Happy Saturday, everyone! Well, it's not such a happy Saturday for me. I went to the dentist yesterday and had my teeth cleaned, and apparently I had like seven or eight tiny cavities that needed to be filled? Anyway, my mouth is really sore and I'm sad, so have a sad chapter. ~Shaymie
Lorin's POV
The earliest memory I have is of my father hitting my mother. I couldn't remember why he had done it. Not that he'd ever needed a reason to hit her. I just know that he had slapped her so hard that her head had turned around. And he was yelling at her, mostly in English but a little bit in Spanish. I didn't understand most of the Spanish, but the stuff he said in English was terrible. He accused her of sleeping with other men, even though there was no way she could have. She never left the house.
"You slept with that other man and let him knock you up!" he had yelled, pulling Mama's hair. She yelped in pain, tears falling from the one eye that wasn't swollen shut. "How do I know that you haven't been sleeping with someone else! How do I even know that Lorin's mine?"
"Of course she's yours! I would never cheat on you! That thing with Robert was a one-time thing, and it was before I even met you, Jonathan! I love you!" Mama sniffled as Daddy let go of her hair and stared down at her in silence. I stared up at them in terror. I didn't want Mama to get hurt anymore.
"I love you too, Sophia," Daddy whispered, kissing her cheek. He brushed some hair behind her ear and smiled down at her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean any of it."
That should have been the end of it, but it wasn't. He only got worse after that, especially when he was drunk. He would hit her more, yell at her more, and sometimes even throw things. I spent most nights curled up in my closet, trying to block out the terrible sounds. I couldn't understand why Daddy was so mean. Mama didn't do anything wrong. She did everything he wanted. She didn't talk unless he talked to her. She pleasured him whenever he asked.
I was five years old the first time he came into my room at night. He'd had a particularly bad argument with Mama that resulted in her storming out of the house. That was the first time she had ever done that. I brought Daddy beers while he sat on the couch, rambling on about what he was going to do to her when (if, he grumbled darkly) she came back. He sent me to my room after the fifth one. I didn't hear from him for several hours.
"Are you awake, sweetie?" he had asked as he opened the door quietly. I should have locked it. I was too terrified to answer and tried to steady my breathing, make it seem like I was asleep. It hadn't worked. Daddy crawled into bed next to me, pulling the covers down. I felt a bulge on my back as he pulled me over to him.
"You know, it's a woman's job to make her man feel good," he whispered in my ear, his breath hot against my skin. I shivered. I wanted to run away and hide, but that wouldn't be good. That would make me a bad girl. "All you have to do is touch me, and I'll stop hurting Sophia. Sometimes she doesn't make me feel good, but you can."
I turned to face him. He had a gentle grin on his face. I could put an end to this. I could make him happy, and then he wouldn't hurt Mama again. I could help for once instead of being a useless waste of space. I nodded and let him lead my hand downward. I had to be brave. This was for Mama, after all. She had protected me from Daddy, so now it was my turn to protect her.
"Lo, that's enough." Alex wiped away the tears that had started to fall and kissed my forehead. "You don't have to force yourself to talk about this."
I shook my head. I had to do this. I had already gotten this far. And Alex should know about the damaged goods he was dealing with. It wasn't fair to him or me if I kept my life a secret. Keeping all of this bottled up inside was killing me. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and leaned into Alex's soothing touch.
Things went on like that for a few more years. Mama started taking me to Darcy's house more often. I spent almost an entire summer over there. She said that she was handling "adult things" with Daddy and I shouldn't be in the house. Everytime she picked me up, she had a few new bruises. She tried to cover them with makeup, but it was so hot that most of it melted away when she sweated.
The nights that I was home were terrible. Daddy came into my room more often now, while Mama either got drunk or left for the night. I quickly learned to shut my mouth and do my job. Sometimes I would touch Daddy. Sometimes he would touch me. It was painful most of the time, but it was worth it. Besides, everything Mama went through was far worse. I was only getting touched. She was getting hit. It didn't seem like a fair trade.
I messed up. I told Darcy about my "arrangement" with Daddy. I thought it was normal. I thought that was what every girl did for her father. I didn't understand why her dad had been so angry when she told him everything the next morning. Mama had yelled at me, told me that I ruined everything. She said that she'd never forgive me for getting Daddy put in jail. She called me an ungrateful brat. We moved to New York shortly after that.
We had quickly fallen into a routine. She would be gone all day and night, and I would go to school and pretend like I didn't know the things she did to pay the bills. It wasn't that hard to figure out. I had walked in on her and her many boyfriends more than once. They didn't care that a child was in the house. They'd have sex pretty much anywhere, at any time. Once in a blue moon, one of her boyfriends would ask for a kiss. Mama made me kiss them, because they promised her an extra tip. At the very least, they didn't ask me to do what Daddy had made me do.
I tried to be happy. I tried to not let the fact that I was almost always alone get to me. I didn't exactly have any friends. Everyone in class avoided me because I was the awkward quiet kid that sat in the corner. Nobody wanted any part of me. But I was fine with being alone. I was fine with the other kids calling me freckle-face and leaving me out of their games at recess. I was fine with it, as long as I had Mama.
...But she clearly must not have cared about me the same way I cared about her. She would start yelling at me when I told her about my day. She didn't want to see me. She spent all her time with her boyfriends, and then on my tenth birthday she just… decided to get rid of me. Happy fucking birthday to me, right? I don't know exactly what she did, but I ended up celebrating my birthday with complete strangers.
