Dear Dad

February 19th

February 19th,

            We sat in writing class waiting for the teacher to enter dramatically, like she did every day.  She was an interesting character.    Anabella sat quietly next to me reading over her homework piece on sadness.  It was an interesting paper to write.  I wrote mine on when my dad died.  Hers was on her mom.  I couldn’t wait to read it.

            I peered over her shoulder to try to get a peek at it.  I saw nothing but her shoulder.  I noticed it was all bruised like her forearms were.  I rubbed her shoulder and said, “Anabella, how’d you get all these bruises?”  She jerked my hand off her shoulder.  ‘I was sleeping the other night and I feel out of bed.  No big deal.’  I could tell she was lying.  Whenever she lied she had a tendency to flare her nostrils and raise her eyebrows, both of which she was doing right now.  I left her alone for the time being.

            After class I walked her to her locker.  When we arrived I pinned her up against her locker and said, “Okay, now tell me how you really got those bruises.”  She started to cry.  I held her in my arms.  I hadn’t seen her this upset since her mom left.  She cried and cried.  There was no sign of her stopping, there was something very wrong that she didn’t even want to think about.  I rubbed her shoulders and whispered, “It’s alright.  Everything’s going to be okay.”  She backed up and collected herself.  ‘My dad,’ she signed.  I gasped a little and pulled her into a corner of the hallway to talk privately.  ‘What do you mean your dad?’  I signed to her so no one could tell what we were saying.  This was between me and her.  ‘I got the bruises from my dad.’  Tears started streaming down her face again.  I held her head in my hands and whipped her tears away with my thumbs.  ‘Ever since mom left he’s been really mean.  One day he came home from the bar and got really mad at me.  He started yelling and screaming.  He started hitting me.  What could I do?  I couldn’t scream back.  I couldn’t tell him to stop.  I couldn’t even yell for help.’ 

‘Why didn’t you tell me or anyone?’  I signed to her.

‘I was going to at first.  But then after a while, after hearing the things he was saying, after thinking about it, I started to believe I deserved it.  He said I was useless.  I was a bad person.  He said that I didn’t belong here.  The sad thing is that I do believe him.  What use am I?  I’m not a good person at all and I don’t belong anywhere.’  She broke down in my arms again.  I held her as close as I possibly could and whispered quietly and gently, “You are far from useless.  You’re an amazing person.  You do belong here.  Without you, I don’t know how I could ever live.  You are the only thing in the world that makes me smile anymore.  You are the reason the world isn’t dark, you’re the reason it has light.  And you know where you belong.  You belong right here, in my arms and in my heart.  Don’t believe a word he says.  It’s all bullshit.  None of it is true.  Don’t you even dare think that it’s true for one second.  I love you for the person who you are and that person is nowhere near useless, bad, or misfit.”  She took a step back and signed, ‘How much do you love me?’

“I love you to the edge of time and back.”

‘That’s a lot.’

“It’s not enough, but it’s the biggest span I could think of.”

‘What about to the edge of the universe and back?’

“The universe must have an end out there somewhere.  As far as we know time never has an end.”  We kissed and I held her for a little longer until she was okay to go back into the world.