Learn To Love Again

Ten more steps.
Ten more fricking steps until I was out of his reach.
Ten more steps and I would have been safe.
I was only TEN steps away from the safety of the car when he grabbed me by the ankle and dragged me, kicking and screaming, around the corner to where his foul putrid dirty van was lurking in the shadows, along with his band of equally disgusting, and I'm sure, mentally deranged brothers waited to tie me up, an do things that I would much rather never remember.
Worst of all. I was only 10 years old.
10 fricking years old!

I can still hear the sound of my mother screaming desperately for her husband, in my head, her husband, my father, the one who held down my body as his brothers, and my two uncles assaulted me.

The image, although my eyes were blurred with tears, still burned in my mind. A constant reminder never to trust anyone again.

I would very much like to say that the police got there just in time and saved the day. I would love to tell you that, in a very fortunate series of events, I managed to escape my fathers vice like grip, and did not go through things a ten year old little girl, should NEVER, ever, have to go through in her life.

And I would like to tell you that my mother intervened and prevented me from a life of trauma and heartache.

But If I did,

I would be lying.