My Personal Hell - D. Richardson (read with me .txt) 📗

great but okay. I saw my dad every other weekend, and they didn’t fight anymore. I think I was the happiest kid whose parents were divorced.

“But then my mom started to get sick. Turns out my dad didn’t fight for custody because he knew that it was only a matter of time. They both knew. She had been diagnosed with cervical cancer. She fought for three years, but when I was ten, she finally lost. Six months before that, my dad had gotten remarried and had my little brother, Jake.

“They moved into the house I had been staying at with my mom, and tried to keep going like nothing had happened. When I was eight I had started to learn how to cook. At first it was only because I wanted to learn, but then it became a necessity, so I could help take care of my mom and myself. She was still working nights to try and make the bills, so I did what I could around the house.

“And then my dad got mean. If dinner wasn’t perfect I got yelled at. If I forgot to turn the dryer on when his work clothes were in it, he would dump a pitcher of water over my head and send me to school in wet clothes. Didn’t matter if it was February. Then it got to where if he came home in a bad mood he would find something to yell at me for.

“Eventually, everything was my fault, and then he got meaner. He would tell me horrible things. Like I was a bad person, not worth the dirt under my feet, I didn’t deserve to live and he hated me. Sometimes I thought he was saying those things to my mom, not me. But that wasn’t until I was older.

“Then he started to hit me. When I was eleven he almost killed me. But he never stopped hitting me whenever he had an excuse. I would try to hide my bruises and black eyes, but I was too young for makeup. Then my step mother had my little sister, Arielle.

“When I was twelve a friend went to the councilors at school, about the way my father treated me. I told them everything, but they only called him in, and he convinced them that I was a pathological liar. I didn’t even know what that was until I looked it up. Then he started telling me that that was what I was.

“I got confused. Because a pathological liar is someone who lies all the time, but believes the lies are true. I lost a lot of friends because of what he told the councilors. If it wasn’t for the few friends that I still had, who had seen the bruises and caught glimpses of how he treated me. I think I would have lost my mind.

“As the kids got older things got even more complicated. He would be in a bad mood and they would step in the wrong spot and set him off. More than once I put myself in his path, just to keep them out of it.”

“Why? Why would you intentionally take that treatment?” Aaron asked in a hushed voice. I leveled my gaze at him.

“Why wouldn’t I? I was the only one there that could take it. And if I could save them the trauma of being beaten by someone who claimed they loved them…if I could save them from that life, there was no reason not too.

“Anyway, it kept going until I was sixteen. I had made the most of my life, by that point. I got a job, and my driver’s license. I had one foot out the door. But my father had a thing about control. He controlled my every minute of every day. If I was ten minutes late getting home from work I would get in trouble. He would accuse me of outlandish things. Including but not limited to what he thought I was doing with any boy I met.

“And then the summer after I turned sixteen, right after I finished my freshmen year, I got home from work only for my father to put me back into the car. He drove me to the Other’s house, they signed papers and he left. A few days later Lori showed up, and then a month passed and Kadi was dropped off.

“If it wasn’t for them I would have run. I would have found my way back to my little brother and sister. Of course, now I know that they had moved here right after they got rid of me.

“Yesterday when we were picking Kadi up, I saw them. My little brother and sister walked out of the building with her. It was the first time I had seen them since I was sold. Today, I followed them home. After my parents went to sleep, I snuck in.

“I had to see them. I had to make sure they were okay. I needed them to know that I hadn’t abandoned them. That I still thought of them and missed them. I had too.” I finished my story and everything was quiet. While I was talking we had gone through the deck once and we were halfway through it again.

“And are they? Okay?” Drake asked. I nodded.

“Yeah, my father stopped the beatings and the treatment. They’re fine.”

“You could have told us. You didn’t have to go yourself, we could have found out and told you.” I shook my head this time.

“I needed to see for myself. And I didn’t want everyone to have a slice of my past.” They nodded in reply and I pushed my, rather large, pile of chips into the middle of the table, then stood. I was tired and needed some sleep.

But before I fell asleep I felt as if an anvil had been lifted off my shoulders. For once I could actually relax, knowing they were truly okay.

