Missing - JJ Maybank

Denial.

Trigger Warning: Emotional chapter, mentions of grief over child loss.

Today marks six months since I lost my daughter.

Six long months of denying the truth, of shutting out my pain and pretending that life didn't happen the way it did.

In one week she would turn one years old, instead she will stay 6 months old, frozen in time as the smiley little girl she was.

She was the happiest baby I had ever seen, she loved everyone that gave her attention. Her little voice was soft, she was smart and vibrant. Time with her was something I never knew I took for granted, I thought I had a lifetime with her but that was far from the truth.

There is no logical side to grief, it's this tangled web of nonsense, you can be fine one minute and then standing on the edge of a cliff the next. Because there is no end to these feelings, there's no fix or way out. My entire life will consist of me missing my child that I will never hold again. I won't ever see her hit a new milestone or speak her first sentence, or walk. Simple things we take for granted won't ever be things in her life, because it was over before it ever really started.

Life isn't fair.

You make one wrong decision and then everything changes. All it takes is half a second for someone to slip away and be gone forever. I don't allow myself to relive that night that she died, if I do then I might die too. It hurts too much to know that it was my actions that lead to this, it was my fault and now she's gone and my husband is gone, and I'm living a lie. Maceo was right about that, I keep secrets and I hold back the truth because denial is my way out of taking responsibility for my actions. I don't want to admit that I'm a shitty person that's made the wrong choice over and over again.

Matias printed some photos of me and Raeni together, I've been sitting on the floor looking at her, letting my fingers trace over the dried ink, wishing she was still here. It's hard to see her now because my tears keep clouding my eyesight.

I miss her.

My world isn't the same without her and it never will be. My light was burnt out when she took her last breath, making me vacant and hallow from the pain. There's guilt laced into these feelings coursing through me, because her daddy never got to be there as a parent for her, though he was damn good at his role as an uncle, but they both deserved to have had that father daughter relationship that I denied.

Matias is a better person than Maceo, by a long shot, so I should have let Matias be her father because Maceo didn't always deserve the roll. He hit me night after night because of the fact that Raeni wasn't his, he'd get so angry at me because she'd cry sometimes when he'd hold her but she was always calm for his brother. A few weeks before she passed away, he started hitting me when she was around, he'd scare her and take it out on me even more, things got really bad before she was gone. And.. and it was all my fault.

"Kaila." Tianna's soft voice whispers behind me.

Sobs rack my body, the photo of my daughter slips from fingers when she kneels next to me and wraps her around around my shaking body, "I miss her."

"I know." She cries with me, "I do too."

"Six months."

"I know."

"Why?"

Her hands run down the length of my hair, soothing me, "I'm sorry, honey. I'm sorry."

"I need her back."

"I'm sorry."

My world crashes around me until my bodies convulsing in her arms. I invite the darkness that's consuming me because the pain is too much.