3
Under the Bed
By,
Catherine Framke
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Catherine Framke on Smashwords
Under the Bed
Copyright © 2011 by Catherine Framke
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
Under the Bed
Curled up into a ball, with my beloved Big Bunny clutched against me in desperate need for comfort. It had been another fight, another talk in which he walked away. He had left me feeling abandoned and alone, as if no one cared. They are not foreign thoughts and feelings to me.
Three years I did his laundry, cooked, cleaned, got groceries and paid bills. I quit my job to raise our child. Found a place to live to occupy us and his bum brother. When he needed something I went to the store. Bending backwards, I did everything that he needed me for, while he worked and played games with his twin brother.
At this moment, of sorrow, I remembered the nine year old girl I had once been. It was a strange moment to remember her. We both had the sorrow I felt now, but we had different reasons and different ways to cope.
The little girl I had been would climb the stairs to her room, after making sure her brother was ready for bed and heading to his room. My parents were in their room, like they were a lot, doing things I did not understand at nine years old and wish I never learned. My older sister and brother were in the basement, my brother’s room, doing other things I did not know of yet.
It had been the first time I had a room of my own. Surprisingly my room was normally clean though I stayed in my room when I was at home. It was easier being in my room alone than watching my parents fight with my older siblings.
The only evidence of life, in the room, was the two rats in the aquarium on a table next to my bed. At the time I had thought I was old enough to have pets. Sometimes I forgot to feed them. Still they had been the only friends I had at the time and I did love them dearly.
The bed was wooden, and was a part of a set of bunk beds. It was done when we moved and my sister and I didn’t have to share a room for the first time in my life. The only problem was that a board broke in the middle of the bed and left a dip.
Every night I walked to my bed and wished my rats a good night. Instead of lying down in bed, I grabbed my pillow, Big Bunny, and Jasmine comforter and set them up under the bed. Rolling under the bed, I used Big Bunny as a pillow, curled up into a ball, and fell asleep.
In the morning I would put them back on top of the bed. Then head to my brothers room to wake him up. I would make him breakfast and together we would walk to school. After school, I met him at his classroom, make him use the restroom, and walk home. The two of us would not see our older siblings or our parents until after school. Even then the four of them would not notice us.
I slept under the bed for a long time. At the time I did not realize why it was. The broken piece of wood poked me and there was no room to move. Yet, it was comfortable in the dark cramped space. It separated me from the rest of the world, kept me safe.
Under the bed my classmates couldn’t torture me and I did not have to protect my brother from his own torturers. Under the bed my parents didn’t ignore me to take care of my rebellious older siblings. Under the bed I was completely and utterly alone, because I wanted it that way.
Fourteen years later, I can’t fit under the bed, but I want more than anything to feel the comfort I felt at nine. I still want to hide from my problems. There is nowhere to hide. I am no longer the child; I am the parent making a choice for myself.
Clinging to Big Bunny like the child I wish I still was I decide that it is time that I started to take care of myself and not everyone else. It is time to think of my own happiness.