Free Me

Inner Demons

I went home that night and went straight to sleep. I didn't even know where my father was or what he had been doing. As long as he wasn't near me I was fine.

10:00 am
I hear birds chirping outside and I open my eyes to adapt to the bright light shining through my curtains. I lift my head and look at my phone. A text from Trey. Woo. Fabulous.

I figure I should provide some information about me.
I grew up in a small town in New York and fell in love with the city. Eventually when I was 7, my father's career relocated and we had to move across the country to Los Angeles, California. Now of course I loved it but my heart and soul was still back in New York. I was an only child learning to fit in to a foreign world and a new school. Overall my family was happy and we loved spending time together. Besides the struggle of adapting to this new state, everything was going good for us. A big house, a nice job for my father, a good neighborhood.
And then.. the tables turned.
It was Christmas Eve night and I was sleeping, of course, because I had to be asleep for "Santa" to come. My father was upstairs in his room sleeping well from a day off work. Before I fell asleep my father told me that my mom was on her way home from a little last minute Christmas shopping. I was fast asleep, dreaming of reindeer and clouds and unicorns or whatever little kids dream of. That's when I heard the phone ring. The sound of footsteps began until the phone and the walking and everything ceased. Dead silent. Then a loud bang. as if something dropped. I jumped out of bed and ran upstairs to find the phone broken into pieces on the kitchen floor and my father grabbing his coat and shoes. I looked at him.
"Daddy?" I said with my teddy bear over my mouth.

"Get your coat and your shoes baby and hurry. We have to go somewhere." It was somewhat difficult to make out his facial features in the dim light but I remember seeing shiny drops of water sliding down his cheeks. I knew.... this was going to be bad. I grabbed my shoes as fast as I could and picked my coat up on my way while sprinting out the door. My dad put me in the car and got us out of the neighborhood in, what felt like, 5 seconds.

We made it to the hospital. In my father's arms we sprinted towards the room we were directed to. But we weren't allowed in. We were sent to the waiting room to drown in fear. Except one thing. I didn't know why we were here.

"Daddy why are we here?" I looked up, on the verge of crying an I didn't even know why.

"Baby, look at me." I did as I was told. "Mommy got in a car accident and the doctors rushed her here as fast as they could to fix her. She is about to go into surgery so we can't go see her right now. But we will see her when she gets out." I guess I have to respect him in a way. He did everything he could to inform me of the tragedy. But there is only so much a father can say before his 7 year old daughter is ripped to pieces. I cry. And I cry. And I sob. And I bawl. Little did that tiny me know that it wasn't just any car accident. My mother's car slipped on ice while driving over a hill. Her car skid off the hill and rolled down to the very bottom. The doctors found out it happened at 7pm. My dad found out about it at 10:30pm. A good 3 and a half hours while my father and I were carrying on our lives and my mother was laying in a destroyed car at the bottom of a hill.... On Christmas Eve.

The doctors came out and signaled for my father.

"Stay here Bethany. I'll be right back." I could see it. I could see the terror in his deep blue eyes. They were wide and full of fear. He walked into the hall with the doctor. It felt like hours before he came back, and when he did. He was sobbing as well.

"Baby girl." He managed to say between deep breaths and shaky exhales. "Mommy, she, uh. She didn't make it. She decided to go live with God."

I screamed. Louder and louder.

"MOMMY!!!!!!" I wailed and fell to the floor. "MOMMY NO. COME BACK!" My father picked me up and he brought me to the car and he held me. So tight. And he kissed my forehead and he said "I will always be here baby. We will get through this." I didn't stop crying until I fell asleep. That was the worst Christmas of my entire life and the rest that followed after that year were didn't get better.

My father and I made it by without her as best as we could, but for some reason when I was 12 he began to drink. A lot. And then he kept doing it. He didn't stop. By the time I was 14 was when the abusing started. He would get so drunk and he let himself go. He let me go. He would hit me and beat me and I would have to lock a door and crawl out a window just to save myself until he was passed out. And it still, to this day, continues.