Fear of Falling

could very well be one of our elderly neighbors wondering what the hell was going on. I had to stop this shit. I had to pick myself up and dust myself off. I had been down this road before. I knew how it felt to not get what you wanted.
    Then why did this time hurt worse than anything I had ever experienced? Why did I feel every jagged shard in my chest break, stabbing me from the inside out with years of regrets and disappointments?
    The knocking resumed, forcing me to abandon my thoughts and focus. Slowly I made my way to the door, working to wipe away my smeared makeup. The collar of my shirt was drenched with tears. There would be no denying that I had been crying. And honestly, I didn’t have two fucks to give. I was beyond hurt. And masking it wasn’t an option. Not anymore.
    The moment my hand grasped the doorknob, intuition should have hit me. But something else entirely hit me instead. Something hard and brutal enough to force me to abandon the edges of consciousness and slip into cold, desolate darkness.
    Bad things happened in the dark. I’d had the displeasure of finding that out the hard way. But this time was different. Because before the darkness could fully claim me, I saw his face.
    Him .
    My father.

“Mommy, why does Daddy hurt us?”
    Mommy’s eyes got real watery, and she blinked a lot. She smiled but it didn’t look right. Not like a real smile. It looked like it hurt her to do it.
    She began to brush my hair again. “Daddy hurts us because he loves us.”
    I frowned. That didn’t sound right. “I don’t understand.”
    Mommy nodded like she didn’t understand either. “He has to. To make sure we act right.”
    “But I do! I promise! I try to be a very good girl.”
    “I know, Langga . I know.”
    I heard Mommy sniffling. She cried a lot. Usually when Daddy was home. He laughed at her when she cried. He laughed at me when I cried too so I tried not to do it. I didn’t like it when he noticed me. That always led to pain.
    “Mommy, I don’t like it when Daddy loves me,” I whispered, though he was nowhere in sight. Daddy didn’t always come home. I liked that.
    Mommy was quiet. Maybe I had made her sad. Maybe she thought I was bad.
    “I don’t like it either, Langga ,” she whispered back.
    I turned around to face her. “If you don’t like it, then why doesn’t he stop? Can’t you make him stop?”
    “No,” she said, shaking her head as tears rolled down her face.
    Seeing Mommy cry made me sad. I didn’t mean to upset her. I reached out to wipe them away. “Why not?”
    “Because…because I’m scared.”
    My face grew hot, and my own eyes got watery like Mommy’s. My throat felt funny, like something was stuck in it. I tried to swallow it down, but it only made it harder to breathe. To breathe through the pain.
    “I’m scared too, Mommy.”

    A stinging sensation on my cheek and a muffled voice tugged at the seams of my consciousness. Then pain. So much pain. My head. My neck. It all felt stiff, as if I had been sleeping awkwardly for hours. But when my hand grasped my forehead and felt warm stickiness, I knew that an uncomfortable night’s rest was not the cause of my unease. I couldn’t be so lucky.
    “Wake up, you little bitch!”
    A palm struck my cheek, engulfing it in pricking flames. I tasted blood from the flesh inside my mouth that had ripped open from the impact. I coughed and sputtered, too stunned to cry out.
    “I said wake up!”
    I knew this voice. I knew it like I knew the fears etched on each star on my windowsill. Knew it like the monsters that haunted my dreams. Knew it like the ache that spread through my chest from years of loneliness and rejection.
    He was the reason for it all. He had created those fears. Had spawned those monsters, and had left behind that debilitating ache.
    Him.
    He was here. He had found me.
    Pure, undiluted fear raced through my veins and seized every sense. I was paralyzed with it, rendered completely useless against him. Screaming, fighting, crying—it was futile. He stole it all from me.
    “You thought you could run from me,” he sneered. “You thought you could hide, and you would be safe. Ha! You’ll never be safe. I’ll always find you.”
    Against my better judgment, I opened my eyes. They stung from the blood that dripped from my forehead, blurring my vision. Green eyes, wild with rage, yet so similar to mine, stared back at me. Full lips, resembling my own, were tightened into a murderous sneer over