You saved me

I can’t tell you how many times I told myself I was going to leave, because honestly I’ve lost count. I said it after the birth of my first son and that was 11 years ago and yet here I am packing only what me and my 3 kids need. hoping the monster in the bedroom won’t wake from his drunken sleep and catch me leaving. I wake the kids one at a time and guide them to the waiting car my eldest phoenix gives me a reassuring smile he knows what we’re doing and has seen more than any 11 year old should ever have to see his own father do to his mother. My middle child hunter still half asleep looks at me and says “mum where are we going?” And I tell him “we’re going on an adventure” then there’s my little girl river still sleeping while I strap her in her car seat. I go to the trunk and make sure I have all we need close it get in the car and drive, I have no idea where we’re going but I know one thing it’s going to be as far away from him as possible. I had a happy life until the age of thirteen when my parents told me they weren’t my real parents and I was adopted, at the time I couldn’t understand why they would tell me when I could have gone through my life happily believing I wasn’t given away by my real parents. They explained to me they thought it was tight for me to know and when I turn 18 I could ask the local authority for my adoption records and find out about my birth parents and contact them if I wanted to, so when I turned 18 I did just that but the boxes which should have contained my birth parents names were blank which left me with more questions, why didn’t they want me? Was I so bad that they gave me up and didn’t want me to find them ever? Why? What did I do that was so wrong? I was only a baby for god sake how could any parent just walk away from their child and never look back!? All these questions and no answers. I met Devon when I was 15 I was working in the local diner when he came in with his friends he was the definition of tall dark and handsome, dark brown hair, brown eyes, over 6ft tall and muscular body. I always wondered why he even looked twice at me. I was plain, boring nothing to look at and always the shy quite girl with very few friends, but looking back in it maybe that is why he chose me I was an easy target. The shy girl so unsure of herself with hardly any friends he was the predator and I was his prey. But not anymore I would never be the victim again, from now on it’s just me and the kids I will never let any man get that close again to break me the way he did.