Meet Me Where the Oak Tree Grows

They said, "Lana, don't be scared. Just turn around, and you'll find a home waiting for you."
Everything I missed out on, they promised to make up for. I'd never had a birthday celebration, never heard a single "Happy Birthday," and I didn't
even know my real birth date. The date on my ID was just a guess. Mom never told me the actual day; she said she couldn't remember. The only
thing I knew for sure was that I was born in 1999.
That day, Aunt Marie gave me fourteen gifts, and Jonah took me to fourteen different amusement parks. They made this enormous cake for me, with
fourteen candles on top.
Jonah smeared the first bit of frosting on my forehead, saying he wished to pass all his luck for the coming year onto me.
As I closed my eyes to make a wish, I heard "Happy Birthday" whispered in my ear for the fourteenth time.
They said the past fourteen years were behind me, and from my fifteenth year, it was a fresh start. From now on, any day I choose could be my
birthday.
Fourteen-year-old Lana, worried that fate wasn't strong enough, decided to share a birthday with Jonah: June 26th. From then on, we celebrated our
birthdays together every year. Aunt Marie was all smiles. She said she never expected to have both a son and daughter in her middle age.
Life has a funny way of giving you nothing, then sweetening the deal when you're down, only to snatch it away when you're hooked.
Just when I thought everything was looking up, my dad came back, buried in debt.
For two months, he blew through the money he'd won, dazzled by the high life and forgetting the hard times when we couldn't even put food on the
table. He only remembered that one lucky break and thought he was a big shot stuck in a small pond, dreaming of getting rich overnight through
gambling instead of working honestly.
But what he didn't realize was when you stare into the abyss, it stares right back at you.
Nobody gets rich through gambling, at least not my dad. He lost everything, sold our only old house, and still couldn't patch up the financial mess.
With nowhere to turn, he remembered he had a daughter. Knowing I was staying with the Evans family, he didn't dare show up at their door, so he
waited for me on my way to and from school.
The first thing he said when he saw me was, "Look at you now, hitching your wagon to anyone who'll have you. If your mom had been as smart as
you, things would've been different."

His eyes roamed over me as if sizing me up. "I hear the Evans kid and that crazy woman both dote on you. Go ask them for two hundred grand, you
know, as a little compensation for the last time I got roughed up."
As he got closer, I couldn't help but start shaking. I clenched my fists, trying to play it cool. "Two hundred grand? You really think you're worth that
much? I don't have that kind of pull."
He blew up, slapped me hard, and even though I braced for it, I couldn't dodge. That familiar ringing in my right ear.
He barked at me to get him the money by tomorrow, or he'd kill me.
Seeing him so desperate, I couldn't help but laugh. When fear hits its peak, it turns into defiance. Once you're scared enough, you stop being afraid.