Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 149338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
She bowed her head with the shame I wanted her to feel. I swallowed hard, knowing all she needed was for me to take her into my arms, and tell her everything was going to be okay.
It wasn’t.
I refused to lie to her, making her think it would. The nightmares she had every night were proof of that alone.
“I don’t want to be by myself, Uncle,” she murmured again, peering up at me with hopeful eyes. The same eyes Amari would use when she woke me up, crawling into my bed late at night.
Keeping Daisy at arm’s length wasn’t just for her benefit. It was also for mine.
“You need to get used to being by yourself. That’s life, peladita,” I called her, “Little girl.”
She nodded, holding back the tears that were threatening to surface. I reprimanded her anytime she cried in my presence, telling her it was a sign of weakness. It didn’t take long for the crying to stop when she was around me, scared of the consequences it might evoke. She scooted off the couch, so tiny and frail, walking past me. You would think after two years I would have built up enough resistance from wanting to hold her, comfort her, tell her I loved her.
If anything, the urge became stronger.
I watched her go into her bedroom, closing the door behind her, as I made my way over to the makeshift bar.
Waiting.
Rubbing my forehead from the constant splitting goddamn headaches, which never seemed to go away. My doctor said it was from lack of sleep, and diagnosed me as an insomniac. He prescribed sleeping pills, but I never took the fucking things.
My demons wouldn’t let me.
I was worth more dead than alive in this world. And the second I forget that, would be my demise.
I downed my glass of whiskey as I heard Daisy crying from a distance, slamming it onto the bar when it was empty. I grabbed the bottle instead. It was the same thing almost every night. Her room was the only one in the penthouse that wasn’t soundproof.
I needed to hear her cry.
My feet moved of their own accord, my body being pulled by a string. Or maybe it was my heart. Drawing me closer and closer to her door like it did every night. I stood there, leaning my forehead against the cool wood. The bottle of whiskey firmly clutched in my grasp. My other hand gripping the doorknob, fighting everything inside of me to turn it. Feeling every last ounce of her pain and distress, silently praying I could take it all away.
I couldn’t.
The sobs came harder and harder, twisting the dagger in my heart just a little bit more. All I could imagine was her little body shaking with her blanket pulled tight under her chin. Maybe pretending her mother was there, or worse…
That I was.
I turned around, sliding down her door like I always did. Sitting with my back pressed up against it, my elbows resting on my knees out in front of me. I took another swig from the bottle, leaning my head back and listened to her cry all night long.
It was my way of being there for her.
Even though I would never allow her to know it.
There were times when she would sleep through the night, undisturbed by the nightmares that haunted the both of us. I would slip into her room, and sit in the armchair by her bed. Watching her sleep through the darkness until the sun started rising. I’d allow myself to kiss her forehead, letting my lips linger as I made the sign of the cross like my mother had done to me, time and time again.
And then I’d leave. Vanish like I was never there to begin with.
Letting her continue to think she was alone, when in reality, she always had me.
Three years had gone by and not much had changed. I was now nine years old, still holding onto the hope that my mom would miraculously become an attentive mother, not lost in her own world anymore. I longed for a mother like most of the kids at my school had. Overhearing kids in my class talk about how their moms would attend meetings, recitals, or even the simple gesture of making breakfast for them, always filled me with envy.
I hated that feeling.
My mom never attended any of my school functions, award ceremonies, or parent/teacher nights. Most people assumed I didn’t have a mother, which was really sad. She still barely left her room, or got dressed for that matter. She struggled day-to-day to keep pushing through the haze that clouded her mind.
I wanted her. No, I needed her, to be a part of my life outside of our house. To take some interest in my life, since I always took so much interest in hers.