Desperation

Prologue

  I was making ramen, the only food we could afford when he rammed into me in the kitchen. Mom's new boyfriend. Alex. Alex was a taller well built guy, he had broad shoulders and tan skin. His arms were bulky and his body was husky, he looked like a normal human being. That didn't fit well with the town. I'd never heard of his before, either. He must be new here. Welcome to Desperation. A small town rejected from the rest of the world. It's one of those little towns you'd read about, with only about six or seven hundred people in it. Sounds like a lot, I know. But trust me, I lived there my whole life. That is not a lot of people.
   That is about the number of teenagers you'd have in a high school in a larger state- Kentucky never had that many high school students to begin with. Alongside my point. Seven hundred people sounds like a lot to an outsider looking in, but when you've lived in it long enough you know. You get to know everyone who lives there almost all on a personal level. We were secluded by trees, separating us from society. No one ever really left town either. We had all we could ever want here in town. We had one big school that had three buildings in it, one for primary, one for junior high, and one for high school students. There was a total of Maybe seventy or eighty kids in this school.
   Of course I wouldn't know how it felt inside that school. I've never actually been to school. My mother had me homeschooled where I taught myself everything I know now. Everyone knew who I was, and I knew everyone else, but we didn't know each other personally. That's because of the extreme isolation I had suffered. So no one really knew Alex, and that told me one thing, he was new here. He didn't look like the other men mom brought home. Usually they all looked around the same. Their skin was always drained of color, their eyes the same way. Their hair was always dead and stringy, and they were either twigs with bellies just as scrawny as the rest of them or beer bellies that made them look eight months pregnant.
   They always looked that way because they were all always strung out on drugs. They none loved my mother, they only used her. See, she was like the drug lord. She had the best of the best, and would share it with her lovers. My mom and I use to look alike, she was a healthy looking woman with curly brown hair and fair skin, with forest green eyes. I had dark brown curly hair, fair skin, and sky blue eyes. After she started drugging herself out, she grew thin and sickly looking. She matched the traits of the men she brought home. She looked like a whore prostitute who had nothing left in life.
  I remember before mom got into drugs, she would tell me stories of my biological father. She told me he died before I was born. We were best friends. She would tell me she loved me and promise to keep me safe. That all stopped when I was seven years old. She brought home the first man she had met sense my dad's death. I remember him very vividly. He was way older than her. He had the same color scheme almost, with drained skin and freckles, with stringy brown hair and dead, grass green eyes. They were always so glassy. His name was Angus.
   He was the one who started her on the drugs. I was there when he did it. He gave her a bong and let her smoke. Weed isn't that bad in itself, it's one of the most chilled drugs I know of. If he had just kept it at that, then maybe things would be different. But no. He strung her out on so many different drugs. That relationship lasted a year. He treated us both like shit. He would scream at her and call her names, sometimes he'd hit her. When I got brought into the fights, he was blaming me for ruining the relationship, saying I shouldn't have been born. Mom finally made him leave, and she got so much worse. There wasn't a time when she wasn't high on something.
   I can remember standing at her bedroom door and screaming and crying for her to come out. She would lock herself in her room for hours to days. I would stand and beg, screaming at her to come out, until my voice went hoarse and it hurt to make sound. "Mommy come out! Please!" I'd beg. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" For some reason, I believed everything Angus told me. I thought this was my fault. I was only eight, so of course I was impressionable and I believed what he said.
   It wasn't but three months later and she got another guy. Same thing, he'd be kind just long enough to get in her pants and get her drugs, then he'd start screaming, and hitting, And fighting. Then she'd kick them out or they would leave. Most of them eventually took little interests in me. They would start talking to me and flirting, giving me dirty looks and staring at me whenever I was in the room. Sometimes they'd try and hold my hand or rub my shoulders. Whenever mom caught them doing that, she'd scream at me, saying I was stealing her men.
   I eventually got so used to this that I would tune out when they did it. I couldn't do anything to escape. No one cared. So, I stopped caring, too. But someone finally broke me. He broke my walls that I'd built up. He shattered them. His name was Jeb. He was just like the others for the most part. By the time he came around I was twelve years old. Three years ago. He would hide his flirting with me and touching my hands and arms from my mother so well that she almost didn't notice at all. He pretended to love her a lot longer. That relationship lasted almost two whole years because he was so good at lying.
   He went much further than her other boyfriends had with me. He'd run his hands up my thighs and try to sit as close to me as possible at all times, he always had his eye on me. See, we lived in a tiny trailer next to the junkyard on the far end of town. This trailer only had one bedroom, and that was mom's, so I had to sleep on the couch. I didn't have a room of my own to escape to, away from Jeb. I tried to ignore him like I did the others, but I couldn't. It was something about him. He waited for my mom to go to sleep one night, and then he came to the living room with me. He pinned me down on the couch and started kissing my neck and shoulders.
   "Stay quiet, boy. Or I'll kill her." He warned me. I still loved my mother. Or at least I thought I did. She loved me. No matter what she said I knew she loved me, right? I knew she cared. She promised she'd take care of me. She was just sick. I held still and he slid his hands under my shirt, rubbing my scrawny body. I never did eat much, I felt guilty for it. She needed the food more. She was just so skinny.. I started to cry. Tears burnt my cheeks. He snarled and kissed me, biting my lip hard. "Be a big boy, stop crying." That's when my mom walked in. She'd woken up for some reason, and noticed he wasn't in bed with her anymore.
   "What the hell, Jeb?" She screamed at the top of her lungs. I'd never heard her so angry. I'd never heard her scream like that. "Get away from him!" Did she really come to save me? I laid there helplessly, closing my eyes tightly and the man finally got off and stood next to the couch, screaming back at her. "What the hell are you doing up?" His tone matched hers. I'd never seen anyone as angry as they were. I didn't feel safe, I was right in between them. He was so close to me. He was too close. I felt myself shaking uncontrollably, I couldn't stop it. It was like a seizure.
   "You were going to fucking have sex, with Bailey?" I heard her voice strain as she lifted a chair and threw it at him. "My son! My own flesh and blood, You bastard! He's twelve years old!" The old wooden chair flew at him and he turned, hunching over so it was his back that got the force of the blow instead of his front. The chair broke and parts of it landed on me. I wanted to run. I wanted to get up and run away. But I was paralyzed in fear. "You wouldn't give me what I want, woman! And he's just like you. Just like you!" He screamed. "I couldn't hold myself back. It's your damn fault!"
   She stormed at him. I heard her footsteps come closer. Then I heard the loud swack of her hand hitting his face. This knocked him over. He stumbled sideways, holding his face, and he gave me and her a glare straight from hell. "You think you can just fucking hit me?" He snarled and rushed her, body slamming her into the wall behind her. By now I'd sat up on the couch. I was watching in horror. I couldn't control what I was doing. It's like my body wasn't my own. I got up and ran towards the door. Like I was gonna try and run away. But the door flew open and one of the neighbors, Ralph, entered.
   He must have heard the screaming and come to see what was wrong. He told me to go wait outside and not go anywhere. I just stormed past him and ran. I ran as far and as fast as I could. I ran into the junkyard next to our house and hid. I could hear the police sirens and an ambulance nearby, assuming they went to my house. There was no way I was going back there. I was too scared. I stayed in that junkyard for days before they finally found me. My mother somehow managed to manipulate them into letting her keep me, proving h raked as a worthy mother. She bared a broken jaw, broken eye socket, and a busted lip.
