Always

Chapter 34

LISSA

"Wait what?" Niall asked me after I had told him that I had left my mom in a coma to escape my father. I didn't know how to tell this story since it had never been told so I knew that it would probably be very difficult to get through.

"I had a boyfriend when I was in high school. His name was Hudson. He was the typical guy, played football, could do all these neat tricks with the football, and was a insensitive man. I also had a brother, Zach. He liked to tease and agree with everything my parents ever said, despite how wrong or cruel they could be. My parents, well they had a tricky relationship. Shirley, my mom, was just dull and she came from a big family and they just didn't mold her a personality or anything really. She married Ted, my father, which was a surprise. I never really got what they had in common or why they married because of how horrible they were to each other." I paused, letting some air go through my lungs so I could talk again. I was pleading with myself not to cry.

"So they were kind of like my parents?" he asked quietly.

"Well, I guess." I replied, thinking of how condescending and rude they were and prepared more of my past in my head. "When I was younger I noticed we would always have a good supply of alcohol. Shirley didn't drink much, but Ted did. He had a dull job and a dull wife and a dull son that would drink out of his hand. I was different. I had a rebellious and edgy boyfriend that he didn't like much and didn't see much. We weren't really a couple for family gatherings, more like parties and messing around." Niall got uncomfortable when I said that about Hudson.

"Back to my parents, they fought a lot, over miscellaneous things. They would shout and shout, it was hard to sleep. I didn't realize though that not all of the things they were talking about were miscellaneous though. Ted would come home drunk late at night from out being with another women. He would cheat on Shirley blatantly and come home and yell at her for something stupid and she'd ask him what women he was with and he would deny ever even being with another women or cheating." I sniffled and continued.

"One night I came downstairs for a drink and a phone charger and I walked passed my parents room and found that only Shirley was sleeping on the bed. I went further down the hall to find that Ted was asleep in the guest room. I then hurried to the kitchen for what I had came down for and tried to ignore the shards of glass from a wine bottle on the floor. I didn't get much sleep after that night. I had night terrors where Shirley would rush in with a shard of glass and hurt herself, and sometimes me, and others with Ted. The ones with Ted were so horrific, they made me not want to sleep anymore. I had this reoccuring night terror of him dragging me outside and beating me on the asphalt pavement. I'd sometimes wake up screaming on the floor with bruises from myself. And no one would be rushing to my room, except Zach, who would wake up just to laugh at me and spit insults at me in the middle of the night."

"One night I asked him why he came into my room and called me those names or made fun of me so cruely, and he said, because that's what dad told me to do. My senior year was a night terror for me, but this time I couldn't wake up from them. I would wake up to my brother telling me that I shouldn't be in this house, that I should just leave. And Ted would laugh. He would then tell me something along the lines of: I don't really see a need for you to even be in this house. He would still be slightly drunk from the previous night and Zach would just follow his drunken ass around with any insult Ted muttered. Shirley wouldn't do a thing she'd just glare at her pathetic husband trying to guess in her head who he slept with last night."

"I'd go to school and be held up as a now broken trophy by Hudson who would then make me kiss him just to get a little more attention in school. He was forcing a lot of things on me that last year of high school. He wanted me to play more drinking games, go to more parties, try out some drugs, anything to get him more attention and please him. When I tried to refuse to going to a party, he slapped me. That was the start to a horrible relationship. He got abusive when I didn't obey and I couldn't get away from him. I had really cared about him and when I tried to mend our relationship he would tell me to shup up. He was the closest person I had and he had intentionally ripped my heart out. After things started to crumble with him I took my escape bag, for if things went bad, from his house and took it back to the back of my closet."

"Around the last week of my senior year, Hudson raped me. I had been telling him no for the past 3 years and he had finally had enough of it. Once he was done I drove home barely functioning to find Ted with my rarely heard from aunt from Shirley's side, Terrece. I drove up to the house to find him kissing her goodnight. I walked into the house and was immediatly stopped by Ted. We both then heard Shirley's car pull in from a late shift she had worked. Ted turned back to me and said: 'Don't tell her.' I shook my head and he said again: 'Don't tell her' and held up a long kitchen knife. I gasped and closed my mouth and went to my room before Shirley could enter the house. I cried so hard and just sat in the shower for hours. I heard screaming and profanities being shot around downstairs."

"Zach was out with his mean cruel friends this night. So it was just my parents and I. I went downstairs and found that it was not only my parents and I home, but Terrece. She was screaming at my mother. Saying: 'I'm the one that actually loves him why are you married to him. It should have been me.' She was so jealous and angry. Terrece was the other woman. She must not have liked having to be the one who went home to another house when her sister was living with the man she loved. Terrece was face to face with Shirley and was beating her senseless while Ted watched drunken. I never really got to find out what my mother thought of her own sister sleeping with her husband because Terrece pushed Shirley to the wall and she crumbled to the floor. I then knew she wouldn't just wake up in a few hours. I knew that she wouldn't wake up for a long time. Ted broke a window and made the house a mess and then called the police and told them their had been an intruder. All I could do was sit their because Ted held the same long kitchen knife he had threatened me with a few hours ago."

"I crept up the stair when he told Terrece to go and grabbed my bag from the back of my closet with essentials, money, clothes, and a laptop. I packed up everything else I needed in a short 10 minutes and prepared to leave all my wretched memories behind. I got into my car and never saw that house again. I stopped at a motel for the night an hour south of my old house. I sat on that cheap bed and thought about things. I tried to go to bed, but i had a nightmare with Ted in it. I woke up immediatly. In the nightmare Ted had heard me screaming from my room and come upstairs. He opened my door and held the long knife."

"He took the knife and slashed at my legs drawing blood. I must have still been having a night terror in this nightmare because I continued to scream. Ted then drove the knife into the side of my thigh. That was when I woke up to the motel bedroom. I looked down at my legs and saw slash marks that I had never seen before. They were red and ran up and down my legs. I tried to wake myself up. I thought i was still dreaming. Then I saw a knife wound on my thigh and broke down crying again. I went to the bathroom and examined myself in the mirror. I had scars all over my body. I could remember night terrors where those wounds were inflicted. Then a horrific realization came over me. Those hadn't been night terrors." I sat with Niall in his apartment and cried then. I cried for the years of torture and the years of keeping this bottled up.

As I cried I said to Niall, "That night at the motel I vowed never to cry again, never to become that weak again. When I vowed those things I made myself as emotionless as possible so that I couldn't be hurt ever again."

So much emotion was pouring out of me and I couldnt believe how greatful I was for Niall. I loved him and he listened to all of the things that happened to me. He accepted me and it just made me love him more. I never wanted to leave his arms that were wrapped around me as we sat in his living room on the couch. He picked me up bridal style and carried me to his room and we fell asleep in the arms of each other, who we loved most.