Read Online Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland by Amanda Berry - Free Book Online
Authors: Amanda Berry
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in, and it always ends with me crying.
Today he wants to talk and is acting like he hasn’t done anything wrong, like we are friends. I don’t say a word to him and just keep staring at the TV.
January 2004: New Year
January 1
Amanda
“You’re so pretty,” he says as he starts pawing me again.
“Stand this way, stand that way, put your arms around me, you’re so beautiful,” blah, blah, blah. He has a whole little routine he makes me recite, about how much I love it, how much I want him. If I don’t say it, he’s rougher.
It’s been almost nine months since he kidnapped me. He’s always touching me like he owns me. He talks about the different parts of my body and says they’re his, that they belong to him. He says we are “together.” How can he think that if he has to lock me up to keep me here?
“You can’t just take my whole life away,” I tell him.
“What life?” he says, laughing. “Working at Burger King? That’s not a life.”
“What do you know about me? Nothing! You have no right to take my life away!”
He keeps touching me, and I feel like cutting off his hands, or something else. I hope I don’t catch any diseases from him. I’m desperate to see a doctor when I get out of here.
He’s raped me nine times in the past three days, but I’ve decided I’m not going to mark X’s in my diary anymore. I want him to be held accountable someday, but when I look back at these X’s, I remember every time all over again. It’s more than I can bear right now.
January 9
I keep thinking about the day I was taken. This wouldn’t have happened if I’d called in sick, or if I’d left work at the usual time, or if DJ had picked me up, or if I hadn’t gotten into the van.
Could I actually have been able to avoid all this?
He sits on my bed. I shift a little and move the chain around so it hurts less around my waist. I hate talking to him, but the loneliness is brutal. I have to talk to somebody.
“When are you going to take me home?” I ask him. “I’ve been here long enough.”
“You have to be patient,” he says. “Maybe after three years you might get to be free.”
Three years! That’s forever. I can’t take this for three years. I’ll kill myself. I’m not going to believe him. I’m getting out of here sooner than that—I know it.
I have all my belongings lined up. My clothes, my diary, my pictures and videos. That’s everything I have, and it all fits in a little box. If he said, “Okay, let’s go,” I could be ready in two minutes.
January 26, 2004: Cops at the Door
At around ten p.m. on Monday, January 26, 2004, two Cleveland police officers knocked on the front door of 2207 Seymour Avenue. They wanted to question the owner, Ariel Castro, because a mother had filed a complaint about how he had treated her four-year-old son on his school bus earlier that day.
That morning, Castro had punched in at 6:40 and drove his usual route, picking up sixty kids and dropping them off at two elementary schools. When he was done he volunteered for an extra midday shift and was assigned to pick up two children and deliver them to a two-hour program for children with ADHD at Wade Park Elementary School.
He picked up the children in a smaller bus and drove to Wade, where only one of them got off. The second, the four-year-old boy, was still on the bus when Castro drove to a Wendy’s restaurant for lunch. The boy later told police that when Castro realized he was on the bus, he ordered him, “Lay down, bitch.” It was a cold day, with heavy freezing rain and sleet, and the boy stayed in the bus alone while Castro went inside to eat.
Castro then drove to a parking lot and read the newspaper, and then went to a school building. Finally, after more than two hours, the child was taken to Wade Park Elementary, where a teacher told Castro that he should just drive him home, as school was over. Castro dropped him with a babysitter at his house, and the boy’s mother
Today he wants to talk and is acting like he hasn’t done anything wrong, like we are friends. I don’t say a word to him and just keep staring at the TV.
January 2004: New Year
January 1
Amanda
“You’re so pretty,” he says as he starts pawing me again.
“Stand this way, stand that way, put your arms around me, you’re so beautiful,” blah, blah, blah. He has a whole little routine he makes me recite, about how much I love it, how much I want him. If I don’t say it, he’s rougher.
It’s been almost nine months since he kidnapped me. He’s always touching me like he owns me. He talks about the different parts of my body and says they’re his, that they belong to him. He says we are “together.” How can he think that if he has to lock me up to keep me here?
“You can’t just take my whole life away,” I tell him.
“What life?” he says, laughing. “Working at Burger King? That’s not a life.”
“What do you know about me? Nothing! You have no right to take my life away!”
He keeps touching me, and I feel like cutting off his hands, or something else. I hope I don’t catch any diseases from him. I’m desperate to see a doctor when I get out of here.
He’s raped me nine times in the past three days, but I’ve decided I’m not going to mark X’s in my diary anymore. I want him to be held accountable someday, but when I look back at these X’s, I remember every time all over again. It’s more than I can bear right now.
January 9
I keep thinking about the day I was taken. This wouldn’t have happened if I’d called in sick, or if I’d left work at the usual time, or if DJ had picked me up, or if I hadn’t gotten into the van.
Could I actually have been able to avoid all this?
He sits on my bed. I shift a little and move the chain around so it hurts less around my waist. I hate talking to him, but the loneliness is brutal. I have to talk to somebody.
“When are you going to take me home?” I ask him. “I’ve been here long enough.”
“You have to be patient,” he says. “Maybe after three years you might get to be free.”
Three years! That’s forever. I can’t take this for three years. I’ll kill myself. I’m not going to believe him. I’m getting out of here sooner than that—I know it.
I have all my belongings lined up. My clothes, my diary, my pictures and videos. That’s everything I have, and it all fits in a little box. If he said, “Okay, let’s go,” I could be ready in two minutes.
January 26, 2004: Cops at the Door
At around ten p.m. on Monday, January 26, 2004, two Cleveland police officers knocked on the front door of 2207 Seymour Avenue. They wanted to question the owner, Ariel Castro, because a mother had filed a complaint about how he had treated her four-year-old son on his school bus earlier that day.
That morning, Castro had punched in at 6:40 and drove his usual route, picking up sixty kids and dropping them off at two elementary schools. When he was done he volunteered for an extra midday shift and was assigned to pick up two children and deliver them to a two-hour program for children with ADHD at Wade Park Elementary School.
He picked up the children in a smaller bus and drove to Wade, where only one of them got off. The second, the four-year-old boy, was still on the bus when Castro drove to a Wendy’s restaurant for lunch. The boy later told police that when Castro realized he was on the bus, he ordered him, “Lay down, bitch.” It was a cold day, with heavy freezing rain and sleet, and the boy stayed in the bus alone while Castro went inside to eat.
Castro then drove to a parking lot and read the newspaper, and then went to a school building. Finally, after more than two hours, the child was taken to Wade Park Elementary, where a teacher told Castro that he should just drive him home, as school was over. Castro dropped him with a babysitter at his house, and the boy’s mother
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