She Was Just a Little Girl

She stands outside of the house where it happened. Ten years later and it still haunts her in her sleep. She had to come back, had to. You don’t understand and she never would expect you to. She heard whispers at night while she was trying to sleep. The whispers would slowly crescendo until they were yelling so loud she couldn’t figure out if they were real or all in her head. Either way, they were terrifying. But that wasn’t all.
She saw things. People. Everywhere. In the corner of the coffee shop while she ordered, behind the tree at the park, in the alleyway as she walked here. They were everywhere. Shadows of people she didn’t know. Following her. They had to be.
She told this to someone at the home once. Only once. They had told her she was paranoid, put her under watch. They thought she was relapsing again, back into the way she was as a little girl. Scared and mute. Convulsing. Which she could understand, except this was real. She knew this was real. She could feel them, their eyes on her. Everywhere she went. Somehow, coming back to the place it all started, she thought this would fix things. Or at least allow her to get a better grip.
She stood, staring from across the street for a long time. She couldn’t bring herself to move any closer. There were demons in that house. Demons she didn’t want to disturb. Demons who would kill her if she let them have the chance. But she needed this, more than anything, she needed this. Slowly, she moved closer, feeling the anxiety building up inside her. Just looking at it growing closer made her start to shake. But she pushed.
Now, here she stands, looking into the window. Looking into someone else’s life. She watched as the child fell onto the floor, tripping over something nonexistent. She watched as the woman picked up her child, pulling her into her arms and soothing her. She felt like an intruder, but she couldn’t look away. This should have been her. All of it. This house. That room. Her and her mother. Everything. It should have been her.
She watched as they sat on their couch, placed in the same spot she hid in 10 years ago. They didn’t know. No one told them what happened in their house. Of course no one told them, no one talks about it. The police don’t like to talk about the cases they never solved. Most people don’t even remember that anything at all happened. It’s not until they see her, look into her sad eyes, that they remember. They remember the little girl they all felt so sorry for.
She had to know. There was no backing out of it now. Maybe that’s the real reason she came here. She needed answers, any answers. But so far, this house only provided her with knowledge she wanted to forget. Sympathetic looks. I’m sorry’s. None of them knew what to say, so they all said the same thing. The script that was written for them through years of experience. “You poor little thing, I’m so sorry.”
She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She wasn’t something to be pitied. She wanted answers and somehow, someway, she was going to find them.