A cowards conviction

The buildup.

Growing up things were never bad for me. I had a loving family of both parents, two sisters and a cat. I always had a cat. From birth to five years old I lived in a shady part of the big city and no one really addressed everything that went on in just the span of eight blocks. From the polished end of Crest Road to the dilapidated State Route 79 my home turf at just a toddlers age was known for some of the most brutal and horrific crimes at the time. Murder, kindnapping, rape, gang violence, abduction, shoot outs, race riots, police warfare and just about everything else that could go wrong did in this little piece of Pandora's hell. Thankfully I wasn't there very long and the memories of that place are far and few but things begin to come into my memories view after we moved from the ghetto to the suburbs. From dark to light, poor to just above middle class, it was a new start for us all and I remember how happy everyone was, how things seemed so surreal, like a dream but it's too bad dreams don't last forever.

Maybe it started in first grade when I stepped on the teachers foot and my whole class roared with laughter. I felt my face grow hot, my ears stung and my stomach was in knots. I wanted to cry to scream to run away but I was taught better, to not cry unless I wanted something to cry about. I was a big girl and I could suck it up and move on. So I did. I knew everyone talked behind my back, I knew that the most popular girl in the class was the one who initiated it. I could always hear Lexi in the back of the class whispering about how my clothes were hand me downs, how my parents were so poor that we all had to share the same room, that maybe I was adopted because let's face it my sisters were so much prettier than I was. She was such a little bitch, always sneering and laughing like she was everything, at seven years old I knew what pure raw hatred was but I didn't know why or how I felt this way, I just knew that it's all I felt.

It could have started though when my oldest sister Emma pointed the finger at me when the fish tank was broken inside the house. Mom was asleep after working all day and dad had just come home to find the tank busted in the front room, everyone was called to the scene of the crime and asked the obvious " who done it " and when Emma said my name I felt it again. The red in my face. The burning on my ears, the tears stinging behind my eyes. I shook my head and said " no no no " but then all I remember feeling was hot searing pain. My left ear was ringing, my jawline was throbbing, blood was lightly pooling in my mouth from my teeth catching my tongue between them off guard. I looked up through fallen brown hair to see my fathers hand in the air just above my brow but I could feel his hand on my cheek. The sensation took over me as tears began crashing down. He struck me. It hit me. He hit me, for something I didn't even do. I couldn't even tell him no, no one heard me, no one cared. My face was red, from his slap and from the raw anger that built inside me yet again. But like I knew before I could push it down and I'd be okay, so I did just that.