A/N: This story is not for the faint hearted or those who are unable to deal with adult themes.
You do not run when you have nothing to lose, when you don't care about yourself.
So I just get on with the game.
Then the only thing you have, is the game.
Not that it is a game as such. There will be no winners, but I suppose that depends on your definition of what 'winning' is.
I'm living in a dark world where everything has such little light that I am now nocturnal. I find that when I hear a noise somewhere near me, my ears twitch. It is like some base, deep routed animalistic instinct is driving me and taking over.
I suppose that is the point really. That's the level we are at now.
And I like it.
Let's take stock. Sit back and review my ammunition and my game plan. Let's see where else I can go with this. To go forward, one has to look back, surely?
I'm twenty years old, and for one so young and so barely touched by age, I have little interest in living any further. That was before I had even met him.
I wonder if it is his misjudgement that makes him howl with rage? I wonder if that is the reason he carries on with our death dance? His motives are superfluous to the facts though and I do not care.
I had been living with my parents, or rather, my father and his wife, for a number of years in quite a grand house just north of Paris. It was a farm, all working and abundant with different types of life . He was a business man you see, owned a few companies that franchised driving schools in Germany and the UK as well as two haulage firms. We're not French my father and I, but the step mother is.
Ah, I had such hope for her. My mother had died when I was ten from alcohol abuse and it was only then that my father had to take me in. I was rather relieved more than anything that the torture my mother had forced me to endure was over and that I might enjoy some comfort and kindness at the hands of my father and his new wife.
When I'm wrong, I'm wrong I suppose.
As I got older and realised that my childhood dream of a lovely, happy family was just that – a dream, I notice my anger towards my father begin to mount. He made the choice to abandon me with my mother when he walked out. He did not fight for custody of me. He just buggered off and left her to it. He must have been happy to just shake us off.
I was so angry at my mother. All I could see when I slept (and I see it now) was her angry, twisted face, slurring angry insults at me. Her scraggy black hair making an evil mane about her head, giving her the halo of a demon.
"I hate you" she'd drawl "I've always hated you. You look like him" and then she'd hit me.
Sometimes I would be woken up in the middle of the night by her literally throwing herself on top of me in the darkness, punching me through the covers.
Then in the morning she would herd me off to school, all beautifully turned out. I was her precious little punch bag and she had no intention of letting people take me off her. She was quite clever for a sadistic drunk.
Then she died. I was still at school and a gentle voiced teacher (the one who would tell me to go and see the headmaster about 'what I had just done' all the time) who had taught me the previous year, came into my classroom and asked to speak to me in private.
All eyes were on me.
Then... police, social workers, care, courts and then my father. He showed up, eventually, all apologies and excuses. He'd been away, unreachable apparently (conveniently). Hurricanes and delayed flights back from a business conference in the states. Hadn't heard until now.
It had been two months.
But I was a child. I still had a shred of joy and love and hope left inside me. I wanted to believe him and I wanted him to wrap me up in his strong warm arms and magic me away from it all.
In a manner of speaking, he did.
He had just remarried six months before (I was not invited: "it'll upset your mother if you go love, sorry, we'll save you some cake, promise") to a French woman who was the former wife of one of his business partners who had died six months before the wedding.
I had dreamed of a beautiful princess-like chateau in the middle of nowhere, but that nowhere was a vast, deep forest, swarming with the most beautiful wildlife. In the distance where blue topped mountains shrouded in a hazy purple mist and every morning, I would run onto my balcony and breath in wonder as the golden sun kissed the tops of the trees and the distant peaks.
Instead, my tiny bedroom at the back of the huge, square house had plaster hanging off the walls and mould growing in thick black clumps round the window sill.
I remember it was so cold and feeling so cold. I remember hugging my legs and feeling sorry about different parts of myself and wanting to comfort them, as though they were people. I was made to learn the local language by the woman who did the cleaning, a cold, bitter woman who slapped me repeatedly if I spoke English to her. It turned out that her method of teaching me French was just leaving me to figure it out and whacking me brutally until I got it right.
I'd describe her further, flesh her out for you, give you her name and her motivations. But I don't care. I hope she's burning in hell.
I went on to the nearby school and was bullied mercilessly for being British and stumbling over every word.
The teachers would even go as far as sitting there and laughing at the other children as they made fun of me in class and pushed me over at break times. I tried so hard to fit in. I tried so very hard. I did everything I could think of doing and it did not work.
I remember walking home from school one night and a gang of them set about me. They beat me until I could no longer stand and then covered my hair in half chewed sweets and ice cream.
I sat there, so miserable and broken that day. I was too afraid to go home because the reaction would be horrendous and I would be blamed for 'bringing it on' myself. I just wanted to die then and there. There was no hope of joy to be had. I think I realised then, that my awful mother had gotten the better deal, she was dead and was never going to suffer again. It was a bit of shame for me.
Oh eventually the Police found me and escorted me home and man handled me through the door, much to the embarrassment (and therefore rage) of my step mother.
It is fair to say, my miserable lot did not improve from there on in.
Should I bore you further with my tales of dramatic escapes and self harm and suicide attempts that followed? Should I try and elicit some feelings of pity and gut-wrenching sympathy from you by going on? No. What's the point. I don't care, so neither should you.
I am just a light about to burn out. I am just nothing. A dot, a drip, a fleeting impression.
Then along came a spider into the mix who thought they could change me, tame me, bend me to their will. I am very sure he thought he was something magnificent. Someone who life had been so terribly (awwwwww) cruel to and therefore doling it out onto others was no problem. Laughable.
My biggest problem I found was pointing this out to him.
I did try, a little I think.
I gave him the worst news when we first met.
I simply said "Hello, I'm Christine and I really, really don't care mate".
