Juliette Oakland is from a small town in New Haven, Vermont. Since the moment she was born she was thrown into a world of abuse and neglect. Her mother died during childbirth which led her to fall victim to the hands of her alcoholic father. She had...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
***Juliette Oakland***
Juliette's P.O.V
The first frost of autumn lay upon the wide variety of thickets, brought on by the crisp October air. The soft sliver of moonlight shined towards the old run-down building that I have forever called home. Once snowy white paint had separated itself from the structure, revealing the dull grey from underneath. Over the years' time had taken its toll on the once lively two-story home. The heavens only know just how much I held in common with those tattered four walls.
I should have been indoors on this frigid night, but instead I sat upon the wet ground, transfixed by the illuminating light of the moon.
It was a much more pleasing sight compared to the unwelcoming darkness from inside. The power had just been cut off once again leaving the entire house plunged into a black pit. Though I could live with the lack of light, over the years I had grown accustomed to it.
Honestly, it was what was found within that I would much rather avoid. Somewhere amongst the shadows was the form of my sleeping drunken father. The only reason that I knew he had finally passed out was due to the temporary silence that fell over the grounds. A large part of my wished that the quiet would last a lifetime. Though it was lonely it was much more desirable compared to the parallel of violence that I would normally fall victim to.
One would think that after eighteen years of neglect and abuse that I would normalize the turn of events that always seemed to play out. First come the verbal degrading, followed by the physical torment, then after what felt like an eternity an uncanny stillness shielded me from reality.
That time would be used to mend whatever remained were left from the unprovoked altercation, but lately it was mainly used to gather my thoughts. I've always tried to look for a light at the end of the tunnel, searching for any explanation as to why things were the way that they were. Lately, that seemed damned near impossible.
When I turned eighteen and graduated high school, I thought things would be different. I thought that I would finally be able to free myself from this life, from this endless rotation of events. How wrong I was. Realistically, I could leave, attempt to go anywhere that I wished. But how? It's been five months since I graduated, and I still remained without income. No one wanted to hire someone that was unreliable. As much as I hated it, I knew that's exactly what I was.
Due to the situation with my father, I was rarely on time and constantly missing work during my previous jobs. Something would always come up; either he would land himself into a drunken sleep that led me to having to drag him home or he would erupt into an uncontrollable rage leading to me becoming a human punching bag. During those times I was either too ashamed, or too much in pain to go anywhere for a while. Other times, when things got really bad, I wouldn't even wake up and miss my shift completely.