   That was the end of that relationship. They'd taken Jeb away to jail. Mom never testified against him. But I heard about that night for the next year or so. She yelled at me for letting him cheat on her with me. She told me I was lucky she didn't shoot me. I wanted to tell her I didn't want what he was doing, that he threatened to kill her, but I was too scared. I was scared that she'd not believe me, or she'd be more stressed. Jeb was the reason I stopped staying in the house. I slept out in an old Cadillac in the junkyard. I only went in the house to get food or drink. I would try and fix the broken cars or sit and study schoolwork nonstop to keep myself busy.
   That all led up to this point, where I was cooking ramen, and Alex rammed into me. It was a shock, and I collapsed to the floor in shock. "S..sorry.." I stammered, pulling myself up. He panicked a little. "Shit, I'm sorry Bailey, I didn't mean to, see you okay?" He looked over me. It wasn't the look the others had given. It was like real concern. I nodded a little as my mother came up behind me and slammed the back of my head. "Apologize for getting in his way, you clumsy little whore." She snapper at me. "Sorry.." I mumbled. That was my name to her now. Whore.
   Alex gave her an angry look and shook his head. "It's not his fault, Mellisa. I wasn't looking where I was going." I heard the microwave beep as my ramen got done and I hastily grabbed it and went out to the junkyard to eat. By now, I'd changed my style. I didn't want to look like her anymore. After Jeb saying what he said that night, I changed every little thing about me. I went to the market and stole enough hair dye and bleach and dyed my dark brown hair to a mix of pastel pink and blue. I still wore the old hand me downs that mom lended me, which were nothing but some old torn jeans and white t-shirts, but I felt a little better knowing my hair was different.
   It was already seven in the afternoon, so after I finished eating the little bit that I could eat I set the half full bowl out. There was a stray dog that lived here in the junkyard with me. She was an American pit bull terrier, and she had to have been at least fifteen years old. She was a warrior, so that's what I named her. When she didn't come when I called for her, I got worried and went to look for her. I found her laying lifelessly in the Cadillac. She had died of her age, or some illness that I didn't know about. She'd been my best friend for as long as I'd lived in the junkyard. The night I moved out here she slept with me and protected me, and she stayed with me this whole time.
   So when I found her laying there, curled up in the backseats where we usually cuddled to sleep, I broke. I started bawling. I pulled her out and held her in my arms rocking back and forth, pleading for her to wake up. I couldn't help it. I couldn't hold it back. I stayed that way, holding her, until the sun went down and the stars came out. I carried her to an open space in the junkyard next to where I had built fires in the winter when it was cold, and dug her a grave. I didn't sleep in the Cadillac that night. I slept next to her grave. I didn't fall asleep until maybe five or six in the morning when the crying finally took its toll and I was too exhausted to stay up.
   I woke up not two or three hours later to sirens. I wandered aimlessly towards the sound, finally snapping back to reality when I saw the sirens at my house. I ran inside, to the dismay of the detective on duty outside, and ran to my mom's room. Her body laid there sprawled out on the bed, with the needle still practically in her arm. She was dead. "Mom.." I said. I was breathless. Detective Johnathan Beckett came in behind me. "You must be Bailey.." he said softly. I jerked around and looked at him. I wanted to scream at him to leave me alone. I wanted time to grieve. I lost my best friend and my mom, my only real family member, almost in the same day.
   But instead of screaming, I simply stared at him in shock. The shaking was worse than usual. See, after the Jeb thing happened, I never really stopped shaking. Sometimes it was just a tremble and sometimes it was like a seizure. I think that's because nerve damage. He broke something in my head, all of the stress from everything and him on top of it broke something, and now I couldn't never stop shaking. I tried hiding it by holding my own hands. "Come outside." He said. His voice was empty. Emotionless. But it was condescendingly soft, like he was trying to calm me.
   I looked up at him. His eyes were sunken back in his head and there was dark rings underneath them. They were bloodshot and tired, as if he hadn't slept in days. He looked healthy other than that. I wanted to tell him to just leave me alone. To let me stay here. To let me stay with my mother. I lot Warrior. I lost mom. All in the same day, almost. I couldn't breathe. The shaking was worse. I felt myself digging at my wrist. That's a thing I did when I was scared, nervous, just mildly out of a neutral state of mind at all. I would either chew at, scratch, or dig at my palms and wrists. Or I'd chew at my nails or at the skin around them. It was just my hands and arms in general.
