Chapter 1: The Invisible Girl in Room Thirteen by Stephen Simpson
I do not have a lot of memories from when I was little, but I do remember sitting in my back garden one rainy afternoon. It was starting to get dark, and I was starting to feel a little scared, but I was too afraid to go back into the house. The wind was cold, and it was giving me an earache, as it whipped around me. My tears had dried in streaks across my dirty cheeks and I puckered my lips to blow the hair hanging in front of me away from my face. Sniffing loudly, I twirled the daisy in my hand between my fingers. It spun and spun until the colours made a blurry white circle. I was captivated by the brilliant white petals and the buttery yellow middle. Taking one of the small white petals between two of my fingers carefully, I pulled it away from the heart of the flower, because the daisy would tell me if Mommy loved me or not. The petal pulled away from its centre effortlessly and I looked at it in wonder.
There were days when she smiled, and she laughed. She told me I was pretty, and she spun me around in her arms so that I could feel the wind on my cheeks. On those days we were happy, my Mommy and me. We would cuddle together, and she would watch my cartoons with me. I loved her smell then, she smelt warm. She made me feel safe and sheltered. I loved her more than anything else in the whole wide world, even more than Daddy.
She loves me not.
I was excited when I ran to her to show her my new dance, and to sing her the new song I made up all by myself. She yelled and told me to shut up, because I was giving her a headache. She ignored me when the tears started welling up in my eyes, but I quickly forced them to go away when she warned me, “Don’t you dare start crying.”
She loves me.
She still makes me dinner. Sometimes she still hugs me close and smiles widely when she sees me, making me feel all happy on the inside, making those warm feelings want to crawl back. She makes sure I have a bath every night and that I am wearing my warm jacket and hat when we must go out to the shops.
She loves me not.
By accident, I dropped my Sippy cup of milk onto the floor. The milk squirted out of the teat in a spray of milk against the wall. It ran down the wall in a tiny little waterfall and I could only stare at it. I cringed when she screamed so loudly, it hurt my ears, and she told me to, “Clean that up! Clean it now!”
She loves me.
When she thought I was asleep, she told me she was sorry. She was only tired, and she did not mean the horrible things she yelled at me. She did not mean it when she told me I was a selfish little brat. She did not mean it when she said that if I do not clean up my mess, she was going to kill me. She told me she would always love me, and I would always be her sunshine.
There was only one petal left and even though my little heart did not want to believe it, deep inside, I knew it to be the truth.
She loves me not.
Copyright © Stephen Simpson. All Rights Reserved.
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