MAMA SAID

It Was Me

"Mommyyy." She whispered as she rocked her small frame from side to side.

Be quiet Halle thought. Noises were bothering her today, they seemed to hurt her brain. She couldn't really describe how much certain little noises annoyed her. They caused an itch in her brain that she couldn't scratch and sometimes she felt a weird, impulsive urge to just run away from what was causing the noise.

"I want my mommyyyy!" Blue cried louder this time.

Halle couldn't run away from the noise. She was stuck and when she was restricted to one place unable to move, her bottled-up anger wanted desperately to come forth. But she couldn't take it out on Blue, at least not right now.

"Mommmmy-y-y" The six year old continued to be with her tears.

Halle's heart shattered at the amount of grief that shadowed her sisters' somber features.

Think like Chlo...
Chloe.
The teens breathing picked up in a mildly contained panic.
Chloeee.
Shit. What would Chloe do? What would Chloe do?
The thirteen year old swallowed every feeling of doubt, fear, and delay. A new presence of resolve made room on her otherwise defeated features.

"I'm-I'm gonna get us help." Halle whimpered. "I'm gonna get us help, okay Baba? It's okay." Even lifting her fingers to caress Blue's cheeks hurt, her weakened muscles screaming out in protest. She felt like a car running out of gas - ready to break down and be scrapped any moment.

"Promise?" Blue croaked.

"Promise." Halle nodded. She could only hope to make good on it.

Through the thin paneling of the walls, Blue and Halle could hear groaning...Deep and pain filled moans. Halle's hand tapped nervously against her thigh, getting more frantic as she started to hear more noise. She peered at her younger sister who lay grasping for her but still unable to move. The teen fought the urge to plug one ear and shake her head. Instead she put Blue out of her misery of needing to be close, crawling closer and pulling the child into her lap. The groaning from the other room turned into nasty sounds of someone retching and the boisterous voice of Mike complaining loudly about the mess. Though it triggered her fight or flight senses, the loud retching was music to the girl's ears.

Retching was a sign of life.

Purging: New beginnings.

Halle chuckled at that, dehydration, pain, hunger forming hysteria in her and forcing out a laugh, that turned into pitiful sobs. "Someone help! Please just help us!" She croaked, barely able to speak.

But no one came. If she remembered correctly, no one would ever come. Minutes seemed to turn into hours, hours were mistaken for days, days deluded for weeks. It seemed she would stay here until her death...and even longer after that. She just wanted her mom and dad. She wanted to feel how her own hot breath would bounce off of her mothers neck and back onto her face when she would hold her so tight to her chest to make anything bad go away. She wanted to feel the softness of blonde vanilla scented curls ghosting her face as she was rocked. She wanted to hear her dad's unmistakable laugh when her mama would yell at him for letting her sneak food into her bedroom or seeing his nod of approval when they laid down a track that he was fond of.

She wanted her life back and even though she knew she was being childish, she couldn't help it. She continued to sob, cry, and scream for help, curling into her sister who had joined her in her tirade as the sobs shook her ribs and shot a sharp pain through them. A somber duet that should've never been.

Eventually, their screams faded to sobs, faded to tears, and faded to silence. The groaning from the other room hadn't stopped, but it soothed Blue in a weird way. The heaviness of her mothers voice always brought her peace. If she just molded the lack of syllables into her mother's words, she almost felt at home in her bed, after a bad day at school. Briefly she wondered what Wyatt was doing at this moment. Probably picking his nose again, she decided. "Ugh."