“What’s this?” he said, probably pointing to the sheet of paper stuck to my forehead that covered my whole face.
He was the fourth person to ask.
“The fact is, I’m tired of pretending to smile all the time. All you people, you can’t handle when I don’t smile – when I don’t pretend it’s okay. I’m everyone’s shoulder to cry on, but I don’t have one of my own. So, as you can see, I’ve drawn a smiley face on this piece of paper then we can all pretend that I’m smiling. You can see me smile and I can cry onto the paper. Is that okay?”
Through the wafer thin paper I saw his silhouette shrug as he grunted “Yeah, sure.”
He was the fourth person to do that.
And so another tear fell down my face as my father walked from the room with another uncaring shrug.