Mommy never came home that night. Penelope smiled at me sadly when I woke up, and I knew. She confirmed it, but I’d known the truth the moment I saw Mommy’s pretty eyes go empty.
She wasn’t coming back.
Daddy’s voice trickled in through the open door, the anger in it enough to jar me out of the haze of sleep that I never wanted to leave. “I’m telling you; there is something wrong with her,” he said, putting words to everything I already felt. Everything I’d tried not to be for years.
I was wrong. I was unstable and emotional and couldn’t make sense of why I was any of those things.
“She’s coping with her mother’s abandonment, Judge Ryan. It’s to be expected that she would be upset,” a woman said, her voice soft despite my father’s rage.
“I know my daughter. You think this is the first time she’s behaved this way? She can’t even go to school because her mood swings are so unpredictable. Find what’s wrong with her or find me somebody who will,” he snapped, heaving out a sigh. His eyes connected with mine briefly through the cracked door, shock registering, and I felt his moment of shame that I’d heard every word he said about me.
I was wrong.
“It isn’t fair to her that she has to live like this. Help her. Please,” he said, turning back to the woman who looked at me sadly. She met my eyes and let out a deep breath before she nodded to my father.
Her lips moved, but she spoke softly enough that I couldn’t hear the words.
My father’s echoed in my head, a constant nagging as I closed my eyes and let that nothingness swallow me whole again.
I was wrong.
I was damaged.
And I always would be.