Hours go by and I'm in my room just waiting to hear the front door open. They left around 8 in the morning and it was now 1:00pm. My parents had left us with my Aunt Adelle who sat in the kitchen waiting for the food on the stove to finish cooking. Aunt Adelle's cooking is amazing. I've always favored the way she made her chicken over the way my mother does, but I've never told anybody in fear of hurting my mom's feelings.
I heard a knock at the front door from my room and assumed it was my parents so I ran down the stairs. My aunt looks at me and then back at the stove as I darted towards the door. She was unfazed by my excessiveness.
"I'll open it." I say, panting with excitement.
My parents could be on the other side of that door, or it could be anybody but them. A knot formed at the back of my throat. If this is my parents and charlotte, this is probably one of the worst days of their lives. I instantly felt sadness cover me like a weighted blanket. I leaned towards the door and reached for the knob. When I turned it and the door swung open, it was anybody but my parents. It was Wendel, the boy from next door looking for Jordan. Wendel is around the same age as Jordan although I'm not sure who's older.
"Is Jordan here?" Wendel says letting out an excited squeal. "I just got the new Mario karts game and wanted to know if she wants to play".
I turn towards the stairs and yell "Jordan! It's Wendel!".
A few seconds pass and Jordan is flying down the stairs towards Wendel with one arm in her Jacket and the other assisting her to pull it over her shoulder. Her long curly hair bounces behind her and they're out the door in a matter of seconds. I shut it behind them.
For the next hour, I just sit in my room and mope. Aunt Adelle had finished cooking, but I just wasn't in the mood to eat. Anthony and Aleena sat down at the kitchen table and clicked their forks to the plate as they stuffed food in their mouths. I grew tired of sitting and waiting so I decided to make my way to Wendel's house to join them in playing Mario Karts. Just as I step out of the house, I see my mother's car pull into the driveway. The weight of sadness washes over me again and I just stand there, too scared to move, to breathe, to speak. I didn't know what to do. I had spent all day waiting for them to come home just so I could ask them how court was, but it occurred to me that they don't know that I know. They didn't know that I had waited for them for hours to come home, so I could find out if he was going to jail. I wanted to know if he was going to pay for all he had done to this family. I wanted to hear Charlotte say to me that she felt safe in her own home again. But none of that happened. My mother and father walked towards the door and behind them was Charlotte. They all looked exhausted and emotionally damaged. It broke me to see this, but I just pretended to be naïve like I've always done.
"Aunty Adelle cooked." I said, hoping to bring some kind of relief to their already crappy day.
My father looked at me and smiled. It wasn't a happy smile. It was one of those fake smiles that people use to let that person know that they would rather remain silent. I put my hand behind my head and just held it there while they walked past me and into the house. Charlotte didn't even look at me. She stared at her feet as she made her way past the threshold of the door and didn't look back. I could feel the exhaustion radiating off of them.
Later on that night after Aunt Adelle leaves, and all is quiet, my father walks into my room and stands at the door.
"Hey Lady bug." He says holding out his arms towards me.
I run to him and wrap my arms tightly around his waist. Every night he comes into each of our rooms to give us hugs and hear about our days.
"What did you do today?" he asks with a light smile on his face.
I turned my face away from his and begin to lie "I watched tv all day and slept."
I had never lied to him before. Even though it wasn't a big lie, I could feel my face start to get really hot, and I guess my face turns just as red as I feel on the inside because my father narrows his eyes towards me. He doesn't say anything for the next couple seconds.
He gets up and starts to make his way towards the door, and just as he reaches for the light, he turns to me again.
OH GOD. HE KNOWS THAT I KNOW. IT HAS TO BE THAT.
He says nothing, turns off the light and walks out.
I let out a huge sigh of relief. I start to drift off into my sleep when the door opens again. My heart starts to race now. The lights don't turn on but I could feel someone making their way towards me in the darkness.
Now they're hovering over me.
I feel a tap on my shoulder and I turn to see who it is. It's Charlotte. Me and my sisters don't have the greatest connection. We don't open up to each other, and we definitely don't go into each other's rooms when the lights go out.
CHARLOTTE MUST KNOW THAT I KNOW. THAT EXPLAINS WHY SHES'S IN MY ROOM. THAT'S DEFINITELY IT.
She doesn't say anything, she just stares. Even though it's dark, I can feel her stare burn into my face.
"Do you want to eat this with me?" She says, waving a chocolate bar in her right hand.
I reach towards the bar and pull it out of her hand and tap the bed beside me.
"Sit."
The next few minutes we do exactly that. We sit and eat. I couldn't see what kind of chocolate bar it was, so I rely on taste to gather that information.
Nougat, Caramel, Peanuts, thick milk chocolate layers... it's a snickers bar.
"What's the occasion?" I say as I take another bite.
She shakes her head and opens her mouth wide to fit the remainder of the bar. Any other day of the year, this would have been weird, but seeing as she may have needed this moment, this one second where she can just push through any crappy feelings, made it all worth it. It made me feel for her and all of the things she went through last year. It also made me wonder why she chose me to sit with. Of the 4 other siblings she had, she chose to sit with an 11-year-old at 10:45 at night and eat chocolate bars.
"How was the mall today?" I asked her.
She looked at me and I could finally see her face. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough for me to make out her facial expression.
She was grinning and with a tilt of her head she says "It was okay."
She doesn't seem nearly as hurt as I thought she was. It seemed like she had let It go a long time ago, but court seems to push things to the front of her mind. She taps my shoulder once again, and this time she's letting out a yawn. She rubs her eyes then stands up and starts to walk out.
"Thank you for the snickers." I say with a hard swallow.
She nods.
All of this chocolate has formed thick waves of saliva as I try to swallow.
I need water.
Charlotte walks out of my room and a couple seconds later I hear her room door close.
I felt as though this was closure. This was a closing point. A finish. An end.
Maybe it wasn't charlotte I was worried about this whole time. Maybe it was me. I tried to imagine how I would've felt if it had been me that day, and there was really only one emotion that crossed my mind. Embarrassment. I felt embarrassed. Then I felt embarrassed for charlotte.
Maybe that's all it was. Embarrassment. I mean, of course I was angry for her, but I also felt how hard it must have been for her to share what happened with our parents. To a court. To strangers.
Immediately, I went from pitying, to feeling proud. She is still my sister, the one that never does wrong. My strong, intelligent older sister. That was the first moment since last year where I felt that I could breathe again. I had spent so much time walking on eggshells around everyone. Especially charlotte. But maybe it was me that I was trying to protect. Thinking back on that day, I was scared. I was confused. I was a little girl.
I was so young trying to comfort someone for something I knew absolutely nothing about. I felt useless, and most of all, I felt ANGRY.
I hadn't realized just how much anger I still held from that day. It was all pent up and pushed down. For a whole year I was bursting out of the seams with anger towards that day. Towards him. Towards Anna and her mother. Towards everyone for letting it happen in our home. But most of all, I was angry at me.
Where was I?
Where was I when she needed me? Where was I when she was crying for help? Where was I when he violated her personal space and took away her confidence?
Tears stream from my eyes and I bury my face into my pillow. This was definitely closure.
I cried until I got a headache.
I drifted off into my sleep and that was it. No more pain, no more guilt, no more anger. I was just asleep.
It felt nice.
When I woke up the next morning, I felt. Like I had aged a couple years. Like all this time I had spent angry tripled me in age. I knew I needed a day to recover. I needed..
A spa day.