Page 38 of Come Alive
“Filthy child. You promised you would keep her clean. That she would be your mirrored image. Both of you, get inside,now.”
He didn’t wait for a reply before turning and stomping back to the house.
When he was back inside, Mama carefully got to her feet. “Yara, sweet child, soon enough we will escape. Everything will be okay, I promise.”
Three weeks later...
Feet pounding on the pavement.
Hair catching in the wind.
Sweat soaking through our clothes.
Trying to keep up with Mama as we fled our home.
But my father had caught us before we even made it out of the neighborhood. As if he had known her plans. And then he had lunged for me, but my mother had gotten between us. Protected me.
My father stabbed her instead. Over and over again. Until the blood soaked his clothes, stained the tops of my shoes, soaked into my skin.
I screamed and screamed. But nobody came.
They never did.
“This should have been you. And now who will be my Doll?”he had asked calmly afterwards as I shrieked and cried and begged for her to wake up.
And then he locked me up for good measure.
Two years later…
The matches catching on the third try.
The toilet paper going up into flames.
The drapes acting as kindling.
The wallpaper melting.
The smoke and heat wrapping painfully around me.
It was time.
Even at eight years old, I knew the world didn’t need him in it. Didn’t want to exist if only as a doll for him to mold.
My head fell to the carpet, waiting for it to be over. To find my mama.
The stomping of boots and distant shouting.
Firefighters had miraculously come, and I had been rescued. But they didn’t get tomy fatherin time; he had died in the fire.
Or so the police told me.
And I had trusted them…
Why would they lie?
But as an adult, it made sense. He had money, he had been important in the community, he clearly had nefarious ties.
It was no wonder he escaped.
