Fly Away

Chapter 14 - Cocoa

11 years ago...

I sigh and look out the window. School is canceled because of the snow storm and I am sad because I hate staying home. Home sucks because Father is mean to me. This morning, Mommy cooked pancakes for us and I was happy... until he screamed at me for forgetting to put the maple syrup back into the pantry.

Mommy never defended me back then. She always sat there in silence, afraid. I didn't blame her. I couldn't. Not when I knew how scary Father was. She never stood up for me until the one night when Father came home one night with a cigarette in his hand and pressed it to me until I was bleeding and screaming.

She found me on the floor, crumpled into a crying heap, laying in a puddle of tears and a burnt out cigarette.

That's when she knew something was wrong. And that's when she knew Father had went way too far.

But that was nine years later. Right now, things are different.

And when Father yelled at me today, the sight of him slamming his hands on the table and screaming hurtful, hurtful words at me was too much for my five year old eyes to handle.

"You're so useless! You can't even remember to do a simple thing!"

useless useless useless

So here I am, sitting on the window seat, with a fluffy blanked wrapped around my shoulders and hugging my stuffed bunny. I got her for my fourth birthday from Mommy. She knows how much I love bunnies. They're so cute and fluffy! I asked for a real bunny, but Father got mad and yelled, so she gave me the next best thing.

I named her Cocoa, and we became best friends, since Father doesn't let me have friends. He says that they hurt you and betray you and make you want to kill yourself. I never had any friends, besides the people I talk to at school. They didn't really count though. I wasn't close to anyone, and never hung out with anyone outside of school

I wipe my tears away and set Cocoa on the bench. "Stay, girl," I whisper, tucking the blanket around her so she doesn't get cold.

I stand up and trot over to my desk to grab my notebook. I sketch and write in here - it contains everything. My mind, my heart, my soul, my everything. All my wishes, hopes, and dreams are written right here in my spiral bound notebook with a cute picture of a bunny on the front.

I return to my window seat and snuggle under the blanket with Cocoa.

"Oh, Cocoa. I wish you could talk. I wish I could talk to you and you could talk to me. Then maybe I wouldn't be so sad all the time," I sigh wistfully. "Mommy doesn't have time for me and I'm scared to go out of my room because Father is going to yell at me."

I sigh again. "Oh well. At least you can hear me, and you always listen to me."

Cocoa continues sitting with me, her plastic eyes never blinking, frozen into place.

"I wrote a story. It was really late last night, like one o'clock! That's the latest I've stayed up. But I couldn't sleep. I kept hearing Father's voice in my head, telling me really awful and mean things. So I wrote," I explained to my stuffed bunny.

I open the notebook to a section in the back. "Lemme tell you the story I wrote yesterday."

I look at Cocoa before starting. "There once was a princess named Ray. She had a bunny for a best friend, because she was told not to trust people. The bunny's name was Brownie, and would always listen to Ray. They would play by the creek in the summertime, and drink hot chocolate by the fire in the wintertime. Ray and Brownie were the bestest friends in the whole entire universe."