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No one actually knows the fate of their life. You may suspect that the life that consumes you now is all there is in your future but you are wrong. Do something small in your life and there is a path or two to follow, but do something spontaneous then your whole life takes a whirlwind down or up an unknown world thus making multiple paths for fate. Do not suspect that life is a one way road like I did. Do not go by a ritual for the rest of your life because you are afraid of getting lost or hurt. Everyone hurts and everyone loses themselves but they are always rewarded in memories of happiness that outweigh the unforgettable sad and scared ones. The ones that engulf you and stop you from dreaming for a different life. No one knows the fate of their life. But no one can’t change their life to unfold their true future.

As a little girl I have always been alone in my life. There had been a time I had a mother and father who loved me very much but that was for a short time. I was told by my mother whom I vaguely remember, that my father was a nice and caring man who loved me very much. He grew up in the country of the north of the United States with parents who descended from other caring people of religious belief in the U.S. Although my mother told me soft stories about my father she never told me he died. Never had she said the word die but always say that he had gone to live in a different and better place than Maryland. It wasn’t until the stay with my cousins that I knew he went to live in Texas with his actual wife after a two month stay in Maryland with my mother and then learning she was pregnant with me.

When my mother always told me of my father’s family I always wondered about her family. She never explained to me of her family. We had a great life I believed in our small house until my mother drank a glass of pesticide in front of me. She gave me a glass too but I wasn’t thirsty at the time. No one knew why she wanted us to die that way. It was reported that she received a letter that day but no one knew who it was from because it was ripped to shreds. By the death of my mother I had to live with my cousins. I was four when I moved in with the Hudsons.

The Hudsons at first were a nice family. Though they were socialites they looked to live a modest life. A two story house excluding the basement with a sizeable backyard made the lot a dream house with a family of four. A wife who stays home to watch the children, a husband who works at an important firm, and the two children, a girl and boy of a two year distance that are the epitome of a fair children. When I arrived to their home I stuck out like a big fat belly button on a slim person. The family of natural golden skin with blonde hair of different shades as well as blue, grey, and green eyes was a complete opposite to me. I with my brown-black derriere length and sun sensitive skin was a contrast to the family only Hitler could love if he knew them.

The first week was so pleasant with these people I started to call them family. After that week my life was a total hell. Mrs. Hudson would pull my hair hard to tears if I so as much walked near her. The children would kick me and throw heavy things in my direction when they saw me.

Those were the beginnings of my abuse.

The children would tell vicious lies about me at school which made me no friends but only bullies. At the house they would pull tricks on me and make me the scapegoat. I received horrible punishments form their mother and father which involved bleeding. Oh the punishments, they were what made me so scared of so many things in my life, of so many people. I was lucky to get a beating from a belt but sometimes they would whip me in the basement with the types of whips found in stories of slavery. I would stay in the basement for days trying to heal. Other times when I behaved badly unintentionally like not answer to the calls of my cousins then Mrs. Hudson would grab a cutting knife from the kitchen and have me strip my clothes off in front of everyone. She would take the knife and cut me all over my body. If I ever cried during my punishments then there would be more beatings, more whips, and deeper cuts. I didn’t learn to not cry until I was nine. As this life went on I was truly alone. No one talked to me besides the occasional bullying and swear of disgusted words about my mother and me.

What truly haunted me with my interaction with not just people in general but mainly men for the rest of my life was Mr. Hudson. That vile disgusting man would go into my room at nights when he got back from overtime at the firm and touch me. No pleading, no crying was what I was told or else he’d kill me.

He never took my innocence physically but harmed it mentally. He would tell me of how I looked so much  more beautiful than Mrs. Hudson although of my heritage (my father’s grandfather had converted from Judaism to Christianity but still went by most Jewish beliefs which rubbed off on my father).Mr. Hudson would spill the beans telling me of so many reasons for why he and his family hated me and not only because they were Nazis.

I learned that most of the reasons they hated me were based upon my mother which made me wonder what she did to her family to not have them talk to her and hate her. Mr. Hudson told me everyone hated her before I was born so I am not the reason. He would go in a trance and start calling my mother many names cursing her and then question my dead mother for why she left him for a Jew.

As I grew older the punishments and bullying were worse, so I developed a brain and told my school counselor of my problems. After five hours of talking to police, showing evidence, jailing Mr. and Mrs. Hudson as well as putting their children in juvie and a lot of therapy sessions, I was put into Maryland’s foster care at the age of twelve. A year later of court sessions I was adopted by the Telsas and moved to England.

The Telsas weren’t even in my life after the adoption. As they moved to London, I moved to somewhere up north to an isolated boarding school for girls. The school is where I made the best memories of my life and the saddest. My first year there I had made a friend, Ghlinda. We were both the same age and were the best of friends. Ghlinda was like me in so many ways. She was meek, had pale skin, and always preferred solitude over crowded lounges. We were so much the same. The only difference I could find were her dark green eyes and fiery red hair and her weak immune system. She always got sick so easily. Every season she had to stay days in bed instead of playing outside making our own games and inventing our own language.

One day in the winter Ghlinda got severely sick. This was nothing new to none of us in the school but this time she stayed in bed longer.

The school called a doctor and to my and Ghlinda’s fears it was something more serious than the common cold or allergy. I remember hearing it had to do with her family and how her DNA wasn’t what it should be. The school wasn’t able to contact Ghlinda’s parents through the ordeal and it didn’t have enough money to send her to the hospital. I would visit her through these days and give her gifts I had found outside. Ghlinda could barely smile or lift a limb.

Days passed and Ghlinda became weaker. She was paler than me those days I visited. I was so concerned for her since she was my only friend I ever made so I thought it would be nice to paint with Ghlinda since she loved to paint. We painted that day and it brought such a smile to her face. I painted a picture of her playing in the coming spring telling her that she will surely live. Ghlinda smiled a bit showing me her masterpiece.

 It was easily the most beautiful painting I had ever seen. It looked like a Rocco painting. It was a profile picture of  Ghlinda and I in a forest of magic and us leaning our heads against each other with our faces highlighted as the main focus of the painting.

So that we can always and forever be best friends wherever we go, I remember her telling me.

The next day I walk to her room early in the morning to find doctors and the headmaster in the room. That was the day I let all my pain go. Pain for my mother, pain from the Hudsons, pain for being alone, and pain for losing the one person I cared most about.

It was hard afterwards. I continued to make successful grades in school but never fully recovered. After graduating I went to university at the wishes of my adopted family and began to major in psychology. Two years later I dropped out after a revelation. I don’t want to live a life like this. I will only know sadness and will never try to heal.

So, after making my decision I wrote a goodbye letter to the Telsas and flew a plane to Alaska with only two hundred dollars and Ghlinda’s painting. With the money I bought a trailer, a very cheap truck, and a few new clothes for the weather there. I got a job at a local library and sometimes babysit for the extra money.

My name is Marie Ollard. I’m twenty-three and this is my story.