Page 20 of Under the Bed

He wasn’t the hall monitor.

He was my big stepbrother.

He saw through my pain.

He believed me without an explanation. Without words.

Relief crashed over me. I clung to his waist and cried my eyes out, soaking his shirt.

For as long as I needed him, Kaleb hugged me.

He wouldn’t let go, waited out my tears. Made me tell him everything.

Then, the boy who hardly spoke to anyone picked up the phone. He called the cops first, my dad second. He was my voice when I was too shocked and hurt to say a word.

Only him.

That September was awful. The following October was a nightmare I can’t seem to recover from.

Kaleb being hauled out of the courthouse to the psychiatric hospital. Me being threatened into silence by mydad. Locked up in my own version of prison, in a boarding school where my calls and letters were monitored. I wasn’t allowed to contact Kaleb.

I was scared of what he’d write back to me if I did. If his letters would detail all the ways he wanted to kill me for being an ungrateful brat.

Guilt and fear wash over me. I don’t force them back. I deserve them.

Because when I graduated high school at eighteen, I wasn’t any stronger against my all-powerful father.

Brainwashed. Threatened.

On some level, I still am. I’m still not sure why I’ve been determined to move back here, closer to him.

To Kaleb.

Goosebumps prickle across my skin.

Maybe Dad isn’t wrong. Maybe I’d been living in the same house as a ruthless murderer.

We spent hours and hours in his room. While he wore his mask.

That should’ve been a red flag.

At eleven, it wasn’t.

But no matter how much thinking about him evokes fear in me, a part of me still cherishes and misses him.

A murderer who has me longing for him.

My hand goes to my throat, massaging the strained muscles. Forcing air inside.

Why am I even thinking about all of this?

My abusers are dead.

Kaleb isn’t getting out. The head psychiatrist has been reporting back to Dad for years, saying precisely that. He hasn’t shown any sign of remorse. He isn’t cooperating in group meetings. He barely talks to his doctor.

I shouldn’t even want to be here, so close to the boogeyman.

But I do.

---