Lila’s Lament
All she could do is think about how they hurt her. All but thirteen years old, Lila feels like she’s lived a lifetime. She sobs as she lays on her bed; sniffling and wiping away the salty tears that are pooling on her forearm.
“Lila!, Dinners ready!”
She looks at her fingers out stretched and then turns her hand over. Examining all the lines on her palm. Trying not to think about them, ignoring her mother’s yells about dinner. Who could eat now? Doesn’t she know I’m in turmoil?
Her bedroom door opens and it’s her little sister, Louise.
“Come on, Mom wants us down for dinner” she said.
Lila just rolled over facing the opposite side of the room, wiping away the rest of her tears that hadn’t yet dried.
“Are you crying?” asked Louise. She ran over to Lila’s bed. “Why are you crying? What happened?”
“Nothing, I’m not crying, just tired. Tell mom I’ll eat dinner later, I’m not hungry”
“Okay”
Louise knew that Lila had been crying, but she didn’t want to make a big deal out of it because Lila seems to be always crying. Louise is seven years old and in the second grade and she couldn’t understand why Lila was always so unhappy. Why she cried so much and why did she care so much about boys and her friends. It all just seemed like a waste of time and energy to Louise.
Louise went downstairs. “Mom?”
She ran into the kitchen…”Mom, Lila said she’s not hungry now and that she’ll eat later”.
“What? Why?”
Louise shrugs…” I don know, that is what she said” She sat down at the kitchen table and waited for the word that it was okay to start eating.
“Well, I’m gonna go talk to her, you go ahead and eat, I’ll be right back with your sister”.
Monica Stanger is a single mother who works as an elementary school teacher during the week and as a yoga instructor on the weekends. She had a very bitter divorce from her husband (Louise’s father) and has worked hard ever since to provide her girls with a good life, nice home to live in, food on the table and an all around stable environment. Lila loved her step father and was devastated when her mom and he broke up, because her biological father was never in her life.
Monica was a teenage mom and when she told him that she was pregnant, he denied her and the baby. She took care of Lila on her own, with the help of her family and hasn’t heard from him since then.
Monica softly knocks on Lila’s door and opens it. When she walks in Lila is on her bed balled up in a fetal position. Shaking her head Monica immediately wonders which kind of adolescent turmoil is plaguing her this time. Fight with her friends? A boy? A teacher? A bad grade?
“Mom, please I don’t feel like eating right now. I’m not hungry”.
“Yes, Lila. I heard, but I came up here to make sure that you’re alright. What’s wrong”?
Monica sits at the edge of the bed near Lila and runs her hand across her cheek, getting the hair out of her face.
“Mom, I just can’t take it anymore. I’m so tired of the kids at school. Every time I turn around there’s someone new talking about me or lying about me. People who I thought were my friends are not and it’s really pissing me off”.
The moment Monica heard that, she prayed that Lila wasn't being bullied.
To be continued...
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