Aching to Be Found: Part 1

Barely holding back tears, she blindly puts objects into her small, pink, plastic suitcase. As quietly as possible she puts it on the windowsill and climbs on top of her desk to get up as well. She sits there in open window for a moment, then lowers her 11 year old body until she's only a foot or so from the dirt below. She lets go and drops to the ground, clutching her suitcase.

Leaning against the wall, she contemplates what to do next... climb the fence? But where would she go? Anywhere she went, they could call her parents and she would have to face her father's anger. So she stayed... she didn't truly want to leave, she just ached to know that someone cared enough to look for her. So she stayed underneath the windowsill, straining to hear the voices of her family.

Time passed and without a watch she couldn't keep track of how long she had been out there, she tried not to think about the scorpions and black widows that she knew frequented this corner of the yard. Very quickly she got bored, but her aching heart had to know, had to hear someone calling out her name. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep the tears away. Then, she heard a voice, "Where's Val?"
She held her breath...
The answer came, annoyed, "I don't know."

Waiting... shifting quietly to make sure she can hear... but no, there's nothing.
It feels like a punch in the gut and its all she can do not to let the tears fall. She waits a little longer, torturing herself with hope but she knows, if anyone is going to look for her, it's not going to be soon. Not until they need her for something or other... so she takes a deep breath and quietly puts her little pink suitcase back on the windowsill, climbs up the corner of the fence and the house and lets herself back into the room. She puts the suitcase under her bed, not bothering to empty it.

Laying on her bed, her face away from her doorway, she struggles again with her tears. "No you don't, you're not going to cry", the voice scolds in her head, all to familiar for one so young. "No one cares anyway, you'll never let them know, you'll never let them see. No one will ever pursue you for your sake." So she swallows her tears and begins to create a mask, so no one could see the shame she hid deep in her heart. The shame of someone who aches with all her being to be pursued, to be found, but isn't worthy of the effort.