Dare To Love Again

The poor man looked torn but withered under the look she gave him before turning back to me. “Where are your keys?”

“Calen took them, but I have a spare in the sconce next to the door. Follow me.” All the way up in the lift, I wanted to turn around and go back as much as I wanted to burst through the door and save Calen from her.

My knees shook, and my hands began to sweat when we stepped off into the hallway leading to my apartment door, and I knew I was going to be sick. I found the key and started to unlock the door, but my mother in law stopped me with a finger to her lips. She gestured for us to put our ears to the door and listen after looking around to make sure no one was around.

It was too much! Each word was like a dagger in my chest, and though I’d long stopped questioning why my own mother hated me so much, it was hard to hear. A cloud of darkness came over me when Calen mentioned her plans to kill the baby and me, and I looked at his mom in shock.

I shook my head and mouthed the words ‘I didn’t know.’ It’s true. I never knew about the money, never even heard of it, never gave it a second thought. My friend at boarding school had never found anything about a will or me being an heir. There was no mention of anyone looking for me, and I was made to believe my whole life that there was only her, that I had no one else.

Each new revelation hit me like a ton of bricks until she came to the last one. As she spoke the words out loud for the first time, it was like being dragged back in time. The sights and sounds, even the heavy scent of blood, came crashing in on me, and Rebecca had to hold me up when I slouched to my knees.

There was a buzzing in my ears, and I couldn’t breathe as tears poured from my eyes. I saw that day, the day I’d blocked out for so long as if it were yesterday. I can still remember the feel of the sun on my face coming through the window in daddy’s study. I’d heard the raised voices and came running. Even then, I didn’t trust her. In my young mind, I knew she would hurt my daddy just like she did me when no one else was around.

It was supposed to be me and daddy’s special day. He’d promised after the last time he saw the bruises on my legs that he would take me away so that she couldn’t hurt me any longer. I was excited I can feel that same excitement beating in my chest now as I recalled that day. I was to wait in my room for daddy to come get me, but then I heard the bad voice.

I knew what that meant when she spoke like that in heated anger. I’m not sure what I meant to do; maybe in my innocence, I thought I could protect my dad from her meanness. My flesh grew clammy and cold now as I remembered the sound of the gun going off, the look of shocked horror on daddy’s face as his eyes met mine for the last time, and the smell.

I heard screaming in my ears and realized that it was in my head; it’s the sound I’d made that day. The last thing I remember from that day is the threat she’d made that she’d do the same to me, but somehow what she said after was much worst to my five-year-old mind. She knew how much I feared the dark since shut me up in a dark space until I screamed myself hoarse was one of her favorite things to do.

But that day, she’d threatened to bury me alive if I ever said a word. I don’t remember much after that. Not even the memorial service that had been a few days later. My first real memory after that day is of the boarding school she’d shipped me off to. Now a lot of things made sense.

The meds she’s made them force-feed me, the way they acted whenever I said anything about any of the things the other girls were tormenting me with. Or the way they seemed to think that I was incapable of telling the truth. She’d obviously convinced them that I was a liar so that if I ever mentioned what I saw, what she’d done, no one would believe me.

As the truth of her words settled in and with Rebecca there holding my hand, the fear I once felt turned into white-hot anger. I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone as much as I wanted to hurt her now. She’d taken so much from me, everything and everyone I loved, including my husband. But hearing that she’d planned to kill my son was the last straw.