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Nightlight Comics

Dare to Say Goodbye

By Erykah DronePublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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It was a Friday night and Riley was alone as always. Nights like this she slipped into her nostalgic memories of childhood. She would remember being in pink princess pajamas sitting in her twin bed with a sheer, purple canopy covering her face, waiting for her father. Her dad would come in with a wide smile on his face, comics in his hand, and switch Riley’s light source from her big light to a night light. She’d giggle because she knew she could count on him to tuck her in every night and it was the highlight of her day.

For as long as she could remember, her dad would make her feel like a princess. She thought he could do no wrong. As she grew older, she began to see little changes, such as he stopped smiling as wide when he entered her room and her mother would grow silent when he came around. This was all strange for her, but nothing was said until her mom walked into her room one night with a bruise on her face.

“Mom, what happened to you?” Riley exclaimed. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. As her mom stepped closer, she noticed her lip had a small cut on it.

“I’m fine. Riley, we need to talk.” Her mom spoke carefully as if trying not to part her lips too wide.

“About what? Can you tell me why you have all these bruises?” Riley tried to sound as demanding as possible.

“Never mind that, we have to move. When you wake up tomorrow, we’ll be packing up to go to an apartment a few blocks from here,” her mother said firmly.

“Why? I want to talk to dad. Where is he?”

“You cannot talk to him. He won’t be coming with us and I will explain all of that to you later.” She then turned and made her way out of Riley’s room.

“But, Mom!”

“Riley, stop! I will explain things to you later. Go to sleep. I will see you in the morning.” Riley pouted as she watched her mom turn off her light and leave the room. This was the turning point that she would always remember. She sullenly went to sleep with no lit nightlight, no funny comics on her mind, and no smiling dad.

It took her hours to fall asleep. She tried piecing together things in her mind to make the previous discovery make sense to her. Riley thought she knew her father and this was nothing like him. The assumptions she made about what was going on didn’t make it any better because she had no confirmation. She could feel the anger, confusion, and sadness build in her chest. She eventually cried herself to sleep.

The next morning, Riley woke up with puffy, red eyes. She sat up to find empty boxes at the foot of her bed. Last night wasn’t just a bad dream.

She sluggishly removed her legs from underneath the covers and began throwing things into boxes. She heard her mom and uncle packing things in the room across the hall, but she was reluctant to make her appearance just yet. She packed until all the boxes were full of her room’s once warm, decorative contents. Then, Riley lay on the floor wondering how her life took such a drastic turn. She turned her head towards the door, where she noticed her nightlight still plugged in, but she couldn’t smile about it like she used to.

She decided to get up and go talk to her mom about what was going on, but she stopped once she realized she had a stack of comics on her desk that now meant nothing to her. She gazed at the mountain of memories and thought of all the stories and how they’d rock her to sleep at night. She walked over to them and knocked them down and then exited the room as the flimsy, colored paper flew everywhere.

She met her mom at the threshold of her door.

“Good morning, I didn’t know you were awake yet,” her mom said, trying to sound as normal as possible. Riley knew better.

“Mom, I’ve been packing since I got up,”

“That’s good. Your Uncle James is ready to help us load up and go to the apartment,”

“Great,” Riley said in a bitter tone. Her mom knew what this attitude was about, but she didn’t feel as if that moment was the time to address it.

***

Now, at the age of seventeen, Riley understood the situation and why they had to leave, but she sat in her room alone some nights and hoped that her dad’s wide smile would come creeping around the corner. She hoped she would be able to grin so hard again that her cheeks would begin to quiver. Her hopeful wishes didn’t fill these nights with anything but unshakable regret of what she never saw coming. Now there were no nightlights to light the action-packed comics, and she missed the innocent, simpler times.

children
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