More promises that would be next to impossible to keep. More false hope. More fuel. I could have done this all day with what she was providing.

She waved goodbye and left me to be by myself and cool down. Wasn’t gonna happen, though.

Here’s a lesson about basic psychology folks: Every behavior is designed on some level to get an effect; an attempt at control. To avoid something. To get something in return. Plopping me in that dark quiet room in a crib was intended to drain me. No one to feed off of, nothing that could be avoided.

What the giants failed to understand was that I was already controlling the situation to my liking. Making them uncomfortable. Making them sequester me. Seeing the world through those bars, knowing that this was going to be my life from now on, it gave me something to draw power from.

Hope had left me, and after that hope came a kind of beautiful sadness. A power I had not yet experienced. Just when I’d reached my limit, all I’d have to do is think about how far I’d fallen and I’d regain the strength to quietly bawl again.

Oh to feel. To really feel. It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Love was special, but the pain of its absence was exquisite like a cat-o-nine-tails lashing against my sense of self.

ALIVE! WELL AND TRULY ALIVE!

I cried all through lunch. Wept into my naptime pillow. Sniffled on the playground. Sulked and whimpered in the playpen Janet placed behind her desk for me. Kept it going and eventually faded into a quiet silence when we went back to her house.

I needed this. I really needed this. It was the happiest I’d been all week.

Janet wrapped me up in a blanket and rocked me. It didn’t diminish my happiness. She shushed and patted my back again. See previous statement. She said “I love you,” at least a thousand times and continually kept wiping my nose and eyes with tissue after tissue after tissue. Come to think of it, that might have been one of the first non-wet, non-baby wipes she’d used for me.

Bonus! The hits just kept on coming.

Dinner was much the same as lunch. No resistance. No real participation either. Just crying. If I felt this great tomorrow, I reasoned behind scrunched up and puffy eyes, I’d have to start early if I hoped to beat the record I was setting. World record? Probably not, but a new personal best for sure.

She kept looking at her phone, too. I got glimpses of it throughout the evening. Reading more Little Voices articles. Looking for Mommy tips; ways to manipulate me. Articles like ‘What to do if you’re Little can’t move on from their old life’ or some such bullshit.

Near bedtime, Janet put me in the crib standing up. She reached out and put her hand on my shoulder while looking me in the eye. “I know you’re feeling really bad today, baby.” she told me. “I think I know why.”

My tears subsided and my breathing slowed. Holy shit. Almost exactly like Beouf. “You’re going through a lot. And um…it’s okay to feel these feelings. Perfectly natural. Anybody would be acting the way you’re acting with what you’ve just gone through. It’s okay to cry and be in your feelings. Nothing to be ashamed about.”

I’d moved past shame for the day. That hadn’t been a concern. I started to pick up my tempo again.

“I wanted to tell you that if there was anything you wanted to talk about I’ll listen. Me and Mrs. Beouf love you. You know that, right?”

More fuel. Fantastic. I might be able to keep it up till dawn with all the momentum I was gaining. Beouf delivered the lines well. She’d been practiced enough to not seem practiced. Janet was clearly reciting stuff she’d just read off of a Little Voices website.

“If there’s anything you want to say, anything at all, you can tell me anytime. Anything you want and I’ll listen.”

The words out of her mouth were scripted, but the hurt in her face was real. She turned to leave and then circled back around. “I mean that. I really do.” She left again, turned out the lights, and shut the door.

Standing up in the crib, still crying, I choked out a single “I hate you…” towards the baby monitor.

The door opened and Janet came back in. She came back to the crib and knelt down. For the first time in maybe forever, I was above her eye level. “One more thing,” she said. “You can talk to me anytime, but I also want you to listen to this.”

She sniffed. “You’re angry at me right now. I know that. You hate me, and that hurts. Alot. Alot, alot. I’m your Mommy, now, and I’m never going away. I’m never going to stop loving you. I’m never going to stop trying to make you happy. I’m never going to stop learning how to meet your needs. I’m going to mess up…I’ve already messed up,” she choked back. She wasn’t crying but I could almost hear it in her voice. “But I’m not going to give up on you and stop trying. If you want to hate me, you can. I understand. You can hate me and yell at me for as long as you need to. When I became your Mommy I was making a promise. I’m going to keep that promise. I’ll wait for you.”

“And what if I never stop hating you?” It was the most I’d spoken since I’d woken up. It didn’t make my voice sound any less raw.

Part of me had expected Janet to condescendingly smile. Lips to turn up, head to go down. She did the inverse. “If you want to hate me forever, you have that right. That won’t change a thing about how I feel about you.”

She stood back up, laid me down, tucked me in, and left the room for the final time that night. My body, in crisis mode since the sun had come up finally came to rest and was refusing to get up. My head felt like lead on the pillow and my lungs begged me to breathe steadily for once. I wouldn’t be pulling an all-nighter tonight. Maybe tomorrow night.

I grabbed Lion and tucked him under my arm. “Good game, Janet,” I said to the baby monitor. “Good game.”