my father and all the bad memories. I felt terrible leaving my
siblings there but I figured they could fend for themselves as I
had. Hopefully having learnt some of my survivor skills. I wasn’t
and couldn’t be much help to them. Whatever advice or help I could
ever give would soon be forgotten as soon as our father detected a
challenge in his authority and applied himself to crush any hope
for a change.
Soon, through hard work and well-earned tips,
I eventually had enough saved to share an apartment with my best
friend Baylee. I was proud of myself. My friend Baylee and I have
been best friends since kindergarten. We were always hanging out
together. Over the years I spent a lot of time at Baylee’s often
trying to keep out of my father’s way with his temper and drama of
the day. Along with the never-ending personal attacks, he made me
feel shame with the result being it made me feel totally worthless
and unwanted. Luckily for me her parents were very understanding
allowing me to stay the night if I needed to flee. And flee I did,
often. I always wondered if my father missed me or didn’t care. He
had other victims he could pick on. Plus his alcohol fog he got
into every night probably dulled his thinking anyway. I’m not sure
how he managed to forget I was missing but he never said anything
about my absences but his verbal and physical abuse would just pick
up from where we had left off.
I was glad to leave home as I knew it. Sure
there was lots of words about how I would fail, ungrateful and
uncaring whatever. Sure my father objected, sure he wanted me to
stay home and contribute to the household income, do more cleaning
and cooking. It almost got physical but my brother Shane stepped in
and off I went never looking back once. It was difficult adjusting
to this new life but the long hours, the sore feet and sore bottom
from the overly flirty gentlemen seemed to be a breeze compared to
the life I had left but I didn’t care. My goal at the moment was to
be free to choose whatever I wanted, enjoying my new living
arrangements with Baylee and having fun, finally. I had decided to
leave and start a new life and I would do what it took to make it
work. And with my best friend Baylee, I felt safe.
But life happened, reality set in and
boyfriends started to pull us apart. Baylee met her Mark and was
away more often than not and I met Davy having relented after a
long and intense pursuit on his part. I so wanted to live
everything he was promising and fell in love.
Once he got me, Davy turned out to be a real
asshole. The novelty of our relationship soon faded. The moment we
moved in together his attitude toward me totally changed. I became
his doormat. Just a piece of shit to scrape off his shoe. He bossed
me around. Telling me what, where, when, how to do things according
to his strict unrealistic standards. Also very controlling on how I
should do things around the house. His house. All that despite the
fact I was paying for almost everything. His control reminded me
too much of my father and I felt trapped. Baylee could not be of
any help, when was so wrapped up with Mark I doubt she would have
heard anything I would have said.
When he started telling me what to
wear, it finally started breaking me. No
woman of his was wearing something like that out in public. A couple of months into our relationship, he lost his job and
things became even worse. He would sit home all day doing nothing.
Just sitting there all day drinking or smoking dope, either alone
or with his friends. He couldn’t even put himself out doing
anything which resembled a chore. No cleaning, no laundry, no
shopping for groceries, nothing. Not even lifting a finger to start
prepping for dinner. I’d come home from hard day at work being run
off my feet then having to cook dinner, the clean up after him and
his mates was just getting to be too much. I hadn’t signed up for
that.
Dinner would be another whole
Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain