My Truth

Chapter 2

     My sister, mom, and I have been planning all this for months, probably for over half a year. We were going to leave earlier, but there was always something that occurred that would make my mom say "no yet". Around the time I started grade nine (September 2013), we wanted to leave. We were planning, fantasizing it. As the year passed, my dad got worst. He called me stupid many more times than he called me smart. The negative stuck around in my head. It always sticks around. That's why I believe it today, no matter how much people tell me how intelligent I am, no matter how high my class averages get, no matter how "talented" people claim I am, I always believe that I truly am stupid and useless.

     What really drove my mom to decide that it was time to leave was when her parents came to visit. My dad had, probably still has, this awful hatred towards them, and it was overly obvious that week they came to visit during the summer of 2014, after my grade nine year. My dad showed his hatred so much and so clearly that it made my grandma cry, my mom and grandpa furious, and me terrified. It got so bad that we had to call the police. But my dad didn't listen to them. The last time I saw my grandma that week was in a public place. She was crying. That event happened in early July. We spent the next month or so planning and packing. My mom would take some time during work to look for affordable apartments. We put things in boxes; the kinds of things that my dad wouldn't notice if they were missing. If we packed books, we would replace its spot with a different, unwanted book. We had to choose the things we wanted to keep, so we left many unimportant, replaceable things behind. Although, there are some things I wish I kept.

     Prior to this event, I always imagined that my dad would randomly appear at my high school and would want to drag me out of the country to live with him. I would imagine him taking me by force, and I would be screaming, yelling for help while fighting my way out of his steady hold on my wrist. It would happen in the hallway while class was going, and teachers would come to help me while students stood on the side to watch. Then the school's police would come to the rescue. They would take my dad away, possibly to jail, and I would get a restriction order against him. I would never have to see him again. I would never have to remember all the abuse he did to my family and I. He hurt everyone - from my childhood best friend to his own mother. He never payed child support and doesn't want to give my mom the half of the house, retirement money, etc, she deserves. And this way he would get the revenge he deserved.

     But of course all this was in my head. The truth was that he never came after me like that. Since I was a minor and he had some custody over me, I was forced to visit him. Both my sister and I, since at the time she was 17 and I was 15.