Rebel

Chapter 35: Miss Murder

Putting Fauna down for the night had become a challenge for me. She was pretty quiet for the most part. The challenge itself was my fear of having to take my eyes off of her for more than a few minutes. Just thinking about it often felt like pure torture. I didn't know if it was the strong attachment that I felt toward her or if it was fear of something happening to her while she slept. I now knew that it wasn't the crying, the feedings, or the diaper changes that kept you up in the middle of the night, it was watching each and every breath she took that had me so amazed bythe fact that I created something so beautiful and delicate with the man I loved.

Motherhood felt so natural. But sometimes it felt as easy as breathing and sometimes it felt like I was walking on eggshells. Not to mention that I was constantly paranoid. Today it seemed like your baby could die as soon as you took your eyes off of them. It made it even worse seeing so many people do such horrible things to their children. I refused to even cut her little fingernails due to fear of hurting her. I swear if there was ever a time if I saw any blood coming from her, they could go ahead and stick me six feet under.

Now that Danny was working, it was just us late at night. He waited until she was at least two weeks old before finding a job as a correctional officer at Steven's. Too bad he didn't have the job a few months ago when I was always craving McDonald's. All he had to do was walk right across the street when he got off in the mornings. Sometimes, I'd roll over and he'd surprise me with biscuits and gravy after making sure Fauna was changed and fed. It caught me off guard when he decided that that was what he wanted to do. Until a few months ago, he always took me as the type that would end up in a correctional facility and not working as a correctional officer. If it were anybody else, I would have been worried about them being in that environment, but Danny could hold his own and take care of himself. Anyone else in my shoes would have objected to being alone at night, but I took that as the perfect opportunity to have our daughter to myself.

That meant that I would sit up all night staring at her without having him run me out of the nursery and make me get in bed. Sometimes he would do that just to make me succumb to my exhaustion just so he could have her all to himself. It was quite funny at times. We usually spent the majority of the day fighting over her. But I had to admit that she was a Daddy's girl. No one could stop the never-ending crying episodes but Daddy. No one could bathe her right but her daddy. No one could rock her to sleep just right except for her daddy. I knew that I had become jealous. As soon as he would make it home and shower, he was hogging her. I was one of the lucky ones though. A lot of girls my age would have killed to be in my shoes.

"Lock the house up tight," Mom said for the tenth time in the last five minutes. She was the only one that ever really worried about me being alone at night. She sounded like a broken record."Yes ma'am," I said, rolling my eyes. Fauna was fast asleep and for the first time in a long time, I was preparing to have a few hours to myself before I headed to bed. Danny and I had said our good nights and he also made sure to tell me to check the locks at least a hundred times before laying down. "Call me when Danny makes it home in the morning. I love you," she said finally. "I love you too. I will if I'm awake." I hung up and strolled through the house as a feeling of being watched started to creep up on me.

I headed to the front door, looking out the peep hole as I stood on the tips of my toes. No one was there. I made sure to lock the main lock and the deadbolt. Danny would have a rough time trying to unlock the door in the morning, but I'd just shoot him a text before heading to sleep to call me so I could open it for him. It was a pain in the ass at times, but I'm glad we had it for extra security. I don't even think a SWAT team could have kicked that door down.

We were on the fifth floor of the building, so it would have been next to impossible for someone to try to sneak in through the windows. Still, I walked over to the large windows, peeping through the blinds where there wasn't a car in sight in the parking lot below us. "Calm down, Mama Bear," I said quietly to myself with a chuckle. I made three more rounds in the next thirty minutes, this time I made sure to lay my eyes on each and every nook and cranny, considering any and all possibilities for an intruder to break in. I had finally started to wear myself down when I decided that the place was locked down like Fort Knox and I had an aluminum baseball bat in my hand.