Since she was a young girl Rose Duvall had been on her own. From the time that she was just six years old all that she could remember was the trauma and abuse. She never knew love, companionship. She knew what it was supposed to look like, but never...
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***Rose Duvall***
I wish that I could say that I grew up like your average child. That I was loved and nurtured into existence. If those words ever left my mouth, it might very well be the biggest lie ever told.
Maybe it had been different when I was a baby, maybe even when I was an infant, but as far back as my memory starts so does the abuse.
From the moment that I turned six years old, when things should have been simpler, I had been exposed to violence.
Originally, I wasn't the star of the sick show. At first I was an audience member, sitting on the sidelines as a gruesome scene played out between my mother and father.
I remember thinking even then how badly I wanted to help as my mother was being thrown across the room. I sat there helplessly, watching my mother being beaten into submission. But what was I supposed to do? I was only a child.
Maybe I should have walked away, maybe I should have walked to my room, acting oblivious to what was going on in the kitchen. Maybe then things would have been different.
Instead, as the naive little girl I was, I tried to intervene, to make it stop. So, like a fool I put myself between my parents as my mother lay on the ground.
"Stop Daddy. You're hurting her." I can still hear my small little voice saying to my father.
I knew then that I had made the gravest mistake. His dark eyes turned menacing, his face enraged. I shrank back, but it was too late. He had yanked me by my arm roughly, turning me to face my bleeding mother.
"You see that. That's what happens when you don't respect me. And because it seems like you've turned out just like your mother, that is exactly what'll be happening to you, you little bitch." He seethed, throwing me to the floor, a few feet away from my mother.
His boots echoed against the tiled floor, the sound that still haunts me in my nightmares. It took him three steps to reach my mother, bending down, before talking low, but loud enough so that I could hold onto every word.
"You can thank your daughter over there for what's coming to you." I will never forget the hatred in her eyes when she looked at me. It will forever be etched into my memory.
I still remember the screaming and crying from that night that came from both my mother and I. He had kicked her repeatedly, and only stopped when she stopped moving. I remember thinking that she was dead, I cried out for her, but was met with no response as she lay unconscious in a heep of her own vomit.
"Your turn, Rosie." My father said, turning to me.
"No." I repeated over and over again as he dragged me by the hair. I screamed and kicked, but to no avail. I could smell the alcohol on his breath as hoisted me up to my feet, causing a stinging pain on the back of my head.
