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Authors: Alaska Angelini
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worst nights of my life. For hours we went at it, but it made no difference. In the end, my dad packed and left. Just … left after his breakdown from almost losing me. I didn’t understand it. How could he be so afraid for me and then just leave?”
My head shook as even now I didn’t understand.
“I ran away a handful of times after that. My mom started drinking real bad, and my dad didn’t come around unless I was screwing up, or needed to be found. I was essentially alone, even when I wasn’t running away. Everything was wrong. My cutting got worse. I went from inflicting pain to actual razors. My daydreams of slicing my wrists were no longer a fantasy, but a reality. I’d do it, just never deep enough. I truly didn’t want to die, then. I just wanted the pain to stop.”
“Who’s Tony?”
I frowned, ignoring the sickness that came with the thought of him. “My first boyfriend. I was barely sixteen. He was pushing twenty. Had I known what I do now, I would have run as far and as fast as I could have. The entire situation was bad news, but naivety will do that to you. It presents the ugliest packages in the prettiest wrapping. It seduces you, promises you forever, and knocks you up and nearly kills you.
“I thought I knew everything at that age. Looking back, I knew absolutely nothing about life. Even after all the shit I’d been through, I was clueless. I trusted this guy. I let my foolish, childish mind convince me that he was the best thing there ever was. That he was going to take care of me and he’d never do what my father had done. I was sixteen. What the hell was I thinking? I still, to this day, do not understand my own mind.”
Jaime squeezed my hand, sliding his thumb over mine. “What happened? How did things turn bad?”
“We were dating almost a year before I discovered I was pregnant. It was five days short of my seventeenth birthday. I was a senior in high school, close to graduating. Tony worked in the next town at a tire shop. We had our fights, but I never thought …”
Another gentle squeeze to my hand.
“The night I told him I was pregnant he flipped out. He started asking me who I was cheating on him with. When I wouldn’t give him a name like he wanted, he was all over me. He went crazy, holding my face, screaming at me. I think the bruising on my cheeks hurt forever. Anyway, he finally came back to my mother’s, begging for me to go back. He said he was sorry, that he wanted to get married and get us our own place. Stupid me, I ended up believing him. And he did get us a place. But things didn’t get better, they got worse.
“School became almost impossible to finish. Tony would come up there drunk out of his mind, yelling at me if he saw me looking at another guy. When the school banned him from coming on the property, I got to hear it even worse when I got home. I don’t know how I managed to graduate, but I did. It wasn’t a week later, though, that he lost it. That night.” I paused, lost in the remembered glow of the microwave as I stared at it. “It all seems so vivid when I look back. I can still remember the smell of popcorn like I’m standing back in my small kitchen. It’s popping, and I’m watching it spin around in a circle. I’m starving. We had no food or money because Tony spent it all on beer and who knows what else. It was the whole reason I’d put in applications the entire day.” I paused. “That was my mistake.”
Tears left me again and my vision faded as I tried to push the scene away.
“Don’t stop. You’re doing well.”
“I never heard him coming. One minute I’m staring into the microwave, the next, a stinging pain raced up my scalp and then I was flying—crashing into the cabinets behind me. By the time I knew what happened, Tony was on me, hitting, kicking. He kept yelling, saying how I didn’t think he could support us. About how I wanted a job to escape him and find someone else who could take care of me better.” I
My head shook as even now I didn’t understand.
“I ran away a handful of times after that. My mom started drinking real bad, and my dad didn’t come around unless I was screwing up, or needed to be found. I was essentially alone, even when I wasn’t running away. Everything was wrong. My cutting got worse. I went from inflicting pain to actual razors. My daydreams of slicing my wrists were no longer a fantasy, but a reality. I’d do it, just never deep enough. I truly didn’t want to die, then. I just wanted the pain to stop.”
“Who’s Tony?”
I frowned, ignoring the sickness that came with the thought of him. “My first boyfriend. I was barely sixteen. He was pushing twenty. Had I known what I do now, I would have run as far and as fast as I could have. The entire situation was bad news, but naivety will do that to you. It presents the ugliest packages in the prettiest wrapping. It seduces you, promises you forever, and knocks you up and nearly kills you.
“I thought I knew everything at that age. Looking back, I knew absolutely nothing about life. Even after all the shit I’d been through, I was clueless. I trusted this guy. I let my foolish, childish mind convince me that he was the best thing there ever was. That he was going to take care of me and he’d never do what my father had done. I was sixteen. What the hell was I thinking? I still, to this day, do not understand my own mind.”
Jaime squeezed my hand, sliding his thumb over mine. “What happened? How did things turn bad?”
“We were dating almost a year before I discovered I was pregnant. It was five days short of my seventeenth birthday. I was a senior in high school, close to graduating. Tony worked in the next town at a tire shop. We had our fights, but I never thought …”
Another gentle squeeze to my hand.
“The night I told him I was pregnant he flipped out. He started asking me who I was cheating on him with. When I wouldn’t give him a name like he wanted, he was all over me. He went crazy, holding my face, screaming at me. I think the bruising on my cheeks hurt forever. Anyway, he finally came back to my mother’s, begging for me to go back. He said he was sorry, that he wanted to get married and get us our own place. Stupid me, I ended up believing him. And he did get us a place. But things didn’t get better, they got worse.
“School became almost impossible to finish. Tony would come up there drunk out of his mind, yelling at me if he saw me looking at another guy. When the school banned him from coming on the property, I got to hear it even worse when I got home. I don’t know how I managed to graduate, but I did. It wasn’t a week later, though, that he lost it. That night.” I paused, lost in the remembered glow of the microwave as I stared at it. “It all seems so vivid when I look back. I can still remember the smell of popcorn like I’m standing back in my small kitchen. It’s popping, and I’m watching it spin around in a circle. I’m starving. We had no food or money because Tony spent it all on beer and who knows what else. It was the whole reason I’d put in applications the entire day.” I paused. “That was my mistake.”
Tears left me again and my vision faded as I tried to push the scene away.
“Don’t stop. You’re doing well.”
“I never heard him coming. One minute I’m staring into the microwave, the next, a stinging pain raced up my scalp and then I was flying—crashing into the cabinets behind me. By the time I knew what happened, Tony was on me, hitting, kicking. He kept yelling, saying how I didn’t think he could support us. About how I wanted a job to escape him and find someone else who could take care of me better.” I
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