a lifeline

54 (edited)

*possibly triggering*

"what exactly is all the banging about?" antonio walked into victorias room and she and eva looked at eachother before bursting into laughter.

"we need to be hired by magic mike" victoria smirked.

"yeah no, not on my watch." antonio shook his head.

"okay but atleast watch this" eva smirked and passed antonio her phone, she showed him a video of victoria re-enacting the magic mike choreography.

"its impressive you gotta admit" victoria shrugged and smiled, for the first time in a while she genuinely felt happy..

"your definitely talented. c'mon we gotta talk though" antonio grinned and pulled victoria up off of the floor.

"wish me luck" victoria mouthed to eva and followed antonio downstairs.

"so uh.. we talking about the fun backstory i have?" victoria looked around the room.

"we are, sit down babe" erin nodded.

"where do you want me to start?" victoria sat on the armchair and crossed her legs.

"wherever you like" antonio shrugged.

"well 5 is when it gets.. complicated, thats definitely a way to describe it but uh anyway.. when i was 5 is when the physical abuse started, before that it was just little things like screaming at me but yeah uhm salvador started actually leaving marks on me a little after my 6th birthday.. it wasn't anything terrible it was just a slap every now and then but as i grew up that one slap every now and then turned to beatdowns every day" victoria explained, she actually felt somewhat comfortable being able to speak about what happened to her as a child and it felt good to finally tell someone.

she took a deep breath before continuing and knew that the conversation she was having was definitely going to be a long one, "the first time he put me in hospital i was around 7-8, he broke a few ribs and left a few cuts over my face which worked out in his favour when he told the doctors that i fell down the stairs because id been to the same hospital previously to get stitches on my knee off genuinely falling off my bike so obviously everyone assumed 'shes just a clumsy kid, things like this happen'. im suprised they honestly didnt click on earlier because by the time i was 10 i went to that same hospital 13 times in one year.. surely that should have been a red flag?" victoria laughed.

"the system failed you babe, we're going to make sure that it never happens again" erin nodded slowly, she and antonio were extremely intrigued to hear exactly how victoria grew up because maybe then it would be easier for them to help her.

"..anyways, salvador then had the bright idea to start testing his drugs out on me.. against my will obviously - genuinely think thats why i have such a high tolerance for stuff. the drug that had the biggest impact on me was meth, landed me in hospital for a week and somehow salvador managed to convince everyone that i did it to myself and i was just 'experimenting' even though i told multiple people that he did it to me.. they thought i was just lying because i didn't want to be in trouble with the police" victoria rested her head on her knees, "obviously as you already know ive been to juvie.. got caught with a kilo of heroin and did 13 months. around that time is when i started with the smoking, i thought it was cool and the first time i tried it i felt amazing so that turned into one of the many bad habits i have.. let me think... we're at 11ish now".

"you were 10 and in juvie?" antonio asked making sure he heard correctly.

"yep, wasn't fun but i made it.. after i started with smoking i started hearing other people talking about stuff they did like drugs.. cutting themselves and drinking so me being me i decided to try it and see what it was like. there was even a time in eighth grade when i was black out drunk in school, not my proudest moment.. or salvadors" victoria blinked and within the second she took to blink she was greeted with flashbacks of exactly what happened that day.