𝐏𝐔𝐃𝐃𝐋𝐄𝐒 | ✍︎︎

𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝟴

Claileas social worker, and the police officer who I've forgotten the name of had warned me about her. They both used the word traumatized.

I absorbed the word, I let it sink in that the four year old little girl I once knew, who called me Kk because she couldn't pronounce my name, is now traumatized.

I figured we could work through it, and she would be back to begging me to watch a movie with her, and buy her a stuffed animal she had seen on tv.

I was wrong.

What I didn't expect was the cold, dead eyes of a nine year old girl. It's like the life had been sucked out of her, as if she had been drowned and there is still water in her lungs.

I didn't expect to get a whole new Clailea.

And I should've, because I knew our mother had mental issues, and I forgot the fact that my father had to remind her to take her meds.

I just didn't think my own mother could stoop this low.

When I walked into Claileas room to see her freaking out from her tormenter, who is dead, I knew she was far more than traumatized.

I drown the rest of my whisky back and make a face from the burn running down my throat and into my lungs. The familiarity of the feeling causes me to relax into my seat and continue working on the rebuilding of one of our libraries.

When Clailea was taken from us in the divorce, our family was heartbroken. Our father was a good man with good money.

Clailea had always been a daddys girl. They used to go to this flower field filled with babys breath.

My little sister had always laughed at the name, and because of how short she was the flowers would reach her torso. I can remember the soft giggles when she would lay down and give us all heart attacks. Thinking she was missing, thinking she was taken from us.

When she was taken from us then, there were no giggles.

She was ripped from our grasps, and she was taken away with our absolute excuse of a mother.

Look how that ended.

I shake my head free of thoughts, and refill my glass with whisky to the brim.

This isn't a good way to deal with my problems, I know. But it dulls the ache.

I can stop myself before I get drunk, and I'm just on the line of getting tipsy. I contemplate pouring the contents of the glass back into the bottle, but my thoughts are cut short when my office door bursts open.

The door hits the wall from the force of it, sure to leave a dent. I jump in shock, ready to glare at the person who has just attacked my door before I see the tear stained face of Coco.

Coco hates being the youngest brother, he loathes when we tease him about his height and age. When he heard about Clailea coming back, he was estatic thinking we would stop the tortue.