Choices

Prologue

I was five when I first met him. He was a cool funky little kid dancing around on his own in the corner not concerned with anyone but himself. And I loved it. So, I marched my small little annoying ass over to him and demanded he let me dance with him. in a surprising twist he grabbed my hands and we danced until it was time for lunch and then naps. We were inseparable since then. And I was probably in love by then to, even though I didnt understand it in the slightest. He was my best friend and then the boy I fell madly and completely for. Jake.

When we went to school, he would always make time for me. To see me and to protect me against anyone. But he couldnt protect me against my own farther. And so, I stumbled across Carly, with tears in my eyes and bruised almost everywhere, in the middle of the night. She was out for a late-night run when I stumbled out of the house as Patrick hurled a vodka bottle my way. The beatings started when my wonderful, class A mother left me with his drunk ass because a child and a drunk man was too much for her to handle. I was only 7. He began drinking even more and obviously blamed me for my mothers departure. So, he worked out his frustrations with his fists, his elbows, his knees and his feet on me. Because it was all my fault that he couldnt keep a job or his wife for that matter.

And its strange. I remember all of the beatings. The pain. The anger. And I hated him for so long, until Carly. I was thirteen when she picked me up and took me to her home. She cleaned me up and I was so overwhelmed I told her everything. The first person to know it all. Every time I called her, she calmed me down. Told me how to clean myself up and in the worst cases she came to get me. Like the night Patrick almost killed me.

I got home after school, an innocent 18-year-old excited for collage because she was just notified that she got accepted, which meant a new life far away from everything that hurt her. I was so naïve back then, and I made the biggest mistake of my life my by telling him out of excitement. He had been drinking the entire morning because Ross had enough of his drunk state all day, and with my news informing him I was leaving he did the only thing he was good at. He beat the shit out of me until I couldnt breath or walk or think straight. It was the worst one out of all of them.