Coward by Alada Porter (little readers .txt) 📕

"Where have you been!? It's four in the morning!"

The walls are too thin for whispers to be effective. I can tell she's trying to keep quiet, to let us sleep while she cries, but that doesn't work on me anymore. I'm awake the moment I hear the crack in her voice.

"I was out with friends, I told you. Get off my back." He doesn't bother trying to stay quiet, and I pray that he doesn't wake my sister.

She hasn't been sleeping so great lately, she tells me she's scared but won't say why. So I sleep in her bed tonight, so she can dream without nightmares.

"Shh! The kids are sleeping!" Mom's trying her best but I can hear her start to give up, to break down. There have been too many nights like this before, too many arguments for her to believe in any sort of victory or compromise. She's just going through the motions, breaking her heart every night.

"Then I guess we should be quiet then," he says, walking away from her, his ears and his heart already closed.
His apathy is so caustic she disintegrates where she stands, silently sinking to the floor and letting out a single pained sob.

I want to comfort her, to run out there and hold her, but that's not what she wants. It's better for her to think me and my sister are asleep. She needs her pride more than she needs my comfort. And I guess I can respect that.

I close my eyes and call out to sleep, hoping it can take me away from this place, at least for a little while. But no matter how long I keep my eyes closed sleep never comes, and I start to wonder if fear is contagious. If it's something that can be absorbed through the skin and breathed in the air. I almost wake Layla, so that she could comfort me with the words I comforted her with before. But then I hear the bedroom door opening, and my words die before they reach my lips.

He takes a step into the room, the floorboards wailing in agony underneath him, and I can hear Layla's breathing change. I try to reach for her hand, but in this big bed she might as well be miles away. My hand can only twitch in her direction.

"Did you miss me baby?" he whispers, the bed shifting as he sits on the edge.

"N-no p-please," Layla whimpers, and I can tell she's crying, the tears making soft plick-plick sounds against her pillow.

"Oh come on now baby, you don't need to be so upset. You'll wake your momma, she's been so stressed out lately, she needs her sleep. Just lay here honey, I'll take care of you."

I don't move, even though my mind and my heart urge my body to move, I'm frozen.

I don't look, but I can tell he's touching her by the way she whimpers; I can tell he's kissing her, rubbing his body up against her and I feel tears of my own start to drip down my face and make plik-plik sounds against the pillow.

I guess he's just too drunk to see me, or in the dark I'm just a lump of shapeless blankets, because he takes her right there. He takes her while I lay next to her, so close but miles away. At one point she calls out my name, a final desperate cry for help, but I make no noise and I make no move.

I'm a coward.

She doesn't ask me to sleep with her the next night, I guess she's learned that I can't save her from her nightmares. She tries not to look disappointed, but I can see it in her eyes. So I just go back to my room, and I pray, for the first time in a long time, I pray.

It's late, and I can hear them arguing again.

"Why are you treating me like this!? Ever since we got married you haven't been the same! What's going on with you Lars?"

"You know what's going on with me? You're a cunt, that's all. And I'm getting mighty sick of you and your condescending attitude."

"Me? You're getting sick of me! Go fuck yourself."

And he slaps her, the sound of his calloused hand against her soft cheek echoing through the house. She hits the floor and I'm up out of bed, quietly opening my door open and running to my sister's room. Doing what I should have done the whole time.

I grab her hand and drag her out of bed.

"I'm scared Jimmy," she whispers as I lead her to the master bedroom and into the closet, phone in hand. I can still hear the fighting downstairs, glass breaking, fist against flesh, and I'm shaking all over.

"We've got to call the police," is all I say.

But suddenly it's quiet, the noises downstairs a distant memory, and I feel the phone fall out of my hand.

The only illumination in the dank little closet is the daggers of light coming through the slatted double doors. We're huddled together in the farthest corner, away from the menacing light. We start to scream for our mother, but the cries go unanswered, the silence from downstairs growing ever louder. Our terror filled eyes are riveted on the closet entrance, the only thing standing between us and the unknown. I find my eyes drawn to the pile of clothing at the other end of the closet... Is she ever going to wear those again?

"Why am I such a coward?"

Publication Date: 02-09-2013

All Rights Reserved