STARGIRL

63. Aftermath

It sounded like her mother was being murdered in the room right beside her own. The sound of her muffled wailing was both disturbing and heart wrenching.

Naomi bit down on her lip and remained quiet. She wrapped herself tighter in her blanket and waited for the crying to stop, but she couldn't help but realize that it never stopped, and if it ever did, it would be brief.

"No! God, No!" Kate would scream at the top of her lungs, "No! No! No! Why God? Why?"

And it would just be that on repeat for hours upon hours. Crying and screaming.

Naomi herself did not know what time it was, nor did she know what day it was. She hadn't eaten in four days, and she hadn't left her room either. She was sustaining herself from becoming dehydrated by drinking tap water from her bathroom sink every now and then.

Unlike her mother, Naomi did not shed a single tear when she found out what was happening. Instead, the girl was so overwhelmed by everything that she just felt, as stupid as it sounded, that she could no longer function.

In a sense, the girl knew that there was no point in crying over the situation. The damage had already been done, and nothing in the world would fix her father, save Arabella, or revive Mary Watts.

Nonetheless, Naomi wasn't a tough person. She was far from it. Just the other week, she cried when she saw an elderly man struggling to reach paper towels on the top shelf at the grocery store.

She wasn't trying to be tough either, but she was overloaded with too many thoughts and information.

She had fallen asleep without knowing and woke up at night. There wasn't any more noise coming from her mother's room, and that frightened her.

No screaming and no crying. Naomi could only imagine the worst possible scenario, and she felt her insides begin to churn together.

Naomi did not have the strength to go and look for her mother.

Instead, the girl hugged her knees to her chest and waited for a sign that everything was going to be okay.

Then it hit her. The emotion she had been holding back finally hit her the moment she thought about her foster sister, Arabella.

She had realized that every little remark that came from that girl's mouth alluded to what was currently happening.

All of those bruises and scratches she would sport now made sense too. Arabella would usually take pride in them and say something snarky, but Naomi had no clue it was because she was covering up the months of abuse.

Naomi remained still until finally, she heard her mother begin crying again in the next room.

A weight was lifted off the teen's chest as she began to cry.

—

Nathaniel had awoken four days ago from his medically induced coma to nobody being at his side, but he really didn't care.

It took the man a day or two to regain his full consciousness and realize what had happened before his hospitalization.

He was also perplexed when he was being read his rights and when he was told that as soon as he was deemed healthy by the physician, he would be placed under arrest and transferred to jail until a trial could be held. So, he was going to milk that for as long as he could.

Nathaniel remained cool and calm when he learned what he was going to be tried for, but there was nothing else he could do other than wait.

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