Saved by Silence

Chapter 10

Arabella

No, n..n..n..no! Why won’t he leave? I try running to the bathroom closet before he sees me, but it’s too late. I’m pulled up from the ground by my hair. I tried kicking at him, but nothing. I scream and nothing. “You stupid little brat! Look what you did.”. He drops me to the floor “Shut up!” and as his foot comes at me I wake up. Falling out of the bed I scramble to the corner and cover my face. He is gonna hurt me more. No one ever stops him. I know better than to try and scream.

Everly

I hear a loud noise, and sit up. Mamma is still asleep, but Arabella isn’t in the bed anymore. I see the closet door open, so I get out of bed and crawl toward the closet. I see Arabella in the back of the closet crying. “Are you okay? Do you want me to wake my mom?”

She doesn’t say anything to me so I crawl in the closet with her and just sit next to her. I lean over and put my arm around her to hug her. She puts her head on my shoulder and we just stay like that. I don’t like silence so I talk to her really quietly, being the chatterbox my Mom says I am. I don’t really know what that means though. Thinking that when I am scared my mom sings to me, I decide to sing for Arabella.

Kaley

Ahhh, where could they be? I woke up to find both Arabella and Everly not there. I went down to the kitchen to find my mom making pancakes. “Have you seen Arabella or Everly?”

“No, when I came down they were still in bed with you”, and that is when I started to panic. My dad had searched the basement. They weren’t in the backyard or the playroom. None of us wanted to yell for them and freak out Arabella.

“Kaley up here!” my dad yells down the stairs. Running up the stairs to see him standing outside of Arabella’s bedroom door. Pointing toward the closet I hear very faint singing. Why didn’t I notice that before? Everly was singing her favorite song, but why is she in the closet?

In front of the closet I get down on my hands and knees. What I see brings tears to my eyes. Everly is hugging Arabella and singing to her. Everly sees me, but she keeps singing. I look back to see both my Mom and Dad standing in the doorway just watching.

Everly finishes, “Hey, why don’t you two come out here?”. Neither of them move at first, then I realize Everly is waiting for Arabella to make the first move. It takes a couple of minutes, but they both eventually crawl out. “Evs why don’t you go with Papi and Mema to get pancakes” and as soon as she notices them just outside the door, she makes a run for her Papi. I am so lucky she has him in her life. He catches her on the run and they head down the hallway.

As soon as they are gone, I help Arabella stand from the floor. “How about we get you a change of clothes and you can shower this morning?” She nods her head yes and I walk with her to the dresser to try and find clothes of Everly’s that will fit her. I decide on the safest option, shorts with a drawstring and a tee shirt.

Placing them on the bathroom vanity, I turn to leave until I feel a tug on my arm. “What’s up sweetie?” she doesn’t move, but keeps a hold of my hand. Giving her time, after about a minute she pulls her shirt up. What I see makes me want to kill whoever did this to her. She has massive bruising on her side up her ribs. Kneeling down to get a better look, is that a boot print? What is wrong with people?

I trace my fingers over the bruise and she flinches a little. “Does this hurt?” she nods, “Does it hurt to breathe?” and she nods again. I stay as calm as I can, “Okay, right now how about we get you in the shower and then we can go eat some pancakes.” I finish setting her up and make my way down to the kitchen.

At the bottom of the stairs, my Mom sees me from the opposite side of the counter. I point at dad and her and motion my head to the living room. My mom gets the hint and I hear her tell Everly her and Papi will be right back. As soon as they walk in the living room my mom is asking me what’s wrong.

“We have a problem. Arabella finally showed me her side you had mentioned she favors and it is horribly bruised. She admits it hurts her to breathe and Dad I think there is a boot imprint within the bruise”.

I watch my Dad start pacing, as my mom and I figure out the best way to get her medical help without freaking her out. Throughout the conversation, I make sure to listen for when the water in the bathroom turns off. She took a long enough shower that Mom and I were able to come up with some sort of a plan.

………………………………………………

I can hear my mom in the kitchen on the phone with the pediatrics office as I make my way up the stairs. I gave Arabella plenty of time to dry off and be dressed. I make sure she can hear me coming so I don’t startle her as I walk into the room, but she isn’t there. I decide to check the playroom, knowing that is where Everly is. I walk in to see the two of them playing with the lego’s that Everly has recently been obsessed with. I watch them build for a few minutes, knowing I have to interrupt them to talk to Arabella. Before I can my phone vibrates in my pocket, it is a text from my mom telling me the doctor’s office can see her today.

I look back to the girls and see them both staring at me. “Hey, Ev’s can you go see Mema, so I can have a minute with Arabella”. Like the good kid she is, Everly gets up and gives me a hug before running out of the room yelling for her grandmother. I can’t help but giggle at how adorable she is and how much my heart fills with joy seeing her.

I turn back to Arabella, reaching my hand towards hers. “Come sit on the couch with me?”. She was hesitant, but eventually took my hand and with a sigh I was relieved to see we had made progress. Sitting with her on the couch I take a second before we have to talk about going to the doctors.

With a deep breath, I trust my intuition about the best way to make her comfortable with this. “Remember the scars I showed you?”, I wait to continue till Arabella nods her confirmation. “Well when it first happened, I didn’t want to see anyone or have anyone touch me. The problem is they hurt a lot and finally I let a very nice doctor look at them. They were very nice and took great care of me to make sure that I was okay. Sweetie right now I am worried about those bruises.” When I see her flinch back a little bit, I get nervous this is going to set back any progress that was made.

Taking a big leap, I lean over and lift Arabella on to my lap and gently rub her back. She is very stiff at first, but she doesn’t recoil or try to run. As soon as I could feel her body relax a little I continued. “I know your bruise hurts you and I am worried, just like with my scars that something worse could be wrong. Would you be willing to let a doctor look at the bruises to make sure you are okay. I know it's scary, just like when I had to get my back looked at. You know what though?” I pause at my question hoping to get a reaction or some sort of confirmation out of her. It took some time but eventually she put her head on my shoulder and nodded. “I won’t leave your side. When I was first hurt, I was alone and didn’t let anyone help me and like you I didn’t tell anyone at first. I want to be right by your side to make sure you are okay.”

It didn’t take as long this time, when she finally looked up at me and nodded. Just to make sure she was 100% on board I clarified what I was asking of her. “So you are willing to go see a doctor and I will stay with you.” She nodded again and I realized I was holding myself so stiff when my entire body relaxed.