This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things//Five Hargreeves

Here's To My Mama - Prologue Part 1

Contains the following trigger warnings: verbal and physical @buse, mentions of r@pe, excessive profanity (read author comment)

Most babies are born in hospitals. I was born at a surfing competition. The location of my birth, however, was not the only unusual thing about my debut into the world.

When my mother arrived at the competition she was in perfect condition to surf the California waves, but by the time she got awarded the silver medal she had gone into labor. At twelve o'clock in the afternoon on October 1st 1989, I was born.

My mother named me Amity, meaning peace and harmony.

Within a few hours after my birth a very peculiar man approached my mother asking how much money she would take for me. No matter how high the price got my mother continued to decline his offers.

She had always wanted a baby and now she had been blessed with one. Unfortunately when breaking the news to her husband of how this had come to be, and how much money she was offered for me, he became furious. Not only had she declined millions of dollars for some freak child without a known father, but now they would have to spend even more money on me, and their financial situation was already a mess. He needed the money but she wanted me. And he despised me for that.

My mom always told me that even though she only won the silver medal that day, she still got the gold metal by having me. She would always be saying cheesy little things like that, but I loved her for it.

She taught me how to walk and talk. She taught me how to ride a bike. She taught me how to love and care for others. She taught me everything I needed to know so I'd be ready for the world. But there were still things that I had to learn by myself.

All on my own I taught myself to cope with her death.

When I was eight years old my parents got in a horrible car crash. My father got a head injury that affected his thinking. My mother lost too much blood and died before the ambulance got there. Even though I wasn't even in the car at the time, after my dad got better he blamed me for it.

The hatred that he once held for me had died down when I was younger. But now it had come raging back to life.

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One day, my father had to take an extra shift at work. He needed someone to watch me. Even though I was perfectly capable of being home alone. When he couldn't find anyone, he reluctantly took me to work.

He was a car salesman for a company that had made a steep decline in sales since the first ten years of its creation. People here wanted to own trending cars; which to the companies dismay, was not what they sold. In an average week my dad would sell two cars. But on the fateful day he brought me in he sold eight. That same day he realized that I had a bit of a knack for persuasion. He didn't know why, or how, but after that I had to go into work with him once a week. Business bloomed when I was there, but at nine years old I was too young to be hired. When I was twelve I got hired full time.

As the company got more money, the cars got fancier, and rich men started coming in to buy them. But they were trickier to persuade, so my dad changed tactics.

This was the beginning of the worst.

The first time it happened, I didn't know what was going on. It was late at night and we had gone to one of the potential buyers' houses. My dad told me that we would be discussing some business matters and that I had to be there. We walked up to the front steps of a gigantic mansion. My dad guided me inside and the rich man who owned the house started to lead me somewhere. I looked back at my dad, who was walking away. I was confused. Why was he leaving?