The Boy I Could Never Love

Good Riddance

I told very few people in school the details of what happened the day they removed my father from our lives, but I tried to confide in my friend and girlfriend in homeroom. Only two others, my boyfriend and best friend, knew as they found me curled up on her doorstep the day of the incident. Insisting to declare molestation, I restricted the power of acknowledging I was raped. Still, it gave me comfort to think my friend knew.

Convincing myself it came from her not telling anyone saw me overlook his importance. Truthfully, my friend's unchanged treatment of me aided in my recovery. If I wanted to talk about it I could, but it felt nice not to feel pushed into saying anything. Acting like the occurrence existed as just another experience felt like a breath of fresh air with the fallout at home. <Unfortunately, not talking created space for my friends to forget what happened to me as they had their lives to live.

CPS made a nuisance of themselves, and my mom got me a counselor through her insurance at work. She lawyered up with the help of her parents, and the guardian ad litem remained on her side. It saw she kept us, however, with her outside the door of my therapy sessions and visiting with him after, I knew everything I said could bleed through the walls or held the potential to get reported back to her. It existed to help me, but I never found it comfortable diving into my secrets just to hear how we all bring our own problems to the table.

Asked what I would do differently about my life, my fourteen-year-old brain developed a mantra of, nothing, it's what life gave me, why would I want to change it? This convinced everyone around me how well-adjusted I was after going through everything I did. Even my therapist, president of the board of psychology, told me he believed the statement did not come from a place of denial. At fourteen my disassociation long since developed into dissociative amnesia. This kept me from acknowledging the worst of my situation, and without all the information, he possessed no reason to disagree.>

In homeroom, mom never knew what we talked about. Anything I said never went anywhere, not that I felt the need to care about anyway. My friend and my girlfriend, who never came over anymore, acted as my counselors. However, teenagers do not make the best therapists, seeing the solution beyond them.

My problems made me desperate as I attempted to obtain answers they didn't have. Branching out to others, I started to feel like no one understood me. My lonely existence became lonelier with my only saving grace in homeroom, and my torment felt far from over

*My mother got it arranged so she could write correspondences with my father for the benefit of the younger kids. I knew what she was doing. She even let me read the letters she wrote as a way to get my approval. Though she maintained my status as the victim, the letters made me feel like the reason the man she loved rotted in jail was because of me, and I became aware that she wasn't over him. It resulted in me acting as her counselor while not daring to voice my own feelings.

I heard how upset she was that the police took the suicide note that contained his admission, then refused her a chance to see it even though it was addressed to her. She told me the things he wrote even though I refused to read his letters. Showed me the envelopes he drew on and explained he did it for other inmates to make money. Tried to get his siblings to send him items and money where doing it herself would look bad on her.

We went out one day, and Mom took us to eat lunch in the parking lot of the county courthouse. Only after we arrived did she inform me this also housed the jail where he was being held. I went to jump out of the vehicle but froze when informed that if he didn't know I was there before, he definitely would if I got out. Another time, she brought us to play in a park located near the jail. I didn't want to go, but mom convinced me she needed help with the kids and could not trust anyone else. Deciding it came for their benefit, I went. After about forty-five minutes, a white sheet spelled out I love you in the window across the street. I knew who it was and forced myself to focus on my siblings.

On the way to one of my therapy sessions, Mom looked over at me in the passenger seat and proposed I hit my head on the dash and fake amnesia. She said this would act as the last thing we did to help my father. Promptly telling me that I didn't have to made it something I could decide as the bigger person in the situation. Her habit of allowing him back saw me refuse as I never wished to face him again.

We went to court. When we arrived Mom got pulled to talk with somebody and I remained in the lobby with the guardian ad litem. They brought my father in dressed in his jumpsuit and shackles. He pulled away from his guard and dropped something beside me. "I guess you can keep this," he said. Upset, I picked it up, but seeing the boondoggle made from a prison blanket made me smile. His mastery over the skill stood out as something I admired him for, along with his ability to draw, where I could never figure out how to do either.

Everyone became unsettled by the event, but again, Mom defended his actions, and I didn't know what to think. At the end of it all, I wrote a letter to the judge asking for a lighter sentence. Something I felt proud of then as my mother divulged how the judge wanted to push for an A-class felony that would receive media coverage, playing off my attention-seeking fear of my peers finding out.*

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