The Other Side Of The Fence

Theodora, Teddi for short. It was a nickname from my dearly departed father, his little Teddi-Bear. Mother only used the name once in a while, she never did like the name Theodora though, so maybe it was the lesser of two evils to her. She could call me by the name she always hated, or the nickname that she wasn’t a fan of.

I sighed as I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn’t know why I even tried to experiment with makeup, it’s not like anyone was ever going to see me. But on the weekends, there wasn’t much else I could do, I wouldn’t be able to go outside, mother would hear. She’d hear me sneaking away, she’d find a way to seal up my door ways to freedom, I know she would. She’d punish me for being bad, and yell, about how the bad men would come and kill me like they did Daddy.

Oh Daddy, how I miss him sometimes. He was the best man ever, I know every little girl says that about their daddy, but mine really was. Every day he made sure to be home by 6:30 to have dinner with us, then we’d watch our favorite shows together, giggling, and making jokes the whole time. He taught me how to play guitar, he’d encourage me to sing, even if he couldn’t, he always said that I had a beautiful voice. Every Sunday we’d go out for ice cream, just spending the day together, catching up on the drama of school, or checking to see if I had interest in any boys, he always wanted to be a part of my life. Maybe it’s because I was his only child, or maybe, he just loved me that much. I choose to believe that latter, although, I have to, I’ll never get to ask him what the real reason behind it was. Those men took that all away from me.

I remember that day, I could almost relive it, like it’s a movie, but I’m hidden in the corner, just watching. 6:30 rolled around, and Daddy wasn’t home from work, he hadn’t even called to say he was going to be late. Mother was getting worried, neither of us knew what to do, he wasn’t answering his cell phone, he wasn’t answering the shops phone. This wasn’t like my Daddy. We had heard the sirens, neither of us thought it’d be for Daddy though, neither of us could have ever expected that. When an officer knocked on our door, two hours after Daddy was supposed to be home, I knew what it was all about. I had seen plenty of movies, and TV shows, depicting this very scene; the officer shows up, the woman crying hysterically, the children gripping onto their mother, crying over how their father would never come home. My mother didn’t cry hysterically, she completely closed up; she looked straight at the officer, nodded, and sent him on his way. I was the one who cried hysterically, I didn’t leave my room for days, not sure what I was going to do anymore, and Mother never loved me as much as Daddy did. She never could love me as much as Daddy did, she only loved me as much as she could, but it’d never compare. I lost my best friend that day, and two weeks later I lost all of my other friends. Mother took me out of school, she said it was time to start home schooling, she wanted to be closer to me.

Ever since then, I’ve been here, in my basement, my prison cell.