   With the short sleeved t shirt, my scars were visible on my arms. The ones I'd gained from my mom's boyfriends, and the ones I put on myself with my nervous habits. Beckett gestured for me to follow him out and I did. I didn't like being in that god for saken house. I couldn't tell if I was sad about her passing, and I felt terrible over it. She was my mom. I should be crying. I should be extremely upset. But I didn't even feel the least bit of sadness for her. It was more like an empty feeling. I knew I should've felt something. But something in me just.. didn't care. It was a little bit like a weight had been lifted.
   Once we were outside I saw every neighbor gathered around the house curiously, all of them chattering and yelling about it. I got more nervous around them. He noticed, and led me to is car. "Get in, Bailey. So we can talk." I did as told. I climbed into the front passenger side seat. "Son, do you know what happened?" He asked. I didn't give a response. I was too lost in my own thoughts. Now that I was thinking about it, I missed Warrior more than my own mother. I felt so guilty. I missed the biological father more than I missed her. She loved Me. I loved her.. or did I? I hated being called a whore, I hated getting reminded of it everyday. I hated getting the blame. But now that would never happen again. I knew that.
   "Do you know who called us to tell us you were still there?" He asked. I looked at him. It was Alex. But if I told him, Alex would get caught doing drugs. And he would be arrested. Alex was nice to me. I have no response. I wouldn't tell on him. "Why were you not asleep in the house?" I stiffened. My body stopped shaking for that split second of stiffness, like I was aboard. I didn't have no answer again. Instead I dug more furiously. I felt the warm, sickening blood ooze out of my new wounds. He gave me an odd look and gently pushed my hands apart. "I'm going to take you to the hospital, and then I'm going to take you to the orphanage until we can find some distant relatives you can live with." He promised.
   I looked at him. There was no way they would find any distant relatives. My dad was unknown, and all of my mom's family members had died of old age or disease, and the ones young enough to be alive or surviving were all in prison. I didn't warn him of that though. I didn't know what I was supposed to say. Oh, hey, you can't find any distant relatives. They're either dead or in prison for something. If they couldn't find anyone, I was fifteen. There's no way I would be adopted. No one wants teenagers. They want to start fresh with new norms or toddlers who are impressionable.
   So I would have to stay at the orphanage for until I was eighteen. Three years away. God, I was that close to being an adult and I was no where near ready. I spent my whole life isolated from society, I had no idea how to talk to people. He started driving to the old, run down hospital. I guess everything here was run down. The town was as old as the civil war. Not a single thing had changed sense then besides the people. The hospital itself was y'all and built with white cinderblocks that had turned colors with age. It looked a little bit like the Williamson memorial hospital. It was surrounded by trees and sanctioned off from the rest of the town.
   He took me inside and they did so many different tests to make sure I was healthy. I had severe nerve damage generally due to mental abuse, but the damage in my arms was from my digging. They said I had dug too deep into the tendons in my wrist and it was a miracle I hadn't lost the use of my wrists or fingers. My growth was stunt d slightly from the abuse as well, and I was malnourished. They  sent me to the ward to get a psychological test and I didn't hear what they came up with, they talked to Beckett about that. He kept glancing at my sympathetically. I hated it.
   I hated the feeling like they were sorry for Me. I didn't deserve pity. I didn't want it. It made me feel more weak, more helpless. I watched him talk to the doctors and they shook their heads slightly. I had to spend the night there. The next day he came to get me, and he drove me to the orphanage right outside of town. Because the town was so small, there was no use to have its own orphanage. No one had kids they didn't want, and when they did, they had family or friends near who would take them. But there was an orphanage not ten miles out of town. So he took me there.