Hell And Back(2)

I know I should have been sad, but I wasn’t. Maybe this is why God is punishing me. I really didn’t know my parents. All I knew was my grandmother, who loved me unconditionally. She made it possible for me to grow up being a normal kid. And like any normal kid, I was ready to leave home the minute I hit eighteen. Ready to be my own person. Ready to take on the world.

I was your typical college student trying to better myself. Trying to do things on my own.

Not only did I move away from Nan, I went to a community college some four states over.

It all started like any other Saturday morning. I was doing the breakfast shift at the diner in town.

The diner was filled with early rising families and truckers passing through town. What made this day different was the party of four guys who looked like they hadn’t slept yet. Chances are this was the last step before hitting the hay.

I didn’t give them a second thought till they sat in my section. I went to their table, asking for their order.

It took a second for my eyes to meet his. It took me a second more to fall for that lopsided smile and lone dimple. That second I fell for him will always be the one moment I wish I could go back and change.

Because from that second on, I was under Adam Fletcher’s spell.

Were things perfect? No. I found out he had no job and wasn’t attending college either. Instead, he was just living day by day, as if it was his life’s goal to do so.

Not every single eighteen-year-old has goals. I was not in it for money. I was in it for love. Boy, was I fucking naïve.

It started with coffee dates. Oh, those sweet first dates, where he just held my hand. Talking about the future he wanted to have, or was trying to have, I should say. He never really achieved anything to make it his goal.

I should have seen the signs in the beginning as well. The times he missed dates, saying, “Sorry, babe, I lost track of time.”

The times he didn’t call when he said he would call. “Sorry, babe, my phone died.”

The fact he always started out the day energetic and hyper, only to end it looking ragged and sleepy. “Sorry, babe, was up late.”

A junkie. That is what he was. Something I knew nothing about. Something I would spend the rest of my life fighting or, better yet, running from.

A small voice and little fingers bring me out of the fog of the past and back into the present. I look down at my little girl, who smiles up at me.

“Morning, Momma,” she whispers, leaning in to kiss me.

“Morning, baby, are you hungry?”

She doesn’t answer me. Instead, she just nods.

“Let’s go downstairs and get you some food.” I pull myself from the bed. I don’t have to turn around to know she is right behind me.

“Momma, can I have more cereal with milk?” Her voice is barely a whisper, a soft voice she learned early to use so as not to wake the monster who was living with us.

“Yes, you can, angel.” I fill up her second bowl and add a heaping amount of milk. It’s finally time she gets to eat what a normal kid should eat.

We both look malnourished. I’m maybe a hundred and three pounds of skin and bones, and my little girl doesn’t look any better. Forced to survive on maybe a meal a day.

I often didn’t eat just to make sure she had enough so her tummy wouldn’t hurt.

I look around the sparse house. The curtains downstairs are in dire need of replacement, but they keep the sun out, making it feel like we are invisible. Nothing about this place has changed from when I moved in or from when I moved out.

The house was a gift from above. It was our ticket out. I lost contact with Nan when Adam and I got together. The phone calls home became fewer and farther in between.

Most of the time he didn’t want me to call her because she was a ‘nosy bitch’ according to him.

I mean, I suppose if you base it on the fact she cared and worried about me, then yes, she was definitely a nosy bitch.

It was that phone call three weeks ago, the one that gave me hope and showed me there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

I sat there battered and bruised, one of my eyes swollen shut while my little girl sat next to me, making sure she didn’t touch my ouchies, and there were many.

I dialed the number I hadn’t called in a while. A number he isolated me from. It wasn’t her who answered, though, and when I asked for Nan, I was given the news she had passed but had left strict instructions her phone number was to be transferred to her lawyer in case I called and was ready to come back home.

This was the worst beating he had ever given me. But he didn’t do all this damage himself. It was more when his dealer took his turn with me.

Each time he would strike me first, right before he had his way with me. I may have been Adam’s, but he was more than happy to share me—and my body—if it meant he could keep his high going longer.