Prologue

There were times in my life growing up when I had a few glimpses of the happy family everyone thought we were. The one my lovely parents portrayed us to be. The way my parents carried themselves among guests. At the beginning of my life there were always guests. Parties where I was supposed to not be seen or heard. I was young when the guests stopped coming over. I was thankful Dustin wasn’t born yet to deal with the party scene. To never know when a drunk guy would “think” your bedroom was the bathroom and try and get in even though you had the door locked. Always wondering if the door would hold, if one day the person just wouldn’t care. It was never like my sperm donor cared about it. A locked door never kept his temper at bay.

Sure, our family was happy. Our family was perfect. People always say how looks can be deceiving, well I was living proof of that. If I told, no one would believe me. They would believe them. The adults. The parents who knew what was “best” for their kid. That she was just making up stories. That her imagination ran wild like the horses in the fields. The web of lies they allowed friends, business acquaintances, and even law enforcement to believe for the longest time. There was pure hatred and narcissistic behavior that my parents were prone to hiding. That was a hard sell considering the violence that hid within the shadows. How do you tell the police you are fine when your young child has caked on makeup that Mommy just had to do for her own protection. Makeup can cover a lot of things. They were hoping it would cover up the broken girl forever. That no one would ever know. How would they know? They had me trained. I knew the consequences. I thought it was safer to not squeal. I thought I was protecting myself more this way. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess.

I always did my best to protect my brother from the monster that everyone warned you about. I just wish ours didn’t live in the same house. Why my mother had him thinking it would “change” who my father was still boggles my mind. She was so desperate to give him what he wanted. To give him a son. Thinking a tiger could change its stripes? If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, well he was a duck. Things changed when my brother was born, but he didn’t. No, he never would. But I did. I changed into a guardian. A protector. I wanted to be the person I never had to lean on. I was strong enough now that I could handle him. It was different when I was a little girl. She was gone. He took her just like he took Layla. Gone were those girls and gone was the childhood I never had in the first place.

My brother was the best and worst thing to happen to me. The best because he was my pride and joy. The person who I got up for in the morning and faced the day for. The worst because I didn’t want a child in the same situation I was in. I didn’t have someone to protect me. I made it my mission to protect him. I was going to keep him out of it as much as possible. There was no escaping the monster, but if I could help it, he would only take me into the depths of hell. Dustin was going to come out mostly unscathed. I would risk my life daily to ensure that happened. I was going to be the protective big sister.

I was going to fight the monster every time if it meant he didn’t have to. This monster wasn’t the one who just lived under beds and in bedtime stories where a knight comes and slays it in the end. I had to be the knight in my own storybook. And what I had realized? There were monsters everywhere. It wasn’t just the strangers on the side of the road. The scammers behind a computer screen. There were ghosts in every closet. A pothole among every turn and it just mattered which one you hit just right (or maybe just wrong) that killed your rims. You spend every moment swerving to avoid the problems, taking every preventative measure you can. But, in reality? The little one that shouldn’t have even been an issue may do the most damage. The one closest and most familiar ends up causing irreversible breakage. Are we still talking about potholes?

There was never a moment when I regret taking my brother out of harm's way. Being the protective big sister was my job. That is the one thing I could always count on myself for. I put my self-worth into my ability to take care of others. And more importantly how I take care of my brother. Regardless of the damage it caused me, I could keep him safe. However, I am not going to lie, it was tough on me. Every morning, I would wake up and wonder whether I would finally break under the pressure and stress of living in constant pain and suffering. Whether my body would be okay at the end of the day. I could guess my future. One day this would probably result in the ultimate loss. My only goal was to get Dustin out before that happened. If my brother could be free, then I could rest in peace.

The saddest part of my life was that it wasn’t preventable. I couldn’t fix what he saw; if I changed who I was it wouldn’t change him. No matter how many eggshells I walked on for him it wouldn’t be enough. I could never stop it. I never really understood what happened to make the monster under the bed come out to play. Anything could set him off one day but then he would be fine with it the next. There was no uniformity. I couldn’t his predict actions. I couldn’t know how hard the hands would lay on me that day. Why I wasn't good enough to be loved and cherished by a person who was supposed to hold me close? Why does he hate me so much? He was the person who turned into my monster at a very young age. Too young for that responsibility. Too young to feel the weight of the world and way too young to feel the abuse and pure evil a person could hold within their heart and mind.

I guess I didn't really know how to cope with the lack of parental love. How do you grow into your supposed to be without being built up. When you aren't getting any support from adults as a kid: it takes a lot out on you. A lot of your identity comes from parents. I didn’t cope in the right way most of the time which led to a lot more of the same disastrous choices and physical pain. And this pain? This pain was inflicted by my own internal monster. The one that I may or may not have inherited. No. I would not compare myself to him. I was better than him by all accounts. And any injury I caused wasn’t inflicted on anyone else. I knew how to channel it. Maybe not in a wise way, but I needed something. The need to control my situation. What I could do to my body. Someone was already abusing my skin. Covering it without my consent; so, at the end of the day it felt right to give myself that control. I could put marks where I chose not him. Where I could be my own marker. But this monster who felt something when I was in pain? This is the one who, at the end of the day, I had to live with. The one who I closed my eyes at night and saw. Not in the light of dusk or dawn, but in the darkness of my mind. Always there. Around every corner. Lurking and never leaving my thoughts alone. Especially in the silence, dreams were never my friend. And there was nothing that terrified me more than that fact: that I had no control over my subconscious. That my brain controlled my nightmares. There was nothing that terrified me more than myself.

I could live with the bruises and the pain inflicted upon others. But the hardest part was the pain that I inflicted upon myself. The pain that I caused. The demons under my bed were more my own than the parental unit you or any social worker were convinced to think. People would simply say that I was a victim of yet another man and another statistic. But in reality? The reality was that my brain was the most dangerous and harmful component in my life. Sure, he might create bad issues and thoughts, but wasn’t I weak to let it affect me? I always thought I would see myself as the one to blame. It felt like it was at least partially my fault. I mean I should have been strong enough to handle every punch he threw my way... Right? I should have been better. I mean he had to have a reason to beat his kid. Didn't he? No one would intentionally hurt their child without a motive. Or at least that was what I began to think.

I guess seeing how amazing parents’ relationships with each other and with their kids... my trust was nonexistent, and I had no hope of something coming of that. Men scared me, because I saw someone who was supposed to love me use me as a punching bag. If a male connected to me in blood could do so much harm what about those who I give my trust. Who can I eventually plan to build a life with? How was I expected to date? To go out with a boy to homecoming or prom and not look over my shoulder the whole time wondering if they would be like my father. If I would be just like my mother and turn a blind eye while I let my spouse wail on my kids. Simply happy that it was no longer me who was the only one feeling the physical and emotional torment. How am I supposed to not feel the tension in my body throughout every night I was out with classmates, teammates, and friends? Besides, in high school, crushes don't last. So, what was the point? Why would I risk finding a man when there were so many things that could go wrong. It was already too much work protecting myself in my normal day-to-day life; I already had one man controlling me. I was already working every day to surivive and hide it all. Why bring in someone close to me. No one was allowed too close. They ask too many questions. So, why would I put in effort towards something else? My main goal was and always will be to have my brother. We have each other and that would always be enough for me. I didn’t even feel the longing to be held by a guy or hold hands in public. That was for normal girls with normal lives. I wasn’t meant for that. Right?