Terror

It has always traumatized me, but it wasn't until I saw her picture on Facebook that I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.

I was in 6th grade and spending the night with a friend. We were only eleven years old, just kids. We were playing upstairs, while her dad had told her to keep an eye out on her baby sister, who was a tiny thing and asleep in her crib. So, she was safe - much too small to get out of her crib. And we were just kids.

I remember being upstairs in the playroom with her and her dad storming in there. He beat her. I stood there, paralyzed. He was screaming and cursing about how the baby was downstairs crying and she was supposed to be watching her. I remember being scared he would hit me too. It was terrifying.

It finally ended and he left the room, as my friend collapsed in tears. I never spent the night with her again. I used to ask her about it, to check on her at school. She said she was fine, but I knew she wasn't.

And so, the other day I was browsing on Facebook. It wasn't that I saw my old friend - it was that I saw a picture of her baby sister, all grown up. I recognized her by her name. I never saw her after that day, so long ago. It was just a shock. And still, 17 years later, if I think about what happened too hard, it will make me cry.