“I CAN’T take this anymore!” The woman shouted behind the slightly opened door. “If you don’t want to leave this house, I will leave.”
Seconds later, the door burst open. The woman with bloodshot eyes dashed out from the doorway. She didn’t even pay attention to the crying seven-year-old girl sitting behind that open door.
“Mama!” the girl called out. “Mama, don’t leave…” She ran to the woman’s room and found her packing her clothes in a large luggage bag she often uses whenever they're traveling abroad. “Mama?”
The woman looked at her. The girl noticed that her eyes were swollen due to too much crying, or perhaps lack of sleep. She heard them fighting last night and even the night before. She can’t remember any day that they didn’t shout at each other.
“Caroline… Caroline, come here,” the woman said in a cracked voice. Her eyes looked daunting in the dark.
The girl with an angelic face, just like the young woman in front of her, walked slowly without knowing that it might be the last steps that she will take towards her. “We’ll leave Daddy alone?” she asked in a low voice, almost a whisper.
The woman shook her head and looked away from the girl. “You’ll stay here. I’ll come back to get you—”
“No, Mama! Don’t leave me…” She cried and plopped on the floor. She kicked everything near her tiny feet. “Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!”
The woman knelt in front of her. The girl knew that it wasn’t the time for her tantrums, but she doesn’t care. This woman will leave her. “Listen to me, Caroline…” The woman held her shoulder and forced her to look at her. “I can’t take you with me now… I-I don’t have enough money to raise you alone.”
Tears streamed down her rosy cheeks. Fear is beginning to cause tightening in her chest. “No… Don’t leave me here!”
The woman ignored even her loudest cry. She continued to pack all her things and stormed out the door. Caroline ran for her, called her name, but she never looked back. The woman whom she called ‘Mama’ left her alone, crying and shivering in the middle of the cold night.
“Caroline… Caroline!”
Caroline lifts her eyes open. She was almost out of breath. Her friend Hyacinth helped her to sit up and gave her bottled water. She wiped the cold sweat in her face. She was crying, her tears were still falling down her cheeks.
“You had a bad dream again?” Hyacinth asked her worriedly. “It’s been months since your last nightmare. Was it the same dream?”
Caroline didn’t answer, her heart is beating abnormally fast. She drank on the bottle, and breathe slowly. She clutched on the blanket and pulled its sides repeatedly until her heartbeat slowed down, and her breathing came back to normal. She has panic attacks again in the middle of the night.
“Feel better now?” Hyacinth asked again, she didn’t know that she was rubbing her back. “I was just about to get myself cold water to drink when I heard you murmuring something, then moments later, you were crying and reaching for something with your hands.”
Caroline sighed, she covered her hands in her face. “I dreamed about her again…” she murmured. “It was a nightmare…”
Hyacinth hushed her and held her hands. “It’s just a dream…”
“It felt real… I can feel my chest tightened. It hurts…” Her shoulders began to shake. “It’s scary. The house was dark… I can hear their loud voices, they were shouting and fighting at each other.”
“Shh… It’s over now, Caroline.” Hyacinth hugged her tightly. “Calm down, and get some sleep again.”
“She left me… she left me alone,” she said in between deep breaths. “They don’t want me. Nobody wants me…”
“You know it’s not true. I’m here… I’m your best friend—”
“I know… but time will come that you’ll get tired of me, and you will leave me… just like what they did.” She started to cry again. But, suddenly stopped when her head throbbed in pain. She put her hand on her head.
“Here you go.” Hyacinth stood up to get something on the table behind their bed. She pressed it to her head. “Hangover is knocking the reality out of you.”
Caroline felt relieved as soon as the cold compress touched her head. “How did we get home?”
Hyacinth’s brow furrowed, not by her sudden change of emotions, but by her question. “That is what I’m going to ask you. How did we get home?”
Caroline looked up at the ceiling to remember what happened last night. “As far as I can remember… You got drunk and passed out, I tried to carry you out the bar, but you’re so heavy, we stumbled down—”
Nobody helped us—?” Hyacinth’s eyes drifted to her hand, holding the cold compress. “And, how and where did you get that bandage in your hand?”
Caroline looked at her hand and gasped. “Oh, my God… so, he’s real?”
“Who?” Hyacinth asked with a knotted forehead.
“He’s Benjamin… and he’s real!” Caroline cupped her face in disbelief. “But it can’t be…”
***