Six Feet Under The Stars

I locked myself in my room. Childish yes but I didn’t think there was any other way for me to act. If I tried to be grown up and adult about the situation I would have to sit and talk about the problems with my father, and he was the last person I wanted to associate myself with.

“Brack, come on please let me in.”

It seemed like Colby had been outside my room for the whole two days I had been locked up in it. He constantly pleaded with me through the solid wood but I would only ignore him, opting to turn the television or my music up as loud as I could. I knew it wasn’t his fault but I just couldn’t stand seeing him or hearing his voice, even though I knew he didn’t feel that way, to me he sounded smug.

My brother had it easy. Most siblings would say it but I believed it; Colby had a better life than I did.

“Come on Bee, dad isn’t here and I just want to talk to you.”

My father not being in the house did ease my pain but only enough for me to feel comfortable alone in my room. There was still no way I could leave it and roam the house freely.

“Bracken I swear to god I had no idea, that morning was the first I heard of it.”

I rolled my eyes at the words I had heard so many times over the last few days. It didn’t matter that he knew or not, what mattered was that he got to stay. The only thing that mattered was that he got to stay. For all I cared he could have known about it all along and my resentment towards him wouldn’t change; I wanted to stay here, I thought I needed to stay here.

“Please just make a sound or something so I know that you’re okay?” I smiled in spite of myself as I picked up my rubber band ball and hurled it across the room at my door. “Thank you.”

I closed my eyes tightly as I listened to Colby’s footsteps descend the stairs. Seizing what could have been the only opportunity for me to use the bathroom alone I crawled out of my bed and across my floor towards the door before inching it open as silently as possible.

------------------------

“Bracken I brought you some food.”

Ever since I was a little girl my father had always complimented me on my looks. Since I could remember he was always mentioning how pretty I looked or how I was his beautiful little princess. Up until the point of my mother’s passing he was still always telling me these things and I felt good for it; I loved the fact that I looked like my best friend and role model.

“Please will you just eat something?”

In my mind the fact that I was the spitting image of her meant that even after she was gone, she would live on. If I was around people would always be reminded of the wonderful woman I got to call mum, people would always remember who she was. To me that was all that mattered.

“Come on sweetie, I’m worried about you.”

I always understood that losing my mother would be hard on my father. She had been his first and only love; his high school sweetheart and I were absolutely sure that both of them had always assumed that they would grow old together. They both thought that they had a lifetime of happiness and memories in front of them, only for it to be taken away thirty years later.

“Worried about her? You want to ship her off to the other side of the world.”

I knew that having me around would always bring back painful memories for him but I put the fact that I was his daughter down to why he would never shun me or shut me out of his life. I honestly didn’t think he had it in him; I didn’t believe he could really do something so heartless and cruel.

“I’m only doing it for her own good.”

I don’t even think I would have minded if I had been given the opportunity to choose. Okay so that’s a lie but at least then I would have understood and maybe we could have had the talk that we so desperately needed to have. But now it was too late; he’d already lost me.

“For her own good? Dad you wouldn’t know what was good for her if it came up and punched you in the face.”

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that, I am your fa-“

I stood in the doorway much to both Colby’s and my father’s amazement, fully dressed with a large bag haning off of my shoulder.

My father looked stunned; completely speechless.

“Jesus Bee, you could have let me know you were planning-“

Colby stopped short when our father made a grab for my bag, “Bracken you can’t be serious, give me the bag.”

“No,” I argued as I fought back. “You wanted me gone so guess what, I’m going.”

“Can’t we at least talk about this? Sort out some stuff?” I shook my head and pulled away out of his grasp. I may have been being irrational but I couldn’t stand being in that house anymore, I couldn’t stand knowing that my deceitful father was only a few feet away on the other side of the door.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be getting in that taxi outside.”

He made no more attempts to stop me as I practically ran down the stairs with my small bag of belongings, but I could hear him coming after me once I was outside the front door.

His heavy footsteps were still quite a way behind me when I pulled open the door to the black cab before turning around, “You can rest easy now Michael, I’m never coming back.”