Shot in the dark - Dallas Winston

Chapter One - Joanna

There I was young, blonde, and dumb. Gee if my father heard me right now he'd lecture me about being hard on myself. Why don't we start there, my father.

 He was once young, blonde and dumb himself. He was the kind of kid that was constantly in trouble for something stupid. For him it was usually being drunk. My dad sure loved to drink, but don't get any wrong ideas. He wasn't a drunk. He only ever drank for the hell of it he always said he hated the feeling of being drunk.

He was hard working and determined. He woke at the crack of dawn Monday through Friday to work a job he loved for no apparent reason. It's not like he did something fun. He taught a bunch of stuck up rich kids math everyday. I always hated math and kids, but he loved them.

It was rare to see him without a smile. He had one of those dumb goofy smiles that when you saw it you couldn't help but smile yourself. He was the world's greatest father and he was my best friend, but someone had to go and ruin that.

The school he worked for had been letting some of the teachers go. Coincidently non of them were wealthy. If you asked me they didn't want anyone that wasn't rich to be working there but my father swore it was just 'budget cuts'.

Me and my mother encouraged him to let it go. That he could find another school to work for that didn't care about his money status, but he insisted he had to be there for the kids he taught. So he went off upstate to some board meeting to try and win back his job. His three day trip turned into a four months missing persons case.

Until one night his body was found beaten and bloody in a ditch. Cops said they had no evidence to be able to arrest anyone which is a load of bullshit if you asked me. Those assholes on the board didn't want to give him his job back but, they knew he would find a way to get it, like I said he was determined. So they murdered him and payed off the cops. You best believe I'm not the only person to believe it either. The whole neighborhood talked about it for weeks, and the toll it took on my mother was unbelievable.

Growing up my father would tell me story's about him and my mother. According to him he was the towns bad boy. Getting drunk, smoking, stealing and just overall causing trouble and my mother she was the goody-two shoes. All she cared about were grades and pleasing her parents.

Growing up she was never anything but sweet. She would bake cookies for us every Saturday night and build me and my father a fort for us to spend the day in. She cooked the best dinners every night and always made sure we were well fed and that there wasn't a speck of dirt in the house. After my dad died it was like a part of her did too. She didn't get out of bed, didn't cook, didn't clean, nothing.

So there I was nine years old teaching myself how to care for myself. I don't blame my mother for acting the way she did, I just wish she didn't act like she was the only one who lost him. I grew up pretty quickly from that point forward. The neighbors would tell me I was getting so big and I had matured so much. I never wanted that though. I wanted to be a kid and play all day with no worries.

Then my mother started drinking. She WAS a drunk. She would drink bottle after bottle. It was rare to see her without a drink in her hand. Eventually she started to go out more. Would leave while I was at school and wouldn't come back for hours and when she did she had a different man stuck to her hip.

Then she met the devil himself and married him. My stepfather, he was anything but kind. He hated kids and liked to drink to get drunk. Far from my father. He hated me the moment we met and honestly the feeling was mutual. He was rude and disrespectful but he treated my mom like a queen so I couldn't hate him that much.

Before they married nothing serious happened between us. We would throw dirty looks at each other from across the room and occasionally flip each other off but that was all. Then shortly after my thirteenth birthday they married and everything changed.

He would snap at me for no reason. I don't mean yelling and sending me to my room. No, he would get so close to my face I'd taste the beer from his breath and yell at me, he'd throw things at me and lock me in my room with no food or water for days at a time, and my mother, she'd sit on the couch and watch a bottle in hand.

It wasn't till he hit me that I finally broke. The minute his hand connected with my face and I watched my mother turn her chair so she didn't see anything I knew it was no use. The whole time I thought my mom would step in, help me. I was her daughter for fucks sake. But she didn't.

So I left. Got as far away as I could. I'd sleep in alley ways or crack houses. Scared, alone, I didn't know how to survive in the streets but I managed until I met them. Boy did they make it a lot less lonely.