when Lyla finally got up the courage to tackle the glass staircase. She told herself, “If I can get to the bottom of these stairs without killing myself, then I can do anything.” Taking a deep breath, Lyla looked down at all the glistening stairs below her. It was a long way down. She grasped the railing, palms clammy, she took her first step, then second, then slips on the third. Determination pulsed through her veins as she kicked off her worn-out shoes and listened to them clatter down each step, getting fainter and fainter as they fell. After realizing it was a bad idea, Lyla un-clenched her eyes and continued down her never-ending descent.
As she persistently walked down the stairs, Lyla got a view out of the windows that she’d never experience before and saw all the way around the tower. Her window only looked out onto the land on the other side, but she didn’t know that this land wrapped around her tower and that there were more people! People that lived what looked like a normal life, going about their business day after day, not wondering what lied in the colossal monument only a short distance away. This saddened her, but the thought of meeting that woman, the one that she didn’t know, but reminded her of happiness, was motivation enough.
It seemed like hours had passed before she finally reached the bottom. A heavy wooden door now stood before Lyla. Taking another deep breath, she put the full force of her small body against the door, using not strength but sheer will to get it open. The slit of light beaming into the damp room grew and grew the more she pushed until finally, the door was all the way open. Lyla bolted towards her destination. Air pumping out of her lungs, she felt completely free and unable to contain the comical grin that spread across her face. She ran and ran and ra—oomf! Lyla lifted her head off the bridge realizing she had tripped on the first rung. Her knees and ego slightly bruised, she picked herself up and started to walk across more carefully than moments before. The bridge shook as she walked, and the lack of rails made Lyla fear for her life. Despite her firm desire to cross, she could not control her tears. Her eyes narrowed down on this ever-familiarizing woman as she made her way, step by step. When she had finally made it to the other side, she made a note to thank whatever force allowed her to cross without falling.
Lyla had finally made it. After what felt like an eternity of sitting and waiting in fear, she had finally made it. It was hard and she had struggled, but she was where she wanted to be and could be with this lady she couldn’t remember why she deeply loved. For reasons unknown, Lyla’s freckled cheeks turned as red as a tomato as bashfulness rose upon her. She slowly approached the person before her and could tell how joyful she was by the look of her face. Never really having communicated with another person before, Lyla did the the only thing she knew how to do. Tears welling in her eyes, she reached to embrace the woman.
And everything was right in the world.

This time when Lyla awoke, a calmness had already settled upon her; although, she felt dizzy from her vivid dream. Details swirled in her head, did it really mean what she thought it did? Just as she looked at the clock her mother, opening the door wide enough that she could see the food on the table from her room, came to stand in the doorway after a quiet knock.
“Dinner’s ready,” she said, not making eye contact.
There was no response from Lyla. Something seemed to snap inside Ms. Tupperman because she finally let it all out.
“Lyla, there’s something wrong and I just don’t know what it is. You won’t talk to me and I can’t read your mind,” her mother said with exasperation. “I just…I don’t know what to do anymore,” she sighed and sat on the end of the bed.
Lyla’s heart pounded all over her body and all she could feel was a nervous thudding. Inside she was melting but she had to put up a strong front.
“Lyla, honey, please say something,” she pleaded, tears freely running down her face.
She couldn’t take it anymore. Seeing her mother break down in front of her was too much, she had caused it and she needed to fix it.
Flashes from her dream slid through her head like a slideshow. She had struggled with this aspect about herself for so long, and not because she was ashamed. She was scared of how her mother would react and what would change, but she’d never thought about what had already changed because of her fear. She’d wasted time waiting for her mother to just magically know and for them to be close again when in reality, Lyla had lost her best friend, the woman who had stood by her for years, even when she didn’t want her there. Her mother waited for her and still loved her even after she’d shut her out for so long.
Time was sprinting by her faster and faster each moment. She tried to think of all of her options but there was no time to think, debate, or be cautious like in her crazy-confusing dream. There was no playing it safe. Lyla realized that there was only one way through this, and it was the long road.
Swallowing all her fear, anger, apprehension, anxiety, and tension, she said three words she had never known how to say before.
“Mom, I’m gay.”
Throughout all the chaos ensuing within her mind, Lyla immediately recognized it when a whiff of Tropical Hawaiian found its way into her room.