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Afraid.
Monster.
Hearing these words fall from Ethan's lips, brings me back to a memory that has been buried for a while. I let it wash over and consume me as my mind wanders back to another one of those days.
As a child, my mom would tell me to pee before going to bed so I wouldn't have to wake up at night. Of course, as the stubborn child I was, I never did what she said. This resulted into me waking up nearly every single night, regretting the fact that I didn't go before I fell asleep. I'd stand on my bed to jump as far as I could manage with my short legs, making sure not to land near my bed. You never know what kind of monsters are hiding under there, ready to grab me by the ankles and drag me in.
After surviving the first part, I would walk over to my parents' room, just next to mine. I'd do my best not to make any noise, so I'd scuff, not waking up any made-up scary creatures.
Perhaps those scary creatures weren't just the monsters underneath my bed. Perhaps the monster I feared the most was my father, who would sometimes pass out on the couch downstairs, spilled alcoholic beverages and empty cans surrounding him. I would not dare to wake him up in that state.
Slowly turning the doorknob, I'd walk over to my parents' bed. The fact that my father was never there always upset me. Not because I missed him, but because I didn't enjoy watching their marriage fall apart. Somehow in my childish mind, I hoped they would fix everything between them. I couldn't yet understand that my father himself was the problem, and that's not really something you can fix after all those years. He couldn't be changed, nor fixed.
When I asked my mother where he was on some evenings, she'd say he was working another night shift. I'd never understand why he'd always work night shifts, but I just kept that to myself. I didn't ask any more questions.
That was before the physical abuse began, after years of mental abuse. When that started, my mom and I could finally breathe a little when he wasn't home. I'd beg my mom to keep him away for as long as possible. It was a relief to have some time in the house without having him around.
I stared at my mother's face for a few minutes, listening to her as her chest slowly moved, rising and falling with every calm breath she took. I remember how abnormally gorgeous she was. Maybe because she was my mother and I admired her as her daughter, as the child who idolized her from the minute she was born. Maybe she was breathtaking in everyone's eyes, that's what I like to believe. Her hair was a warm color of brown and she looked so peaceful with her eyelids closed, her green eyes underneath. She made me love green at an early age. I couldn't help myself, one look into her eyes and I knew I wanted her around forever.
Forever didn't last that long.
I never could've thought a few years later I'd admire her with her eyelids closed yet again, surrounded by flowers, lifeless in a coffin. Not a single movement within her chest, her brown locks drooped around her pale face, her dull green eyes buried beneath her fallen eyelids.
