Twisted Perfection

Twisted Perfection - By Abbi Glines

Three years ago…

Della

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray. You never know dear how much I love you. Please don’t take… please don’t take my sunshine away.

Don’t stop singing now, Momma. Not now. I’m sorry I left. I just wanted to live a little. I’m not scared like you are. I need you to sing. Please sing for me. Don’t do this. Don’t go to him. He wasn’t real. Don’t you see? He was never real. He died sixteen years ago.

I should have told someone about you. This is all my fault. You needed help and I didn’t get you any. Maybe I was scared after all… scared that they would take you away.

“Della, sweetie, give me your hands. I need to clean them off. Look at me, Della. Come back to me. She’s gone but you’re gonna be okay. We need to clean you up. They’ve taken her body and it’s time to leave this house, for good. No coming back. Please, Della, look at me. Say something.”

I blinked away the memories and stared up at Braden, my best friend. She was cleaning the blood from my hands with a wet washcloth and tears were streaming down her face. I should get up and go clean this all off myself but I couldn’t. I needed her to do it for me.

I always knew that one day this would happen. Maybe not the exact way it was happening. I hadn’t ever imagined my mom dead. Most days when I let my daydreams turn to this moment, I’d feel guilty. It wouldn’t stop me from thinking about it, though. The guilt wasn’t enough to keep me from imagining my freedom.

I had always thought someone would realize my mother wasn’t all there. They would figure out that I wasn’t some strange child who wanted to stay inside all day and refused to come out into the real world. I wanted them to… but then I didn’t. Because getting my freedom would mean losing my mom. As crazy as I knew she was, she needed me. I couldn’t let them take her away. She had just been so scared… of everything.