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Chapter Two

A Year Later...

I am five. I no longer have my home or my toys or all the glorious things I once had. I'm covered in bruises from a man who I barely know. My mother, a woman who would do anything for her child, no longer cared. I didn't matter in her eyes anymore, only he did.

I'd often watch my mother stumble around the house. I always thought she was just sick but as I got older I realized she wasn't sick at all. She had an addiction, a bad one.

I was later told to call him "dad". It didn't feel right. It didn't even seem right to call this stranger my dad. I never knew what it felt like to have a dad. I didn't know how a dad was suppose to treat his daughter, I could only assume.

I did what I was told. I was young, I didn't know any better. I tried to avoid him as much as possible in fear that one wrong word would set him off.

Yes, I said fear. Six years old and I was already subjected to the evil, and ugly things in this world. I now knew what it felt like to be hungry, hungry for food and for some type of attention, for them to know that I was alive, that I needed them, that I needed her.

The "happy couple" didn't last very long. My nights were mostly filled with screaming and fighting. I tried my best to avoid them for fear of being involved or thrown into the argument. I didn't understand very much, but what I did understand was kept a secret. I wouldn't dare speak a word of it to anyone.

I loved going to school because it was my chance to get away from it all. School became my sanctuary. It became my safe place, at least for a little bit. According to a majority of studies if a child has a lot going on at home he/she would become distant or sluggish at school or act out and get in a lot of trouble. I was the opposite.

I was the perfect child at school. My grades never went below a B, I always got those stickers in my agenda for good behavior and never got in trouble. My teachers would always brag on my behavior, my manners and my academic abilities. To them I was perfect, I didn't dare jeopardize that with my troubled fears and scars from my house. Even at six I soon learned how to keep a bruise hidden. I didn't wanna lose my mom. She's all I knew. She's all I've ever known.

They had their good days where you'd never think they'd be so vindictive. It was a constant game. It was like jeopardy. They'd do okay and then it'd go back to that dreadful place with the bad attitudes and hateful words. I didn't know what most of those hateful and mean words meant but I knew it wasn't good. I watched their faces and their tone when they would say it. It was pure evil. It was scary. It was anything but love. I'll never understand how two people could hurt each other so much, yet neither would leave. They were anything but happy.

My mom would often cry and I would hear her pleas for it to stop. I use to feel bad for her. It use to bother me but now, years later, it wouldn't even phase me. It would amuse me; knowing that every tear she shed was her own fault, her own choice.