Free Sliding Into Home by Kendra Wilkinson Page A

had to take care of myself. No one was going to jump in and save me. The whole time I was with Mario, I assumed my mom had given up on me, that she wasn’t going to be there for me anymore. Years later I found out that she was at home worrying every second. She found out that Mario was selling drugs and she desperately wanted to get me out of there but she didn’t know how. Worrying consumed her life, and she didn’t eat or sleep pretty much the entire time.
    She even reached out to my dad for help, and at one point he got Mario’s number from my mom and called me at his house to tell me he missed me. He said he wanted to meet and catch up. It had been years since we had seen each other and I was suspicious, but forsome reason I agreed to see him. I guess I was still hoping there was some way I could save our relationship and have a dad again.
    We agreed to meet at the Pacific Beach Block Party, a huge street fair in San Diego where adults go to listen to music and get drunk and kids go to play games and eat street-fair food. Everyone went.
    When the day arrived, Mario and I went to the street fair to meet my dad. We had decided to meet in front of a specific bar on a specific street at a specific time. Everything was all set up for the big reunion.
    I was nervous because I didn’t know what I would think of him or what he would think of me. I knew even the slightest inappropriate remark or action on his part would set me off, and I sort of felt like I was setting myself up for disappointment. But I went through with it anyway.
    Mario and I got to the meeting spot and waited. At about ten minutes past when we were supposed to meet, my dad still wasn’t there. I started to get mad, but I continued to wait it out.
    A few minutes later I saw him walking toward me. My heart was racing. I started to think about what I would say to him, and how I would react to whatever it was he was going to say to me.
    He had told me he missed me over the phone, so maybe he had a whole big speech planned about how he wanted to be part of my life. Maybe he was going to try to be a good father.
    He got closer, and I began shaking.
    Then, just as he got within a few feet of us and I opened my mouth to say hello, he looked at me, walked right past, and headeddown the street toward a friend of his. The bastard didn’t even recognize his own daughter.
    We might as well have been miles apart. We weren’t father and daughter, we were two strangers.
    I was pretty upset after that, so Mario got me drunk and tried to help me forget about everything. I survived. I always did. But my drug habit was turning into a nightmare pretty quickly, and one night soon after, I almost didn’t survive.
    Mario had a bunch of people over to his house and we were all doing lots of coke. Line after line, I just kept going. Like I said, I usually knew my limit and stopped myself when I hit it because even though I was a druggie I was still fearful of anything bad happening. But that night, for no real reason other than the fact that I just stopped caring about life, I threw caution to the wind and kept doing more and more.
    Brittany was there, and she and some of our other friends were telling me to stop. I didn’t want to listen. My nose started bleeding, but I just wiped the blood away and did another line. I was out of control. My eyes started rolling back in my head and everyone started freaking out.
    Brittany screamed, “Oh my God!” but she was the only one who really cared about me.
    I was shaking and choking on the blood that was dripping down the back of my throat. The group took me to the bathroom, put me in the tub, and ran the water, and I kept yelling, “I’m fine!”
    I wasn’t fine. I was in serious trouble. Everyone thought I was dying, but no one wanted to get in trouble so they didn’t call anambulance or take me to the hospital. Mario didn’t even do anything to help me. He just left me in the tub.
    Eventually I worked my way from the tub to