Beginning of the End

I used to be a vibrant, intense, determined teen. I fully believed that all I had been through had a purpose, molded me into someone who could relate to many. I appreciated my past, reveled in the well rounded person it made me. Non judgemental, understanding, loving, caring, forgiving. I was the kind of girl who treated everyone like my best friend. The one you called for advice, for a shoulder to cry on, to be cheered up. I was never without a smile and always eager to give one away. I was surrounded by wonderful friends, but one in particular always stuck out. One who had loved me since we were 8. Before I was whole. When I was still a shy, broken , nervous, timid little girl. A chubby little boy, by the name of Aaron, who stood awkwardly head and shoulders above our Sunday school class. He slowly transitioned from being the annoying pest that did everything from fall into my lap during a sermon to passing me notes filled with proclamations of undying love during alter call. To my best friend, who talked me through my reoccurring nightmares, cried with me during my suicidal phase and grinned and bared it through my boy crazed years. To my high school sweet heart with whom I planned a future with. My knight in shining armor, the calm in every storm I had faced, the hand I pictured holding at every life altering moment. All of it came to a screeching halt when my father found out we had been discussing having sex. He assumed the worst, never asking me if I was still a virgin or not (which I was). Rather he did what he did every time he wanted to avoid a conversation. He kicked me out. Two weeks. Two weeks and I could come home he said. The day before junior prom, the week of finals, he called up my mother and told her to come get me. I didn't understand why my room was being packed up for a two week "visit". But two weeks passed and he never called, then three, then a month. Then I understood. He wasn't coming back for me. I was tarnished, even if only in his mind. He forbade my mother to allow me to talk to Aaron, or anyone for that matter. I would later learn he never told any of our church members or my friends that called what had happened to me. They only knew I was gone and that my biological sister, Nicole, constantly cried. They had done "what was best for the family", meaning his two little girls he had with my step-mom, was the only explanation he gave.
He abandoned me, left me with the man who sexually abused me, the woman the court deemed unfit to be my mother. The same woman who gave up all rights to me without a fight. Who chose to marry the man who violated me, completely aware of the situation. "I need to think about me, Emily' she told me when I asked her as a 7 year old why she would chose him over me. Before the courts took me and my sister away "One day you will be able to leave here. To find a husband and have your own family. What will I have then? Who will love me? I'll be old. I need to be happy too Emily stop being so selfish. Your dad has remarried I need to show him I've moved on"
 I told myself not to care. I had learned to not care about my mother and I swore I could do the same about my father. This was just another test, this would make me stronger. But each night I wordlessly prayed he'd call, better yet he'd come and rescue me. Say he was sorry. That it was all a misunderstanding. That he loved me. I waited for that call. It didn't come, not for a year. And by then it was too late.

*Originally written January 4th 2012