The Story of a Nobody

Chapter One

I was born to an ordinary couple. My mother and father were only 19 and 20 when I was born. Hardly introduced to adulthood themselves, now they had to deal with a needy infant. They got married when my mom was pregnant with me. I remember how beautiful she looked on her wedding day in the pictures my grandma used to show me growing up. Huge (I was hardly a small baby) but beautiful. 

My grandma told me when I got older that my parents loved each other very much and I was always so confused why they weren't together anymore. I now know that not everyone that falls in love, stay in love. My parents divorced not long after I was born. I had hardly seen my father growing up. He was in the Navy so he was either on deployment or with my stepmom and other siblings. I always wondered why I never really saw him. 

It was always just me, my mom, my cousin, my aunt, and my two grandmas. Those were really the only family I knew growing up. Occasionally when I was with one of my grandmas I would go to see her parents with her. But as much as I loved my great grandparents I didn't see them often because they were a state away and it was a long drive for my grandma.

I still don't know the real reason as to why I never really saw my dad growing up but I do remember the few times I did see him. He always brought me something from his latest deployment. My grandma would take as many pictures as she could for her scrape books and my dad would leave once again.

My mom had a hard time raising me alone. I know she did. We always moved around from apartment to apartment because the house was always a mess. I don't blame her for the constant moving or the horrible messes because I know she tried her hardest. It was just me and her. 

We often found ourselves sharing a bed in a small one bedroom apartment. And I know most of the mess was mine. And I can't blame her for being too tired to clean up after a crazy 4 year old. She worked in the near by hospital as a phlebotomist. 

I remember her waking me up at ungodly hours of the morning to drive me to my grandmas down the road before she had to go to work. She always carried me inside and tucked me into bed next my grandma before leaving. Then in the morning my grandma would make me breakfast and I would sit at the kitchen counter in one of her fancy wooden stools watching Johnny and the Sprites, Dragon Tales, and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood until it was time for me to go to school.

My grandma always dropped me off and picked me up from school and when we had to pick up my cousin at the bus stop, she always gave me a dollar to go into the 10 cent candy store on the corner. To this day I remember sucking on lemon heads in the front seat of my grandmas van waiting at that bus stop. I used to tell my grandma of all the plans I had to change the world. It is a pleasant thought that I had so much optimism then.

After dinner my mom would come to pick me up and I would tell her all the exciting things I did at school and what me and my best friend planned for the next day on the playground and she tiredly listened to every word with the brightest smile on her face.

But those were the good days. As I got older I noticed how tired and sad my mom had gotten. She was only in her mid 20s and she was so unhappy no matter how hard she tried to show me a genuine smile. I could tell. And 7 year old me took it upon herself to meddle in my mom's love life. 

At the time she seemed to be dating a very well-off man. He was tall and handsome and he seemed to really love my mom. And she seemed to love him. I took it upon myself to tell him one night when we were all having dinner that he needed to hurry up and marry my mom. Little did I know that he only loved that he could control her, not the bright, caring mother I grew up knowing. 

They soon got married and I was so happy I finally found someone that was like a father. I grew to started calling him daddy because he was more present then my own father had ever been. I trusted this man with my moms heart and with my own. I always told myself that if I were to find a man in my life when I grew up I wanted him to be exactly like him. He got me into sports and music and he helped me with schoolwork.

He was so good to my mom and me and I was happy. Then his mom died and he changed. He was more demanding of perfection and i remember laying in bed hearing him yelling at my mom. I remember hearing my mom cry in her room through the thin walls.

Not long after his mothers death, we moved to his hometown. Across the country from where I had spent my whole life until that point. At this point in my life I was focused on my mother's happiness so I did whatever I could to be the perfect child to make my stepfather happy so they didn't fight as much. I mean I wasn't his biological daughter. I felt I had to make up for it.

About a year passed and my first sister was born. Growing up I was the oldest of all of my siblings and they were all boys until she was born. So after 4 boys I was so excited to have a little sister. I was 9 by then. I played soccer and softball and played the viola in the school orchestra and had a private tutor for Spanish twice a week. The whole time we were living with my stepfathers stepdad. Until one night he got a little too upset and "spanked" me with his mother's maternity paddle. I couldn't sit properly for three days.

When his stepdad found out he kicked him out and told my mom that me her and my sister could stay but my stepdad could leave. But my mom didn't want to make him angry so we left with him. Of course I didn't know about any of this until years later.

But we left and lived in a hotel for about a month while my stepdad looked for a house. It wasn't easy for my mom. I know she tried her best to keep him as happy as possible so he didn't do anything to hurt any of us.

We finally found a house and moved in quickly. I was put into a new school but I didn't have any friends. And when I tell you I had no friends, I mean it. The only friend I had was my language arts teacher. She's probably why I love reading and writing so much to this day. But even though things got better for our living situation. His moods became worse.