Prologue 2
There comes a time when a woman needs to stop thinking about her looks and focus her energies on raising her children. This time comes at the moment of conception. A child needs a role model, not a supermodel. ~Astrid Alauda, on the "hot mom" trend
Trina Echolls wanted to be a star. She wanted to be famous and admired like her mom and dad. She wanted paparazzi to follow her and fans to ask autographs.
When your dad is Aaron Echolls it isn't hard to climb up the social latter and get a few parts in a movie or a TV show. However the paps weren't interested in her for her role in Michigan Dreaming or Please Stay, they followed her just because she was Aaron's daughter...and just to write things about her father. But with her brother it was different. They were always interested in him and the troubles he got into. They didn't want Aaron...they wanted Logan. Her melodramatic, stupid, arrogant, son of a bitch brother. He always wanted the attention, ever since they were children. And he always says that Aaron used to hit him, but Trina knows it's not true. A part of her remembers very well the scars on Logan's back, or her mom drowning herself in vodka and pills; but she can't believe Logan...she can't remember her dad, the one person who believed in her, as an abusive murderer. It's all bullshit.
At the age of 24 and a ½ , while filming a movie called Revenge Tastes Sour, Trina started a relationship with Freddie Walford. Her co-star. Her boyfriend.
There were times when Freddie would drink, a lot of times. He would come home to the attic they shared in Manhattan, thrash everything and hit Trina like there was no tomorrow. But she couldn't break-up with Freddie. She was broke and he was rich, and the paps followed her...Everywhere.
When she found out she was pregnant Freddie stopped drinking. In 2009 Trina gave birth to Nicholas 'Nick' Aaron Frederick Walford. Three weeks after he was born Freddie started hitting her again. Nothing had changed. He would hit her when the baby cried or puked or did anything other than breathing. She didn't love baby Nick anymore ...she despised him more than Freddie. She spent more time buying jewelerry for herself, along with clothes, make-up and new boobs than she spent on trying to be a good mom. Her appeareance was more way more important than that crying mother fucker. He was just a waste of time (and pain).
In bringing up children, spend on them half as much money and twice as much time. ~Author Unknown
Trina and Freddie were rarely home to be with Nick. But if you asked him, he'd tell you he was lucky when he's parents left. Not because they showered him in gifts and expensive clothes, but because they weren't parents. At all.
His dad wasn't a good dad, he didn't kiss his forehead and build trains with him. Instead he hit him. All the time. Because he sneezed, because he picked his nose, because he got food all over himself, because he couldn't tie his shoes, because he didn't write properly, because he couldn't remember who there was between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, because he couldn't read long words, because he simply existed.
His mom wasn't any better, she didn't dry his tears, kiss him goodnight or make him cookies. She just stood on the sidelines watching his dad beat him so much that he broke his leg. One, two, three times. She would always tell him: "It's your fault", "You're a screw up", "Why did I have kid like you" and "You were a mistake...I should've just had an abortion, 'cause you're not worth the trouble."There was a person who always treated him like a human being. His uncle, Logan. Logan played with him. He taught him to ride a bike, to read long words, tie his shoes and told him that Lyndon B. Johnson was between JFK and Nixon. Unfortunately he only saw his uncle in summer. When Nick was 7 his father broke both his legs, uncle Logan had come to visit them and had rushed to the hospital as soon as he heard from the maid that Nick was there. Trina told Logan that Nick had fell off a climbing wall at the park. Logan didn't buy it. That was the last day Nick ever saw his parents.