Chapter 212

Chapter 2 - Bumblebee (Oakley) POV I hear talking, dad… Uncle Grant… and an incessant beeping, and all I can think in sadness is: it didn’t work. I did everything right, why was I still alive? Yes you are Oakley, you’re still alive, because you have people that care for you, I couldn’t heal you right away, it’s too soon. The voice says and once again, I know just how just how crazy I am, not that I’d tell anyone…  you aren’t crazy, I’m you Oakley, I’m protecting you, safeguarding us. Muddled, in the most defeated voice I’ve ever heard my father speak, he answers Uncle Grant, “Sarah’s mother thinks this is just for attention…” someone sighs, but Uncle Grant answers, “Pat… one minute later than we were and we wouldn’t find Oakley the way we did, we’d have found her dead. This wasn’t some superficial cutting, attention seeking stunt, Oakley was trying to get away, and I’ve told you-” “What am I supposed to do here Grant? Its only getting worse… six years and she treats Amelia and Sarah worse than when I first brought them around. Sarah just wants to be a mother to Oakley and Ben-” “They had a mother-” “She left-” There’s a harsh sigh, “I don’t know what happened, but I’m willing to bet that Oakley knows more than she ever told us, but how could she even bother to come forward when all you’re doing is pushing the memory of her mother away. I told you six years ago, and many times before now, Oakley isn’t interested in Sarah being a mother figure. She doesn’t want her mother to be replaced or forgotten, and because of that I’m betting that when she was a child and said she knew nothing, it was a lie. She knows-” “Norine took most of all her things, she left her wedding ring on the table with no note-” “Pat, Oak wants to talk, you can see it, but she won’t if she feels you aren’t listening to what she has to say. She doesn’t want you to dismiss her feelings, she wants you to hear and actually see what she’s been saying for the last six years. You’ve let others judgment influence your perception, I know you were hurt when she left, but Oakley doesn’t display signs of a child whose mother left her, it’s more compatible with a child whose mother died Pat. And for six years, she’s heard Sarah, her family, most people talking about her mother in the worst ways, a mother that as far as Oakley knows, loved her, loved you and Ben. And you’ve let Sarah try to replace that, you threw away her things, but you have to see it? Don’t you? You wanted to make Sarah secure in her position as your wife, but-” I don’t mean to make a noise but the talking is hurting my head, I groan, my eyes flutter open and shut when the lights blind me. There’s some shuffling, “We turned the lights down Bumblebee, you can open your eyes again…” Daddy says and blinking, I see the bright lights are gone, the light no longer so harsh, I try to focus, on Daddy, “How are you feeling Bee?” they look at me warily, afraid. “So tired,” I mumble, my whole body stiff, but I don’t say that I’m sad, angry that they came to help me, that I’m here when I didn’t want to be found. I should’ve done it somewhere else, hid. “Oh Oak…” dad starts to talk, his eyes filled with tears, I’ve made him sad. Looking away, I turn to Uncle Grant; he’s watching me with those pleading eyes. “Why? Why would you…?” dad manages to choke out, searching my eyes, the color of my mothers, the color he hates and my heart aches all over again. I want to shrug it away, not answer, but words are suffocating me, “I’ve been unhappy since you’ve brought them around dad. You’ve explained over and over that it is Sarah’s home too but each day that goes by the more my hate grows. I know she’s a person you love, but I don’t love her, she took you when I needed you and you bent over backwards to make her and Amelia feel like they belong but you don’t even spend half of that trying to make me feel that way.” I’m so heavyhearted but, I still go on, “I know you love them but I – Amelia wanted a dad, was happy to have you but I never wanted Sarah dad.” “She made – makes you happy, but as happy as Amelia and Sarah make you and Ben, they make me miserable,” still neither dad nor Uncle Grant spoke. “You erased mom to make a new family, make her – them feel like it was there home, but you destroyed my home in the process, I was the expense. Amelia can ask about her biological dad but when I asked you about mom, if Sarah is in the room you look for permission to tell me about her.” The truth spilling, but sorrowful feeling doesn’t leave me. “The whole town talks about mom bad, the house, was my safe place daddy, but then you brought them in and she calls my mother a whore dad, she said that…” Dad’s pensive expression doesn’t fade, “Oak, didn’t your dad ask you about Sarah and Amelia?” Uncle Grant questions, I pull my eyes from Dad and face him. I suddenly feel heavy, exhausted, so I don’t nod, “Yes but he was happy, that’s what I saw… but I didn’t want him to be sad. I thought nothing would be changing but everything changed, it wasn’t right and I just… Mom is never coming back dad, I know that.” I shrug. “So now… you did – hurt yourself – this to make me… what? Send them away? Or what next time you’ll hurt them?” my shoulders slump, at what he thinks. My heart fractures once more. “No… You’d hate me if I hurt them, like you hate mom, and you can’t live without them, I can’t live with them. You love them; I’m just a reminder of someone you want to forget. I can’t run away, I don’t have money. I wasn’t trying to hurt myself daddy, I was – I wanted to die. I wanted out,” his expression changes, forlorn. “I don’t want Sarah as a mother, I don’t want her as a friend or someone to take me shopping for girly things, I don’t want to bake with her,” I heaved my lungs empty. “I don’t – you said she could be someone I look up too, talk about different things with, because a girl needs her momma. I got my period two months ago dad, I went to the school nurse, she told me what was happening. Then I went and used my allowance money to buy supplies… that happened and I didn’t need her!”