Welcome To Jurassic Hell

Ch. 26: Hiding Your Pain Can Open Fresh Wounds

"Ben, why does dad hate us?"

The silence of our room is tainted by my quiet, high nine-year-old voice. It's dark in the room, save for Ben's nightlight glowing faintly somewhere below me on his bottom bunk.

He doesn't answer at first, and for a moment I think he's sleeping and I'm talking to nothing but the dark.

But then he sighs, and the sound of movement on the mattress below tells me he's awake.

"I don't know." He admits quietly. "Maybe he doesn't. Maybe he just-"

"Come on, you can't possibly believe what mom said." I scoff. I roll over so I'm facing the outside of the bed and push myself up onto my elbows so I'm peaking my head over the safety railing. I see a part of Ben's face peaking out from below, though he's looking away from me, an emotion in his eyes I can't see due to the dark of the room.

He stays quiet for another few moments and shifts around, trying to escape my view. He fails, and finally stays where he is and looks up at me.

"I don't. But I don't like thinking he hates us — dads...dads shouldn't hate their kids, right? No one's dads should push them away and abandon their family. They shouldn't stop loving their wives...why...why d-did he?"

I can tell he's on the verge of crying, which I can resonate with since I feel my own eyes growing damp. There's a pit of guilt in my stomach but I burry it.

"I don't know." I whisper.

That's when I hear him start to sniffle and cry into his pillow, which is when the guilt really sinks in. I push myself up and crawl over to my ladder, where I carefully climb down to the floor and walk over the the side of my brother's bed.

"What are you..." Ben trails off. He scoots over to allow me to climb in next to him, and I cling to his side like a frightened little cub to its mother. He cries into my shoulder for a while, and I let him. I just lay there silently as he wet tens my nightgown and pat his back in some sort of reassuring comfort.

"I'm sorry." I finally say after he calms, at least to some degree. "I didn't mean to make you cry."

Ben shakes his head. "No, no, it's okay. You didn't."

"Then why are you crying?"

"Because I'm...I'm scared mom is going to leave us too. First dad, what if-what if she does too? What will happen to us?"

I clutch into Ben tightly and gasp.

"Oh my gosh, no! Ben, no, she'd never do that!"

My brother sniffled.

"Y-You don't know that."

"I do." I say. "I do, because mom can't live without us. She needs us just as much as we need her. She loves us, Ben, you know she does."

Ben doesn't say anything besides, "Yeah," and it hurts that Ben would believe she'd do such a thing.

There was no way we could ever be abandoned again.

Even if we were, we'd stick together.

I vowed that.

————

I wake up a lot faster than when I'd first passed out a few weeks ago: I immediately gain my sense of hearing, feeling, and taste, which I immediately want to go away once I feel the familiar burning sensation in my chest.