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The nightmares had started shortly after I had turned five-years-old. I could remember it like it was yesterday…the screaming, crying, the awful sounds of flesh on flesh.
I’d been awakened in the middle of the night by my parents screaming, only I hadn’t known what all was going on at the time. I could just remember feeling scared because I’d never seen my parents fight before then. We had always behaved so politely that I hadn’t understood the screaming.
Scared, I’d gone in search of my parents, my teddy bear in my hands, my bare feet making no sounds on the plush carpet. I had followed the sounds of the screaming and crying, and when I had finally reached my father’s office, that’s when everything had changed for me. Though at the time, I hadn’t known what I was looking at, I ended up learning really quickly as the years passed.
My mother had been a sobbing mess, blood trickling down the side of her face, her hair a tangled mess, and her nightgown had been torn in places that should have covered her up. She’d been bent over my father’s desk, and he’d been behind her, slamming into her, calling her filthy names and hitting her with his fists each time that his hips moved against to hers.
I hadn’t known that he was raping her at the time. I hadn’t known what that was yet. All I could focus on was how he’d been hitting her and calling her names. I’d been old enough to understand that much, and each swing of his fist had killed a small piece inside of me.
When my father had noticed me standing in the doorway, he hadn’t stopped. Like a monster out of control, he had kept raping her, telling me what a fucking whore she was. Again, at the time, I hadn’t known what a whore was, but I had known enough to know that fucking was a bad word.
After that, my father had stopped trying to hide his evil proclivities. That hadn’t been the first or last time that I’d seen him rape and beat my mother, and she hadn’t been the only one, either. Over the years, I’d seen him rape and beat a lot of the household staff, some of my mother’s acquaintances, whoever. He never cared if I saw or heard, and that was sick in itself.
The only reason that he had escaped prison was because my father had been a master at paying women off after what he’d do to them, my mother included. My mother had been so money-hungry that she had endured those horrific private moments just to keep her bank accounts fat. I had stopped feeling sorry for her when I’d been eight and she’d told me that it was a wife’s job to satisfy her husband however he needed to be satisfied.
Things had only gotten worse when I had hit puberty, and my father’s business associates had begun to look at me like I was on the menu. They’d make remarks, and my father had never corrected them. He’d been more than willing to serve me up to suit his financial needs, and that’s when I had begun spending more and more time at Lennon’s.
It hadn’t been until years later that I’d found out that my father had also been a drug addict, which helped fuel his sexual violence. At any rate, to say that I wasn’t close with my parents was a huge understatement. As for my brother, we talked during the holidays, but that was it.
So, thanks to my fucked-up parents, I’d grown up with a distorted view of what a healthy relationship was supposed to be like. I had also grown up looking over my shoulder all the time. I had looked for monsters everywhere, because if they could be living right inside my own home, then that meant that they could be anywhere.
My theory had been proven right during my freshman year of college. Enrolled in Blaineview, I had gone to college with Lennon and her family, and it should have been the best years of my life. I’d finally been away from home, ready to meet new people, and no longer financially dependent on my parents because my trust fund had kicked in when I had turned eighteen.
However, that had all gone to shit when I’d been attacked during my freshman year of college. Though it hadn’t been Lennon’s fault in any way, she had made an enemy of the wrong guy, and he had taken it out on me, knowing that hurting me was the only way that he could hurt Lennon.
Lennon had offended Kenneth Thomas, the son of a federal judge. He’d been twenty-years-old, six-feet tall, blonde, blue-eyed, a college sophomore, and one of the popular kids at Blaineview.
He’d also been as evil as they came.
In a bid to pay Lennon back for messing with him, he had orchestrated the worst night of my life and it was a miracle that I was still mentally and emotionally competent at this point in my life. Kenneth had paid three guys to gang rape me, and after watching my father rape women for years, they had triggered a break in my mind that I’d been sure that I couldn’t ever come back from.
Haden Donaldson, Martin Tyler, and Kelsey Sanders had taken turns raping me for hours, and they had left me for dead afterwards. It had been brutal, destructive, and inhumane. They hadn’t been men, but animals, violating me in every conceivable way imaginable. It had taken me two years of rehab to heal completely from what they’d done to me, though there was no healing me mentally or emotionally ever.
Of course, Lennon had gotten her revenge, and though that had brought me some comfort at the time, Kenneth Thomas had still gotten the last laugh. I was always going to be damaged to some extent, and that wasn’t self-pity talking. That was a simple statement of fact.
The entire thing had also skewed my views on the black and white of our laws. So did working at the call center if I were being honest with myself. While the law stated that vengeance was against the law, I understood why people still did it. I understood why people risked prison to avenge the people that they loved. Even though I knew that Lennon would always be safe from prison, what she’d done to avenge me still made me nauseous if I thought about it long enough. Lennon Marlow-Prince was one of the most savage people that I’d ever met, and I absolutely loved her to death.
So, I didn’t judge family members when they yelled threats in the courtroom. I understood how they felt because I could remember wanting to defend my mother before she had killed the last little bit of my innocence.
Plus, the call center wasn’t just for victims, either. Family members called a lot with the weight of feeling helpless because they couldn’t rescue their sister, son, daughter, mother, or whoever. Abuse had the ability to damage an entire family, not just one individual.
With the microwave dinging, indicating that my frozen dinner was ready to eat, I contemplated calling Lennon. Even though she was busy doing her own thing, I was a main priority in her life, and I knew it, though I tried my hardest not to take advantage. The woman had given me my life back-
No, that’s not true.
Her entire family had given me my life back, and I owed them tremendously, even though I knew that they’d never collect. I was considered family, and that in itself was short of a miracle. That family didn’t allow just anyone into their lives, but it wasn’t like I’d been given a choice. Lennon had wanted to become my friend when we’d only been kids, and there’d been no refusing her.
Still, even though I knew that she’d have no problem picking up the phone to talk to me, I was trying my best not to keep using her as a crutch. Lennon and her family had become a safety blanket for me, and at thirty-three, I shouldn’t have one of those anymore. Sure, it could be argued that no one would blame me for using them to keep my feet on the ground, but sooner or later, I needed to carve out a life of my own.
Pulling the plastic covering off my dinner, I decided against calling her. At least, for tonight. If I could get through tonight without her support, then I could justify calling her tomorrow and telling her all about my crappy week.
Good thing it was almost the weekend.
Chapter 4
Killian~
Looking in the mirror, the man staring back at me looked like he was around thirty-five-years-old, but I felt so much older than that.
