Bullied (Bullied Series #1) (SAMPLE)

Chapter 2

Three Years Ago

For as long as I could remember, school was a living hell for me. My classmates started bullying me in elementary school and nothing changed in junior high. Whichever school I went to, people disliked me and found me an easy target. I was a child with a single mother, coming from a poor family, and I wore clothes from thrift stores. No matter how much I tried to make them like me, being friendly and helping them whenever they needed help, it wasn't enough. I was just being used.

It was like someone put a sign on me saying "Made to be Bullied."

Those few "friends" I'd had weren't good enough to stay and support me. Each one of them thought they were going to be bullied too or considered losers because they were hanging out with me.

It seemed that popularity meant more than true friendship.

I gave up on trying to make friends in junior high or get people to accept me. I became an outcast, and everyone began treating me like I was a disease—to be hated or avoided at all costs. The bullying had intensified ever since.

My mother's lifestyle wasn't any help to my reputation. In fact, it only made it much worse. The school kids called her slut and alcoholic and poked fun at me for not having a father. I didn't know anything about my father since I was a product of one of many one-night stands my mother had over the years, and even she didn't know who he was.

We kept moving from one place to another, changing towns. One year we changed our apartment three times. My mother often fought with our landlords over late rent or property damage, so we never stayed more than two years in one place.

Sometimes we moved in with her new boyfriends. Some of them were okay, but some were evil bastards who abused my mother. Occasionally, I was in the line of fire too. I would get hit if I was too bothersome, if I tried to protect my mother from being beaten, or if some of them were so drunk they got angry about every single thing.

The only thing that was worse than living with an alcoholic was living with the two of them. The first time I received a serious beating was when I was eight. Luckily, I didn't remember the beating or the pain. My mother didn't care because she was too drunk to notice. I never had bruises on places that clothes didn't cover, which I was thankful for, since I didn't have to worry about anyone seeing them. I was too ashamed and scared to talk about the abuse, and I felt like no one could help me, so the best thing I could do was try to be invisible.

Fast forward to my last year of junior high when the situation with her abusive boyfriends got worse. I never felt more miserable and trapped in my life. I hated going to school, and I hated returning home. Actually, there wasn't any place I could call home because I was sure the meaning of "home" didn't include the feeling of horror, pain, despair, and suffocation. People were supposed to feel safe in their home—a place where they belonged—but for me, that was nothing more than a castle in the air. For me, home was an embodiment of darkness and madness.

In the beginning of summer before ninth grade, my mother told me all too suddenly that we were moving from New Haven to her hometown. She mentioned she'd received my grandfather's will in which he left us their family house in Enfield. Saying I was shocked didn't even begin to describe my feelings.

First of all, I didn't even know that my grandfather Thomas had passed away. He died of cancer, alone in his home. My mother and he had never gotten along. She'd been the black sheep of the family because she was a rebel, constantly defying my grandparents, and didn't have college aspirations. When my grandmother passed away, before I was even born, Patricia Decker left Enfield for good in pursuit of a better life. Sad to say, Patricia Decker's version of a "better life" meant working in various bars and restaurants, expecting to find a "good catch" with loads of money—someone she could live off for the rest of her life.