1 The Beginning

I never realized how bad things were until I could tell people. The way she looked at me as I told her the story, I knew nothing was right about it but at the time I assumed it was normal. Sarah stared at me in shock and pure horror as I told her the beginning of my story, as far back as I could remember. The screaming and yelling of my parents, the slam of my mom's body hitting a wall, her quiet painful sobs as she accepts that this is just her life now. He doesn't just take it out on her, he screams at all 3 of us children scared and bewildered about what we had witnessed. He pushes us to our room where we curl up together, scared and worried for her trying not to make noise and anger father further. Things quiet down after mom runs out of the house while he's distracted with us. She does this when it gets bad, she leaves and comes back days later like nothing happened knowing it will again. Days go by in a blur, normal days of being yelled at and told to always be quiet. We were not allowed to act like children unless he had guests and we were told to leave the house. Our best times were then, out in freedom with our friends around the block. No one cared where we were or how long we were gone as long as we were home by sundown. Our second best times were with our grandparents where they would leave us for weeks, when we came home the house always smelled of drugs and he was usually sleeping or on his way. When we did make him angry it was usually a punishment of being thrown, quite literally into our room or into the basement he told us was haunted and where the spiders would eat us alive. He liked all of us to be terrified at all times. There were always bruises and new scars, when asked we lied out of fear that the school and police couldn't help us but would make things much worse. Not all things were bad, we had each other and our friends. We knew that school was safe and grandma's was always welcoming. Instead of cream corn for dinner for weeks we got chicken and fish with potatoes and veggies. Things were never better than when not at home, we knew we had to go home but we knew no matter what we could go anywhere else and be ok when it got bad. As we got older he wanted us around less and less especially after mom left. She couldn't handle all of us at once and usually only took us girls and then my brother separately. It didn't feel right to always be split up but we knew it wouldn't be any other way. She knew what was happening with him and she couldn't change it or wouldn't, I'm not sure. The more we were away the better things were, the older we got the more places we had to go. We moved around a lot, lost friends and gained new ones. New schools and new buses, but always still near home. No one ever said why we always had to move, no one cared to explain to a bunch of stupid children. The worst memory is of the apartment. He was napping and he forced us to stay in, he thought our new friends parents were too nosy and didn't want that attention. My sister and I wanted out to play while our friends waited outside. My sister convinces me it's safe to jump from the second story, scared to go first. As I look down at the fall and the bushes below I get scared and want back in. She pushes me thinking I will be ok once on the ground, I catch the sill and fire bites into my wrist. So close to death, literal inches the nail is biting next to my vein. I scream and our friends run for help, their mom runs to my door and starts screaming and pounding. He rushes to the door pissed about his nap disturbance as she's screaming the girl is hanging from the window! He runs to our room and rips my arm off pulling me in. The neighbor witnesses I am fine and leaves. He beats us both and throws us to the corner for hours. I can still feel that pain in my arm, the scar a reminder of that horrible day.