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Maybe they were just too sad, but daddy was sad, and so was Grand, and I still don’t knohy things changed It’s two years later, and though I’ve co how to deal with it I knew, though, that if I didn’t give theet much worst

Ten Years Later

“Gia, come on down here for a second” My tummy cramped at the sound ofhaywire, I crossed the roo since learned to keep barred in so a lock for it when I was about fifteen, but Becky had complained to dad, and when that didn’t work, she and her spawn had concocted a story aboutthem to my room when no one else was around

Without soblindly with his wife and the new daughter he was so proud of, while I, the disappointment had been accused and banished to the baseht wind of it and raised hell

There’d been threats of calling CPS, so I’d almost wished for by that point, but dad had been so shaken by that and whatever else it was that grandma had whispered to put the look of shame on his face that he’d come to his senses For a week or so, I’d seen my old dad, the man who used to lift rinning at ht in his eyes He hasn’t done that in forever, and I don’t think I’ve seen that light since mom died

These days he saved whatever energy he had left for Becky and Victoria, soh I tell myself that I don’t care I know I shouldn’t after all these years I should know by now that the daddy I once loved was long gone He left the day er that’s taken his place

My life, to put it bluntly, has been hell for the past twelve years That’s how long it’s been since mommy died when I was five I not only lost my mother that day, but the dad that had been my hero had slowly disappeared to be replaced with sorown to resent with time

It wasn’t so much that he’d married someone else, not even a year after rown to mistreat me for her and her kid Victoria is a spoilt deceptive bully, so I’d only come to realize when I hit ht, that I was just acting out because one

I’d heard it so often I’d come to believe it myself, and so, had withdraithin myself after one too many knocks The friends I used to have when mommy would ot close to in the ensuing years went the same way Somehow or another, she’d win them over to her side, and pretty soon, they’d be part of her clique and join the ranks of bully

I’d learned to put a wall around myself and keep my head down There was no one to co to the house after Becky convincedwith the rest of my mother’s fa my mother’s place That is another cesspit I tremble at the memory of It all started because I refused to call Becky,with my dad

Thethat vile woman by my mother’s titleto change that And believe et the fear and betrayal I felt the first time my daddy hit me It was, of course, due to so at school She’s told so et which one

Her favorite gaup lies about rade, and she told the whole school that I wet h to call her a liar because I was truly mortified She’d cried and told dad and Becky that I ainst her All lies, but dad believed it, and I got a beating I can still see the shter’s faces That was just one of the s that had chipped away at my confidence