Back to the Beginning

Chapter 1 - Jolene

My name is Jolene Parker. My mother was such a big Dolly Parton fan, she named me after her number one song.

I started off life living with my mom and dad. Soon after they had me, their relationship started having a lot of issues. They held on as long as they cold for my sake. I was 4 years old when they decided to separate and get a divorce.

As rare as it is, my father ended up winning custody. I still saw my mom a lot but I lived with my father. Things got pretty rough for me after that. Now that he didn't have a wife telling him what to do, he started drinking. A lot. He had definitely inherited the "Parker alcoholic genetic" pretty much all of his family members on his side of the family were alcoholics who died young from either heart or liver failure.

When I got to elementary school it started getting worse. By 5th and 6th grade I practically never saw him. He was never home. He would come home every night around 2:00 am. My mom had no idea. My younger self didn't want to tell her. At the time I had hope that if she saw him doing better, they would get back together and everything would be great again. Whenever I saw her I always lied and said he was a great dad and he was doing really well.

I had one friend growing up. His name was Jackson. Jackson walker. We met on the first day of Third grade. We were both in the same class. It seemed like we both didn't have anybody to talk to.

He had dark brown hair, almost black.
His eyes were a certain forest green.
His clothes looked like they were ironed and pressed.

Later that day came lunch time. I sat at a table with nobody occupying it. My father hadn't bothered to pack me a lunch or give me money to buy one, so I sat there reading a Junie B. Jones book by myself. Suddenly I heard a soft, almost inaudible voice next to me. It was the boy from my class. Jackson. He stood in front of me with his Spider-Man Lunch box and asked "can I sit here?" Gesturing to the seat next to me.

I nodded trying to contain the happiness I was feeling. He sat down next to me and looked over at what I was doing.

"Do you not have a lunch?" He asked.

I paused

"Uh. No I forgot." I said not being able to make eye contact.

He looked at his lunch for a moment.
"You can share with me if you want..."

My eyes widened.

"It's okay! I'd feel bad. I don't want you to be hungry because you didn't eat all of your lunch." I said with a reassuring face.

"No really! I had a big breakfast so I'm not that hungry anyway." He said with a smile.

Before I could respond he put a bag of chips and half of his sandwich in front of me.

All I could do was smile.

We just sat there and ate together, both feeling happy that we each had made a friend.

"I like your name." He said.

"Jolene?" I questioned.

"Well yeah, but I think Parker is the coolest last name ever. You're like Peter Parker, and you're really cool. Just like him."

From that point we became best friends.
Every lunch we would sit together and share a lunch. A few weeks into our friendship he upgraded to a bigger Spider-Man lunchbox just so he could pack more food to share with me.

One of the things I liked most about him at the time was that he didn't pry. He knew something was off with my home life, but he could tell I didn't want to talk about it ever. He never pried, but he always did what he could to help me.