The Comfort of No one

Chapter one: the Beggining of the End

"Do you still love him?" Dr. Salvador asked.
"Of course I do.'' I responded.
"Even after everything he put you through Addison?"
"Yes, I know I shouldn't love him but I do." It might not be a good thing that I still love Noah, but how could I not? There's so much more to Noah that is unseen to the outside world.
I was only five years old when Mary and Joe adopted me from the foster home that I unfortunately had to stay at for the rest of my childhood. My parents just weren't ready to have a child and as a young child this was very confusing. Now after everything I have gone through, that is one of the only things that actually makes sense.
Mary and Joe lived in the projects of New York, Brooklyn to be specific. A woman named Karen lived in the same complex as us with her two sons Noah and Andrew. Karen was extremely beautiful, her hair always down kissing the tops of her shoulders. She wore no makeup, she didn't need any. Every woman in the complex lowered their eyes when they saw her. I couldn't help but want to be just like her. That of course was until I met her sons. Noah was the younger of the two. He was seven at the time I moved in and his brother Andrew was eleven. Their mother abused alcohol and drugs and would occasionally beat them. Noah and Andrew would often come over my place to eat food and play with me to avoid being around their mother. They never said it, but I knew. I saw the welts and bruises all over their bodies and I heard the screams late at night. Whenever they did anything that their mother didn't like she would furiously whip them with a belt until they bled. When they came over to my place Karen decided to starve them. She would deprive them of food for days and days at a time. They weren't home listening to her orders, so they didn't get fed.
I never thought I'd ever have a crush on Noah Johnson but once high school came around my feelings about him drastically changed. On my fifteenth birthday I had a little get together with my friends, which included my best friends Rachel and Noah. After everyone left Noah kissed me. When I say kissed me I mean like full on tongue to tongue. It was everything that everyone ever said it would be. It was so pure, so innocent, and so beautiful. I never wanted to let go. When he pulled away I swear my face turned bright red. After that day, Noah and I became boyfriend and girlfriend. He was mine, I was his, and we were happy.
Noah was the sweetest guy I have ever met. He would always come over on Fridays and give me a little gift; it usually consisted of chocolates and flowers. He would also bring me on dates to the movies whenever he could afford it. I spent most of my time with him because he hated being around his abusive mother.
When I was 16 Noah got me pregnant. We didn't use protection when having sex; Noah said that it wouldn't happen. Of course he was wrong. The sex was so good but when the test came out positive my heart stopped. How could I take care of a baby? It was Noah who talked me into keeping it. At first Mary and Joe were mad but when I had that baby girl their hearts warmed up. They loved that baby more than the world itself; they would have done anything for her.
Noah and I decided on naming our girl Hope. Noah dropped out of high school and got a job to support me and Hope. Noah got stressed out a lot of the time dealing with his mom and work. He only had one day of the week off and when he was eighteen he left his moms place and moved in with me because he was sick and tired of the abuse. Mary and Joe welcomed him into our apartment with an open heart. They heard the screams and the whips, they were glad to get him away from his mother. He has all of the scars from his rotten mother and at first I thought I could never think anything good about her, obviously my point of view changed when Noah turned into his mother. How can I still love Noah after everything he has done but hate Karen?
Andrew was living with one of his friends named Ricky at the time Hope was born. When I finally turned 18 we moved in with Andrew. Things went well at first but then things got a little rough. Andrew and Noah fought a lot and there was a prostitute in the house every night. Sometimes I wondered how old these girls were, once I saw one that was half my height and looked like she was yet to hit puberty. When the drug use started to get over the top I put my foot down and told Noah we had to leave. Noah never touched any drugs back then, so he was just as ready to leave as I was. When Hope turned five years old Noah and I finally made enough money to move into our own place together. We moved out of the projects and into a different complex that was a lot better than where we were before.
When Hope was eight years old Noah started taking PCP, a drug also known as angel dust, to try and relieve his stress. That drug did the opposite to helping him. The first time he used it I could see it in his eyes. I told him that was it. If he used it again he was going to have to leave. To this day I can still remember the words that he said to me. "Well I guess it was fun while it lasted". Those words broke my heart to shreds. The next day he came into our room and lied down next to me. When I looked him in the eyes he broke into tears. For hours, we lied there and just cried. That wasn't the last time that Noah used drugs, not even close.
The first time that Noah hit me it was a warm spring night, it was my birthday. I was feeding Hope when Noah got home from work that night. He ran up to me and started yelling. He said that I was useless and I believed him. "Girls like you need to get put in their place" his fingers bit my face. That was where it all started, the beginning of the end.