I Made Her Wait

I made her wait far too long.

I was staring off into what once was. I had purposely avoided this place for far too long. It’s the kind of place that makes you feel small, weak, horrified.

This is where the demons creep in, the kind that show up in the quiet moments, when your hands are still. When you’re surrounded by silence, and your phone screen goes dark. It pulls you back without asking, dragging you to the place you’ve worked so damn hard to forget.

I was standing in that place, surrounded by overgrowth and God knows what else might be hidden in the mess. I turned—and there she was.

She didn’t move. She didn’t blink.

She just sat there like she’d been sitting there for years.

Her face hadn’t changed from what I remembered. Still soft. Still young. But her eyes were ancient. She had seen too much, too soon. Her shoulders slouched forward like the world had laid its burdens there—and more than likely, it had.

She clutched a ripped, stained stuffed bunny to her chest like it was the only thing that had never left her.

I didn’t want to look at her. I didn’t want to face the truth in her eyes.

But I couldn’t look away either.

Something in me, something old and quiet that I had long ignored—was done hiding. I wasn’t going to walk away this time.

With hesitation, I took a step forward.

I moved like someone walking into a room filled with judgment, the kind that would decide the fate of the rest of my life. I was hesitantly walking toward her.

She never turned away.

When I finally got close enough, I didn’t say a word. I sat down in the dirt.

My legs folded underneath me like they used to when I was that small.

I didn’t know what to say. There were no words for the kind of silence that had stretched between us for so long.

She was little, but she had knowledge far beyond her age, the kind most grownups didn’t even have.

She showed more strength than me. She broke the silence first.

“You took your time.”

Her voice was small, but not weak.

She wasn’t trying to be cute or sweet or forgiving.

She was pissed—and she had every right to be.

“I know,” I said, my voice barely audible. “I’ve been avoiding you.”

She didn’t respond.

Just started tracing slow circles in the dirt with one finger, like she’d done it a thousand times before—and would keep doing it a thousand more if I didn’t say what she needed to hear.

“I didn’t forget you,” I said. “I just didn’t want to see you.”

“I know,” she said flatly. “That’s worse.”

God, she was right.

“I saw you in the mirror sometimes,” I admitted. “In my dreams. In the way I flinched when someone raised their voice. Or when I froze in conversations I should’ve walked away from. You’ve always been there.”

“But you never looked me in the eye.”

“No.”

“And you never came back.”

I nodded slowly. “Until now.”

She tilted her head, still drawing that circle. “Why now?”

I swallowed hard. “Because the pretending doesn’t work anymore.

Because the ache in my chest finally got louder than the lies in my head.”

Her eyes met mine again. Same color. Same shape. But hers held more pain than I ever let myself feel. And something else, too, something that looked like disappointment.

“You said you’d protect me,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“You said I didn’t have to be afraid anymore.”

“I failed you.”

“I waited.”

“I know.”

She let go of the bunny with one hand and wiped her nose with her sleeve.

“I was just a kid. You were supposed to hold me. To make me feel better. To tell me it wasn’t my fault.”

“I didn’t know how.”

“You didn’t even try.”

I looked away, shame washing over me like cold water.

“I thought if I could forget you… maybe I’d forget the things that happened to you.”

“I was left here, I didn’t forget,” she said. “I lived in it.”

And I knew that.

I’d felt her in every panic attack.

Every time I shut down emotionally.

Every time I said yes when I meant no.

Every time I fell apart and didn’t know why.

She had been waiting inside me this whole time, screaming behind a locked door I refused to open.

“I couldn’t handle it,” I said honestly. “I didn’t have the strength to carry you and keep pretending I was okay.”

“So, you left me with it,” she said. “Alone. In the dark. With them.”

Her words stabbed something deep and unhealed inside me.

“They were supposed to protect me,” she said, more to herself now. “But they didn’t. And then you didn’t either.”

I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

“They gave me life like it was a gift,” she whispered. “But it wasn’t for me. It was for them. I wasn’t raised; I was used.

