35

1. The Closet

   'Four more years', she thought in her head.

'For more years, and I'll be out of here.'

   She'd been sitting on the wooden surface of the floor in her bedroom closet for four hours now, her tears had dried up and irritated the skin around her eye sockets. She refused to open the door to preserve her privacy, or lack thereof, for what felt like forever. It could've been argued that Cynthia hid on her own accord, to make life harder for herself; she could have left that bedroom anytime she wanted, but she didn't want to.

   Not with him standing out there, waiting for her.

   "You know, I talked to your doctor today," he scoffed, resting his body against the side of the wall nearby her locked bedroom door, as if the interrogation throughout the day on the drive to her therapist wasn't enough. "She told me about you having autism or some fuckin' thing."

   Cynthia's legs curled up against her chest, as the only thing resting between her were her untouched rack of old clothes she hadn't worn since the 4th grade. She never used her closet for anything of value anymore. She only used it now to hide. If anything, now the comfort of her youth staring back at her was, in a way, comforting to see. Back when she was blissfully unaware of what was going on.

   It was more peace than whatever her father had to say to her next. She didn't know how else she could drown out the words that melted through the thin wooden door of that crammed old bedroom.

   "I bet you told her I beat you too, huh?" his voice lifted, awkwardly, as if to hide the fear of the truth being spoken out to anyone else, as well as his own ego convincing him that the story, despite it being based on reality, was all a silly and fictitious lie, conjured in the mind of a young, troublesome, shit-faced child who didn't get what she wanted.

   "Cut the bullshit, Cindy." His voice lowered again. "I know that you lied to that therapist. I know you wanted every ounce of sympathy like the fuckin' attention seeking bitch that you are. What do you get out of the attention, anyway? What's it going to solve for you? Congratulations. You have autism, now you get to hang out with the retarded kids at school. Was it worth it?"

She swallowed deeply, and said nothing.

"Open the damn door, Cindy."

   Her fingers could barely keep a grip against the wood she held desperately onto, as if to keep secure on a long, painful rollercoaster that would never end. In that moment, the immense fear of her father began to worsen by every word he spoke. She couldn't open the door to him. Her bedroom, in that closet, was the only safe place she had ever owned in her life. Her father despised her very existence, and wanted nothing more than for the girl, the girl that ruined his future, to suffer.

   It was unfair to him, in his eyes, that he was deprived of the son he had always wanted; the memories they one day could've shared, fishing and playing football in the front yard, making a man out of his little boy.

But she wasn't a boy. She was a girl. She was a little whore.

   Cindy didn't get up from the safety of her closet, keeping a majority of the natural sun out and giving her the darkness that comforted her in those lengthy, exhausting minutes. Her father continued to slam on the bedroom door, making a few pauses in between, fluctuating the volume of each loud BANG!, as if to maliciously tease her. 'He could break that door down, she thought in her mind, 'but he won't do it.'

   The man, the same man who had once vowed to protect the child apon one day being conceived, now wanted to cherish the fear he'd bestowed onto the very bitch that lay in the fetal position within a tiny, pathetic closet. He knew that he could break down her door anytime he wanted, the man stood at 6'2 and weighed 350lbs; he was a wall of a man, but the entertainment of hearing the gasps and the whimpers of Cindy sneak past through her gritted teeth gave him an abnormal satisfaction that he could never admit to himself, or to his clueless wife.