Striptease

The Truth

Warning: This chapters contains mentions of drug abuse and sexual assault/rape, viewer discretion is advised.

[Twelve Years Ago]

[Everleigh]

My story begins like the many others that came before me, the ones who were both told and retold to many different minds but I want to state that my story is unique in it's own way.

Not many could have survived what I went through, mentally, physically or emotionally and yet, there was a stigma that came with the accusations that I wanted to throw out many times before, the accusing fingers I wanted to use to point towards the perpetrators of something that was not a victimless crime.

And yet, I was even begged to not say a word.

Pleaded to, in fact, as my wonderful memory so recalls.

Although it started out like any other day, today was about to be different.

Today would be the day that I would bear personal witness to an inhumane act that would later send me hurtling towards a downward spiral.

And that day began twelve years ago, on a cold, winter night, when my mother, Elodie, took me out for a supposed drive to see the hanging Christmas lights all around town.

But instead of her driving us into the city to view the beautiful Christmas lights and decorations featuring inflatable snowmen and Santa Claus on display for the curious eye, she drove us further away from the magical decorations.

My head tried to peer over the headrest but I was too small, too young in my age to notice that we weren't going to be heading off to a winter wonderland.

"Mom! You're going the wrong way, the lights are that way!"

I exclaimed loudly as if she was not right beside me in the driver's seat, my finger cloaked in the fuzzy pink gloves that kept my hands warm pointing over the console as if I was trying to show her exactly where we needed to be going.

But when I turned my head back around, she only smiled down at me and shook her head to herself, probably wondering why she had a dimwit for a daughter.

"Silly girl! We are going to see the lights but Mommy has to make a pit stop first."

She said as she reached over and tried to ruffle my hair playfully, an action that felt foreign to us as she had never done that before.

Even as a child, I still knew how my mother acted.

She did not act like the other mothers at my middle school, she was more erratic and closed off.

Unresponsive or too sickeningly sweet at times.

It was almost like she hadn't grown up from her rebellious teenage years and she was still stuck in that mindset.

She acted more like a child then I did and I was a child.

"But….But, Mom…" I started to say but she shushed me, the hard look in her blue eyes shutting me up as I huffed while staring out the  snow smeared windshield.

Some could say that my mother was a bit of an acquired taste, she planned everything on a whim and this trip was nothing new to me.

However, when our clunked out crap box of a car rolled to a slow stop in front of a house secluded at the end of a cul-de-sac in a closed off suburban neighborhood district, goosebumps arose on my arms that weren't caused by the chilly air.

The windows of the house were boarded up like there was a bad storm coming, snow covered the caving roof and ground and an eerie whistle blew through the car as the breezy winds rattled it from side to side.