"The Jacksons took me in after that. They had a teenage daughter, but they took me in anyway." I didn't bother trying to hold my tears in at this point. I sobbed into Alex's chest. Even now, I didn't understand what I had done wrong. I couldn't understand why my mother's mood had changed so suddenly. And why had she suddenly sent me a letter? Maybe she had explained it, but I didn't bother to finish reading it.
"The Jacksons? What were they like?" I tightened my grip on Alex's shirt. I didn't like to think about them. I had spent two and a half years of my life with them, and I hated them.
"They treated me like a slave. They said since I was part Hispanic, I'd be a good housekeeper and made me clean the house. Wouldn't feed me if I didn't do what they wanted. Ironically enough, I could actually talk around them. But Andrew…. Mr. Jackson, didn't want me to talk. He'd hit me if I did. He hit me a lot, actually. I stayed with them for a couple of years. Then Mr. Jackson got arrested for… for the same thing my father did. He was touching his actual daughter. Then I came here, since Mrs. Jackson hated me.. And you know the rest. I met James, we broke up, and now you're here."
"That's not the end of it, Lo." I looked up at Alex and saw that he was staring down at me, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. "On our date, you… you mentioned something… You mentioned trying to-"
"Oh. That." I backed away from him and wrapped my arms around myself. I looked down at my wrist, where there was an angry criss-crossing of scars. They were slightly faded, but still pretty noticeable. "I don't really remember much. I just felt so sad and empty. I hated myself. I hadn't been taking my medicine then. I thought I didn't need it. I started cutting myself to let my frustration out. There was one day when I'd had enough and I started cutting deeper and I didn't stop until Gil found me. I passed out when I saw just how much blood I'd lost, if you can believe it."
"Lo..."
"After that, everything was a bit of a blur. I remember my time in the hospital. I was so freaked out, they had to give me a sedative, All I could think was 'Why didn't it work?'. I ripped the IV out a few times before the medicine started to work. Gil had to hold me down." I took a shaky breath. I could do this. I had gotten through this much already. "I wasn't allowed knives or forks, which was pretty obvious given the circumstances. Mom or Darcy fed me. They didn't trust me to feed myself, like they thought I could hurt myself with a spoon somehow. My nails were cut really short so I couldn't scratch myself. The doctors made me sign a 'no suicide' contract.
"I don't really know how long I stayed there. Darcy went back home when I got released from the hospital. After that, everyone kept a really close eye on me. Kind of like how they're doing now. It didn't make me feel better. It made me feel like even more of a freak. So when Maddie invited me to Thomas' party, I went. I wanted to feel like a normal teenage girl for once. I stayed in the corner and didn't really talk to anyone. Thomas gave me something to drink. And then I got more. And I got really drunk. Everything was going decently… until James showed up.
"He asked Thomas about me. I know Thomas didn't know that he was… bad, so I don't blame him for what happened next. James started talking to me. He started flirting. One thing led to another, and he was taking me upstairs. Lee followed us for some reason. James kissed me when we got to a spare bedroom. He threw me onto the bed and then… then…"
My mouth felt dry. My hands trembled as everything flooding back to me. He had raped me. And I let him. I didn't try that hard to push him away from me. I just let it happen. And while he was doing it, he claimed it was because he loved me. I believed him, because it had been so long since anyone had told me that, I needed to hear it from someone. I should have known he would be just like my father. And I was just like my mother. I started dating someone who was clearly bad for me. I stayed with him, even when he started hurting me.
"Lo, it's alright. You don't have to talk about it anymore." Alex grabbed my face and started kissing it. I was trying to calm myself down before I had another panic attack. It wasn't working. My chest felt impossibly tight, and I could barely breathe.
"K-Keep talking," I choked out, trying to push down the panic. I focused on steadying my breathing while Alex started rambling about random crap, like school and finals and how he was getting his cast off next weekend. I hugged him tightly and listened closely to the smooth sound of his voice. He talked until his throat went sore and his voice started cracking. I was calm by the time Martha called us downstairs for dinner. I made Alex drink tea instead of his normal cup of coffee so he could soothe his throat. It wasn't until halfway through dinner that I realized Darcy wasn't here.
I excused myself from the table and went back to my room to call her. It went straight to voicemail all three times. I was prepared to call the police when a text came in from John, followed by several others.
Turtle Boy: daddy wanted me to tell you that she's with me
Turtle Boy: *DARCY, sorry autocorrect
Turtle Boy: her phone died and she left her charger at her ex's house
Turtle Boy: she took a nap earlier
Turtle Boy: and now she's really drunk?
Turtle Boy: she found the liquor cabinet
Turtle Boy: oh god she's had a lot
Turtle Boy: ttyl, need to stop her from breaking shit
Gil walked in as I was typing out my reply, asking why Darcy had gone over to John's house instead of coming home. Hopefully she wasn't trying to use him as a rebound or something. I sent the text and looked up at my brother, who was messing with a stray curl that escaped the bun he had put his hair in. He seemed nervous about something, and it wasn't me being by myself.
"I told Peggy that I like her earlier," he blurted out, his cheeks a bright red. I blinked up at him before squealing excitedly and hugging him. It was about time someone did something. And I didn't have to wait for the new year for them to do something about it. "And now we're dating."
"That's amazing, Gil! We can go on double dates now! Oh, we have to tell everyone!" I dragged him downstairs, temporarily pushing Darcy out of my mind. She'd be fine as long as John was with her. He was the most responsible person I knew. He wouldn't let anything happen to her.