The blossoms

3

Camping was an activity I enjoyed doing, camping usually freed me of the abuse I would normally endure. I remember a camp trip we did with family friends, and by family friends I mean his friends, they never liked my mom. They believed she was the bad person, but in reality she was stuck too, she was unable to free herself from this horrible man she made a mistake marrying.  The thing that made me hold a grudge against them was the way they treated my mother, I knew she made mistakes before but they were just mean to her, I still never learned why they hated her so much when the one causing us harm was their so called friend. They even let this man take my mom into the woods and beat her until she was covered in bruises, then had the nerve while she was crying to tell her to "stop being so dramatic". These people may have never harmed us or their kids, but they were just as bad in that moment.

When camp trips ended our normal hell would re arise, the beatings for everyone were only getting worse, the neighbors would hear the screams and cries for help, then ask us if we were ok the next morning, even helping my mom hide her bruises. Would any of them have helped me if I tried crying out for help, they would allow my mom to scream and beg for help when she was being thrown around, why would they help a broken child.

The scariest moment in my life happened when I was maybe 11, I had finally gotten my own room, this came with unfortunate visits, but I had a space away from my siblings for the first time since they were born. I was awoken in the middle of the night, my mom had my sibling hidden behind her and was tucking me. This monster of a man had a gun pointed at us, threatening to shoot us if my mom tried leaving. I was I could say this was just a dream or this would be the last time a gun was used to control my mom but it wasn't.

Things only got worse, for a while, the bullying got worse at school, and the peaces I had left of me were being broken. We were eventually offered a house from habitat for humanity, the people had came and seen how horrible our living conditions were, the day of there visit there was a police chase that ended in front of our townhouse with the criminal being pinned between two cop cars. 

Hope that life would be different when we moved took over me, I was excited for the first time ever we would all have bedrooms, a yard, and a home. While the house was being built the dark things never paused, I was forced to help him urinate, i later found out was that he was not urinating at all. I had cheated on grading a homework assignment, I was caught and the teachers made me write a couple page paper on how what I did was wrong. I knew I couldn't bring it home though and let him see. That was the day I practiced writing his signature until it looked similar enough to pass, I learned how to become real sneaky. At this time I had begun sneaking food, sneaking onto the computer when nobody was home, and learned how to clear what I was doing so nobody could find out.