To keep their marriage together. To make them look good.

To give them something to point at and say, ‘See? We did something right.’”

“That was until they didn’t want each other anymore. Then they blamed me for their divorce. I was left to supply them with pity and support, until they found someone new. Then it was a new set of rules with new punishments.”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I just sat there, completely still, letting every word she said dig into me.

“No one ever allowed me to be a kid,” she continued. “No one let me cry. No one held me when I was scared. And I was scared. All the time. Especially at night.

My stomach turned.

“The monster had a name,” she said. “Mire. And he came in when everyone else went to sleep. Do you remember?

He told me I was the problem.

He told me I was bad.

And you believed him too.”

Tears ran down my face.

“I thought it was my fault,” she said. “That I made him come. That maybe if I were better, if I smiled more, or got smaller, or stayed out of the way all the monsters would leave.”

I reached for her hand.

She didn’t move away.

“You were never the problem,” I whispered. “Not then. Not ever.”

She blinked at me, as if waiting for the lie to come.

“You didn’t deserve any of it. Not the silence. Not the manipulation. Not the pressure to be perfect. And definitely not the things that happened behind closed doors.”

Her lip quivered. “Then why didn’t anyone stop it?”

I bit my lip to keep from breaking completely.

“Because they didn’t care enough to see it. Or they saw, and didn’t care enough to stop it.

Either way, it wasn’t because you were unlovable.

It was because they were never capable of love that didn’t come with conditions.”

I took a breath.

“And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I made you wait this long to hear that. I’m sorry I treated you like a burden instead of a child who needed help. I’m sorry I hated you. I hated you because you were proof that something horrible had happened.

And I needed to believe I was fine.”

She was crying now, but quietly.

“I’m sorry for not coming back sooner,” I said. “You deserved someone to fight for you.

You deserved someone to say, ‘This isn’t okay,’ and take your hand and get you the hell out of there.”

She leaned her head on my shoulder.

“It hurt. So bad.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t think anyone would ever come for me.”

“I’m here now.”

“You won’t leave?”

“Not again.”

We sat in that broken garden for a long time.

Just breathing. Just being.

Something neither of us had ever really done without a mask on.

And then, finally, she looked up at me.

“Do you still believe Mire?”

“No,” I said. “He lied. Every time.”

“And what if he comes back?”

“Then I’ll be here. And I’ll remind you who you are.”

She was quiet for a minute. Then asked,

“Do you… do you forgive me?”

My whole chest ached.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” I said. “You did what you had to do to survive.

You got me here.

You did that.

Not them.

Not anyone else.

You.”

She nodded slowly.

“Do you forgive you?” she asked, more carefully this time.

I took a deep breath.

“I’m learning how.”

And then, for the first time, she smiled.

Not a performance. Not a desperate plea for someone to love her.

A real smile.

Small. Honest. Beautiful.

She took my hand.

And together, we stood.

Together we walked away from that place, the two of us becoming a united force.

There was still more work to be done. But, it didn’t feel hopeless anymore.

And as we left that quiet place, no longer a place I refused to visit, I felt something shift in that corner of my mind.

It no longer screamed.

A part of me I had locked it away for too many years, filled with guilt that was never mine, pushed onto a child that should never have been forced to handle it alone. The guilt had left, and I felt lighter. Not healed.

But another piece had fallen into place, making me a little more whole.

And I realized then, with absolute clarity:

I wasn’t waiting for an apology from them. They were never going to say sorry. They were never going to admit they were wrong and it was their fault. They didn’t forget. They just didn’t care.

So, I gave the apology to the one person who needed it most.

The one person who deserved it, the one who had lived with the pain, the one who had taken the blame for everyone else.

The one who waited in the dark alone long after the monsters had left.

That little girl, the one who I had tried so hard to forget.

When I looked myself in the eye, I saw the little me. I told myself, the little me and the big me, I was sorry; we both knew I meant every word.