XPLR | Colby Brock

~104~

By the time I got back in my car, I was exhausted. Tired from crying, driving, and just existing in general. So I checked my bank account, decided any hotel room would do, and I drove in and locked my doors. It was a small Motel 6, nothing fancy but in my price range. As long as there was a clean bed and a shower, I'm happy.

It's the nights, I've learned, that are the worst. I haven't slept alone in so long, and the sleep usually beckons hyper-realistic nightmares that wake me up in the dead of night shaking and sweating. Usually about my father, but lately it's been Colby for obvious reasons.

Not to mention having to clean my cuts every night, that's why I thought it important to have a shower. And I will admit, the hot water rushing over the newly formed scabs felt somewhat good- all for the wrong reasons.

Once I finally crawled into bed, turned an alarm on my phone, and curled up into a tight little ball, did I find the strength to put myself into a healthy sleep. Of course, that didn't come, I ended up crying myself to sleep as I've done the previous two nights since I caught Colby and Elena together. God, I can't even stand to think her name in my mind, let alone say it out loud.

It took me forever to go to sleep, and I needed the quiet background noise of the fan clicking to the perfect tempo to finally lull me into a dreaded, nightmare-filled sleep.

~~~~~

Rose Romano pulled her sheets above her head, hiding from the monsters in her closet. Her mother is no where to be found, no one to come rescue her. She can't be any older than eight or nine years old.

She hid underneath her covers and started to hum to herself, curled up in a tiny ball, she began to hum (Hymn Song of Phillip Bliss) one of her mother's favorites, and she prayed that her mother come to rescue her soon. No one would come for a long time, though, and not before it was too late.

There were crashes outside of her bedroom, locked, door, it sounds like falling frames and crosses her mother had perfectly mapped out, and soon there was a sound of many piano keys being smashed down at once. An eerie sound that made Rose's heart pick up.

Lars's voice could be heard over all the commotion, but Rose, in a panic, couldn't make out any of the words. Though, it was usually about the same thing. Something about Rose being too pampered, Lily getting on Lars's nerves, something to that childish extent that was the main income for the family.

Rose flinched when the noise came closer and closer to her bedroom, and she cuddled her stuffed cat to her chest as she cried. Just come in here, Mommy. We can hide under the covers together and tell stories.

Lily was always so good to Rose. So kind and warm, even though Rose, arguably, ruined her life. By now, at age twenty-six, Lily could be a big name in city lights in New York, crowds would be screaming her name, and she would be happily married with happy kids. Not scared ones who hide away from their father for eighteen years, then runaway without so much of a note.

But that never mattered to Lily. Lily had a way of loving life as it comes, loving her daughter of a one night stand, loving her music and sharing it with her child, and showing her daughter what life was really about. Even if Rose doesn't quite get it now, not even ten years later after this event.

"Leave her alone, Lars. She's done nothing to you, and you know it," Lily said. "Oh, would you shut the hell up, woman? You're so stupid, move," Lars said, thrusting Lily out of the way and onto the floor as he walked into the Rose's room. A terrified, but expectant, Rose sat up from under her hiding spot, and watched as her father approached her bed. What could this even be about.

He opened his mouth and yelled something, something Rose didn't quite catch, she was too overwhelmed by her tears and her mother's fresh bruises. "Lars, please. I bought her the book. I know I should've told you first, and I'm sorry," she cried. "Leave her out of this, she's just a little girl. She doesn't know what's going on."

Rose fought the urge to cry harder as her father's eyes, the one she shares, stared her down until she retreated back to her trench, her covers, and closed her eyes. It felt like centuries, but was only just an hour after things quieted down, that she heard her mother's voice enter her room and crawl under the sheets with her.

"It's okay, Rose," she said quietly. "It's okay now. Daddy won't do anything to you or me, not for a little while," she said as she hugged her daughter to her body. It was few minutes later that Lily assumed Rose was asleep before she began to cry. Quietly, to herself. She never wanted to let Rose know she was sad and scared too, because she wanted to be the strong savior in Rose's life, because she didn't have anyone else.

But Rose was smarter than that. Even at nine years old, she knew one person could only take so much.

The door opened again, and Lily began singing the Rachmaninov Tableux Etude: Little Red Riding Hood, to Rose as she slept. Lily peaked out as the big bad wolf came in.

Rose, clinging to her mother, felt the slight tug at the bottom of the bed, and then she felt her mother be ripped away from her. She sat up and screamed, looking around for her mother and calling for help. And she watched as the big bad wolf carried her in his massive teeth into the dark abyss of her closet.

~~~~~

I woke up in a cold, heaping sweat. My hair was a matted mess and it stuck to my face and my lips, and I took a few deep breaths as I remembered my surroundings. I looked to my left, realized the bed was empty, and I felt a huge sway of dread cover my heart. I wish Colby were here to hold me, to tell me it would be okay, and that he wouldn't let any big bad wolf come and take me from him.

I looked up, and I climbed out of bed and walked to the other side of the room to close my closet door.

No, I was so focused on the big bad wolf stealing my mother than me away, that I didn't see the wolf sneak in through the dark closet and steal Colby from me.