Staring Over

Chapter 3

I was thirteen when my mother told me she was pregnant. I knew at that moment that if she managed to stay clean long enough for the pregnancy, I would end up taking care of the child. I was already leery of her being able to go through with it, she killed my brother after all. When I was one, she was pregnant with my full blood brother and did drugs which ultimately ended in the result of him being born with drugs in his system. He only lived a few hours before he passed, and I never got over that. Even when I was too young to understand what happened, I knew I had a younger brother, and he watched over me. I knew that a part of me was missing, and I never felt complete. It wasn't until I was twelve that my grandparents told me the truth and it all made sense.

She had a son that she gave up before me, had me much to her disappointment, my brother that passed, my next younger brother (the child she had with my father's best friend while married to my father) who she gave up and lived with her parents since he was six months old because he was "too much for her," and now here she was pregnant yet again.

So, with the news of yet another pregnancy and knowing she wouldn't end up raising it, I got my life clean. Yes, at thirteen I was popping any pills I could get my hands on and cutting myself. I just needed the pain that was consuming me to stop. I needed the numbness to get through the days. It didn't matter what I took as long as I got to be numb and my mother and her husband who constantly tried to buy my affection in one way or another never noticed. They were too busy getting high themselves. There were times I would be gone for days, and they never noticed.

Anyway, I got myself clean cold turkey and by the time my brother was born, I was ready to be a parent. Life was hard being thirteen and taking care of a newborn. I had to clean the house, cook, go to school, and also take care of a baby and two drugged out adults that barely could get out of bed to work just enough to keep bills on (although there were times they got cut off because drugs were more important). And if I didn't keep on top of everything and keep the house spotless and the baby quiet, I would be punished in screams, degrading remarks, and mental and emotional abuse.

By the time I was sixteen, I weighed just only 95 pounds and on my third mental nervous breakdown before her parents realized just how bad it was for me. They finally decided to step in and sent the baby to live with his grandparents and I went to a small country town in Texas to live with them.

I slept for three days straight before I felt well enough to try and comprehend that I was finally free from her grasps. As I tried to be a typical teenager, I still had to deal with the harsh criticism of my grandparents here in Texas. The comments of me being a Goth in a country town, how I need to change, or no one is going to want me, how I need to stop listening to that "devil" music and stop wearing and liking so much black and darkness. It wasn't "natural" and "devil like" and all that bullshit. It was right that I loved to read so much and that I was so smart and liked to do crafts instead of socializing and listening to country music. I got told repeatedly that men didn't like smart women and men didn't want women that read all the time. If I was going to be a stay-at-home mom and a good wife, then I needed to get my head out of the clouds and be more like what was expected of me. I should listen to them since they knew best. It also wasn't natural that I was a vegetarian and constantly made it seem like it was a hassle for me to be like that.

I tried to ignore it as much as possible. I often dreamt of running away and finding my way to Oklahoma so I could be with the only family that accepted me for me, my father's parents and grandparents. I could be myself and it was okay. It didn't matter to them that they are Christian, and I was questioning my beliefs in how someone could let me go through all that. It didn't matter that I felt closer to the Earth and my Native American beliefs or that I am bisexual. I was their granddaughter, and they loved me. That's where I wanted to be and because of that, the grandparents I was staying with wouldn't let me go to them. I was just a pawn for them to use as they saw fit while trying to also look like caring grandparents taking me out of a bad situation.

I was going through so much at the time, I had lost my best friend when I was taken out of Fort Worth and moved to the small country. Granted it was because he had graduated while I was a mere sophomore but still, I had lost my best friend, my baby brother was now living with his grandparents while I was living with mine, I was trying not to relapse constantly and now I was having to start high school in a hick town that looked at me like I was dirt beneath their shoes. All while suffering from depression and anxiety. Life was hell.

And then I met him.