NOT BY SIGHT | ANNIVERSARY EDITION

𝕊ℍ𝕆ℝ𝕋 𝕊𝕋𝕆ℝ𝕐: 𝕂𝕖𝕕𝕒𝕙

ONE YEAR BEFORE THE WAR

I didn't know the man in front of me.

Not anymore, at least.

He used to walk me to the park every Saturday. He bought me my favorite candy every day when he came home from work.
Mother didn't really like that. She said it was too much sugar.
But he always convinced her to let me have just one more piece with his genuine smile.
His eyes were so kind and full of pure joy when I looked into them.

And as they look at me now, they're bloodshot and full of drunken rage.

"What....how did this happen, you worthless thing?!"

He was so close to me now. I could smell his disgusting breath.

I swallowed very hard. I could hear Gad crying in the other room. I needed to get to him.

"I....I dropped it..." I mumbled.

"You....you what?!"

He's closer still. I could see his stained teeth snarling at me.

"I dropped it," I spoke up this time.

Then the pain finally came.

I was suddenly on the ground, not realizing that I was crying.

Immediate adrenaline and pain, aching, throbbing pain....I could feel it all throughout my body.

I didn't want to open my eyes.
I could only feel what was happening to me.

A heavy grip on my arms. I was being lifted up.
More pain.

Someone was stomping towards me.

"YOU UNGRATEFUL BRAT! YOU DON'T EVEN DESERVE TO BE FED!"

Closer, closer, ever so closer.

"IF THAT HAPPENS AGAIN, IT'S GONNA BE THE CLOSET."

I could hear him walk away. Then there was the slamming of a door, and then silence.

My first instinct was to get Gad.

Whatever it took. I think I was crawling, or maybe dragging myself.

I could see Gad. Right where I put him.

Finally, I get to him, and pick him up as gently as I could.

"It's okay....Amma's here...it's okay..."

After a while, Gad started to calm down and fall asleep, and I stumbled over to my room, my head still dizzy.

I carefully placed him on my bed and tucked his blanket under his small body.

Then I collapsed on something cold and hard.

~•~

I woke up ever so slowly.
Immediately, I shot up to check if Gad was still there.
He was sound asleep.
Relieved, I stood up slowly, testing my abilities to move.
I felt I could manage to get to the kitchen.

I made a small pot of soup this afternoon to eat. Of course, I waited for hours for my father to come home. The bowl eventually got cold, and just as I saw the shining headlights pull in the driveway, Gad knocked over the bowl from the table.
I barely picked him up from the chair and sprinted to the bathroom before he came in.

He's almost two, so he's testing out his new abilities to move and walk. He drops stuff all the time, but of course, I can't tell my parents that.

I can't tell my parents that Gad is my son.

He was handsome. Gentle. I needed his gentleness to cope with the abuse from home.
He knew what happened at my house. He promised me he would take me somewhere safe. Just the two of us.
His name was Kaiden.
His eyes were ice blue. A few freckles here and there. Hair that was so blonde it was almost white.

See, he wasn't just an ordinary boy.

He was a young man. A gentleman.

Top of our class, lived in the suburbs, hung out with the kindest kids I knew.

The poor boy fell for me and I him.

We were high school sweethearts.

And we took it too far.

But when I told him, he did what any other teenage boy would do.
He left me.
I guess he was scared. Too scared.

I was too.

But my dear aunt helped me so much during those long nine months. She took me to appointments and bought me a few things for Gad. She gave me advice, all the things a new mother would need.

My parents are never really home, and when they are, they're too drunk to notice that there's a small child.

My aunt had to move away last month, so now it's just me.

As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I dropped out of high school.

I don't want to know what would happen if my parents found out I had a child.

Mother's always gone now. "Business trips" are just trips to casinos.

I start to clean up all the soup from the floor, and rinse out the plastic bowl in the sink.

~•~

I've been having strange dreams. There are monsters everywhere, destroying everything.
Fire.
Our small house was on fire in my dream.
But I escaped before the fire spread completely.
I wake up with a start, and my son cuddling his blanket beside me.

My aunt brought that for me after she visited my grandmother. She told her what happened to me a few months before her last visit, and when she went there for the last time, my grandmother told her to give the blanket to me.

It was for my son.

My dear son, Gad Ernest Robinson.