Stephen woke up this time on an airplane, his limbs stiff and aching. Something gnawed at him from within, a feeling he couldn't shake off. He was browsing through the comments on his Hawaii videos, and as he read the negative feedback, his stomach tightened further. "This video was boring," "Why waste time on such meaningless content?" - comments like these lined the screen. Many words rang bitterly in his ears, and his confidence shattered into pieces.
Meanwhile, his thoughts drifted back to his grandmothers. Anger and frustration mingled within him. "Why did they always have to control everything?" he pondered. During his university years, he constantly felt their pressure. He believed they were the reason he dropped out of college and lost his sports scholarship.
"If only they had left me alone, maybe everything would have turned out differently," he muttered to himself as he scrolled through the comments. The thought of having to take a job he didn't love increasingly choked him. He longed to break free from them, to be independent, but every single day he felt that his grandmothers held him tightly, like a chain that never let go.
At that moment, his phone rang. The screen displayed "Grandma Furry." Stephen took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. He answered the phone.
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“Hi, my dear grandson!” he heard Grandma Furry's voice. “I was just thinking, how about we check on the goblins together today? What do you say?”
Stephen could barely contain his anger. “Don't you get that I'm busy, Grandma?” he replied sharply. “You know how occupied I am. We can't always do things whenever it suits you!”
“But Stephen, we just want a little bit of your time. You know we want to spend more time with you.”
This was the last straw. “How do you think I have time for this?!” he shouted. “Is it because I dropped out of college and lost my sports scholarship? You always think you know best, don't you? I'm here because of you, and because of you, I can't live a normal life!”
Grandma Furry was taken aback by the outburst but tried to remain calm. “We know it's been hard for you, Stephen, but we only wanted to help...”
“Help?” Stephen interrupted. “You just wanted to control everything! You never let me live my own life. Now I'm here, and I have no idea what to do with my life!”
“Stephen, please don't talk like that,” Grandma Furry tried to soothe him. “We always wanted the best for you...”
“I've had enough!” Stephen yelled, then angrily hung up the call. He slammed his phone down on the table and sat down, gasping for air. He felt the fear and frustration increasingly taking over him.
The aftermath of the comments and the call still swirled in his head. He longed for separation, a new life, but the constant presence and influence of his grandmothers suffocated this desire. He just wanted a moment of peace, a moment when he could feel free, but that feeling always seemed out of reach.