Chapter 10

I woke up to a splitting headache. I looked at the clock and it was almost eleven. I couldn’t remember ever sleeping this late. I could hear everyone down in the kitchen. Which was odd. I had good hearing and I had learned to harness it a long time ago, but it was never this good.

I got up and dressed slowly. Quick movements only made the headache worse. I made my way, just as slowly, down to the kitchen and the sound slaughtered me as I walked into the room.

No one was talking in loud voices, it was just that everything seemed to be amplified. I had a blissful second when everyone went quiet. Sadler was leaning up against the island and smiled at me until his expression turned to worry.

“Are you okay?” He asked and I slapped my hands over my ears.

“Everything is so loud,” I mumbled, the others turned to look at me again. All of them with worry. I looked around and noticed several things that I hadn’t before. Like how Drake’s normally thick lustrous hair suddenly had small spots of gray at his temples.

I noticed slight crows feet in the corner of Becca’s eyes, and when I focused I could see little bits of dust and dirt floating in the air. My eyes darted here and there taking in everything as if for the first time. Then an awful smell assaulted me. I looked around for it, but didn’t realize that it was an open jar of maraschino cherries on the table until it was almost too late.

“What is that smell, it’s horrible,” I muttered right before I rushed to the trash can to throw up my already empty stomach.

“Call the doctor,” Drake mumbled to Adrian and he rushed from the room. Watching him it looked like he was almost moving in slow motion. I collapsed onto the floor in front of the trash can and turned my back to it.

“Someone please, I’m begging you, get rid of that damn jar of cherries,” I whispered just seconds before Sadler threw the whole thing into the garage and slammed the door shut. Well, he didn’t actually slam it, but it sounded that way to me.

By this time everyone was out of their chairs and making their way over to me. When I realized I was surrounded I panicked. I don’t know why, I knew everyone in the room, and I knew enough about them to know that they wouldn’t hurt me. But my breathing quickened and my eyes darted around as if they had a mind of their own. As much as I tried to focus I couldn’t. Everything was too bright, too loud, smelled too strongly, or coming right at me, and my head pounded harder.

‘Let me out’ a voice whispered, and my glances became more frantic. Great, now I was hearing voices. ‘It’s okay, just let go. I can make it better. You have to let me out. I can’t be trapped anymore.’ What the hell was happening to me. Was I losing my mind finally. Had I actually cracked after all this time. ‘No, you’re not crazy. They’re all safe, I don’t have to hide anymore. I can come out.’

‘Who are you?’ I asked tentatively to the voice. I didn’t speak out loud. The voice was in my head, and that’s how I spoke to it. I figured if I was losing it, I might as well make the most of it.

‘I’m you, and you’re me. We belong together, we are a part of each other, but different. We can work together now. I can help you, just like you can help me.’

‘Help you with what?’

‘Help me live, survive, thrive. But you have to let go. Just a little bit. Relax, finally, there’s nothing to fight anymore. They’re safe, you can live now. Not in your world. It’s time that we lived in our world.’

‘What world.’

‘The world we should have always been in. We should have been fighting together, but if we had, us and the others would have died. I had to stay hidden. But now I don’t have too. Now we can finally fight together. But you have to let me out! If you don’t it will only get worse. You can’t handle the senses overload, I can. Just let go, let me live, please.’

The voice, she spoke softly, it was almost like it was a more guttural version of my own voice. And she was begging me to let her out, to free her so she could live, so we could live together. I had no idea what she was talking about, and I didn’t know how to do what she so desperately needed me to.

Provided she actually existed and wasn’t a figment of my imagination. Probably brought on by traumatic stress.

 

 

Sadler

 

 

 

She sat there against the wall, completely zoned out. She had stopped staring frantically, but the empty look in her eyes was disturbing. I made my way over to her, and knelt down so I could look into her eyes. She was there, but in a distance. The only time I had ever seen anything like this was…the first time someone talks to their wolf. I stood and stepped back quickly, forcing everyone else to do the same.

“It’s happened,” I said turning to Drake. He met