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fence that
separates our yards. I fall to my knees when I reach her and pull
her into my lap. She gasps from the shock of me being there, then
relaxes her body into me, gripping my shirt and climbing my body
until her face is buried in my neck, her body shaking from her
sobs.
    “Shh, it’s
okay, baby. It’s okay.” My hand strokes her back, the other holds
her head to my neck. When her body finally stills and her breathing
evens out, I realise she’s cried herself into exhaustion. I scoop
my arm under her knees and cradle her back, rising gently to my
feet. I carry her into her house and fumble my way through, opening
the doors without disturbing her. When I reach her room, I don’t
recognise it. There’s nothing left of the childhood bedroom I
remember. The walls are now painted white, not the pale pink they
used to be, and there are no posters. Her dance medals are nowhere
on display, in fact, the room lacks any of River’s personality.
It’s bereft; only a bed and a dresser with a chair in the corner
fills the space. I lay her sleeping form down on the bed and look
at her as she snuggles up to the pillow and sighs.
    Damn, her face
is all red and blotchy from her tears, but she’s still the most
beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. My eyes travel down her body like
the fucking pervert I am, thinking about what’s under those shorts
she has on. She fell apart in my arms tonight and here I am perving
on her tight, sexy little body while she sleeps. I’m acting like a
pussy-starved teenager. I watch her body lift then relax with every
breath, reminding me of all the times she curled herself into me
when she would sneak over at night. I remember the first night she
ever stayed with me; I’d heard her crying on the steps to her
house. She rushed me when I walked up the garden path, coming home
from a date I didn’t want to be on, but River was too young for me
back then, and Blaydon would never have understood my feelings. Her
face was blotchy red, the same as tonight. When her small frame
collided into mine, I instinctively wrapped her in my arms. “She’s
gone, Sammy she left us.” Her voice was shaky and her body held a
constant tremble.
    “Who, Twinkle
Toes?”
    She released
her hold on me so I lowered her to her feet. “Momma. She killed
herself.”
    I felt her
grief, I shared it with her, and took her inside and up to my room.
I laid her down next to me and held her all night while she
cried.
    I blink back
the memories, exhaling loudly, and rubbing my hands through my hair
I reach for her lamp and turn the light off, close her door and
leave.

 
     
     

    S ammy consumed my dreams last night; I had once again
found myself in a heap. Memories holding me hostage playing images
of my sixteenth birthday over and over, overwhelming me, reducing
me to sobbing in the back yard, but this time felt different; this
time he had come to hold me. I broke. I’d waited four years for him
to hold me again, and I poured my tears into him and prayed he
would heal me. I dreamt it was him who came by that night four
years ago, and not Danny.My phone vibrates, pulling me from the
bed. I walk over to the dresser already knowing who the text is
from. I know because he texts me at least ten times a day to tell
me he loves me. I swipe my finger across my cell; Danny’s name
highlights the screen.
     
    River, I
miss you and love you, my beautiful girl.
My stomach rolls when I read his words. My dad used to call me
beautiful, and it’s my pet name from Danny, too. I hate hearing it.
Danny loves me, but it’s an obsessive, intense, terrifying love.
Whenever he feels low, or threatened by any male attention I
receive, he goes into a depression or a rage. Either mood results
badly for me. When he gets into a rage, he tells me he would rather
kill me than let me go, and with his tight grip wrapped firmly
around my throat as he says these things, it’s a threat I know one
day he will probably carry out; erasing me from this world,