All I ever wanted was a perfect family, a caring mother, a loving father, and my two half-siblings to be beside me. But dreams seem to always go wrong in the end.

When I was 4, my older sister left for good, a few too many CPS calls on my Father. I believe the final call was after my father let her have a broken arm the entire weekend my sister was with us. I sometimes wish she had taken me with her so I wouldn't have to deal with what the future held for me.

Five years old in a new apartment, hearing my sister hated me, and that's why she left. My father would always lie, saying such sweet things, and because of these lies filling my head, I thought them to be true. I thought my sister hated me; I thought I was the full reason she left, and not that it was my father's doing. My little brother was two at the time, so young, so small, so unaware of what was happening in front of him. And my mother was always working; she never knew what was happening.

My father had these steel-toed Doc Martens; they were heavy, and sadly, I knew they hurt. Any time he would get upset at anything, it could be losing a game, my little brother and I being “too loud”, tv not going how he wanted, and even if he just got upset, he would throw those shoes at me, never my little brother.My father's boots were always in his reach. I remember so many times how he would hit my legs or back as I was scrambling away from him to my room, then I would sit in my room crying as bruises bloomed across my skin. I remember when I would barricade my door so I wouldn't get hit, yelled at, or grabbed. I remember hiding, always hiding, my heart pounding, tears welling up in my eyes while trying to stay as quiet as humanly possible. I have this one specific memory, we were in our dining room, he had this red toolbox that was on a shelf next to the table, he took sandpaper out of the box and grabbed my hand and sanded my thumb so much that it started to bleed a little, I tried to pull my hand away and he pulled it back spewing some nonsense about toughening up, he was always talking about me toughening up because in his eyes, I needed to be a boy, i dont know why, he never told me and I don’t really want to know.

When I was 10, my parents split up, and he went and lived with my uncle and aunt for a bit. I would visit him every weekend. In the January after they split up, my father and I wouldn't talk much. When I would contact him, I would confront him about things he had done, and he would say what I was confronting him about was wrong, even when we had proof that I was right.

Eventually, I lost touch with him completely, and I'm very glad about that, because I realized that I'm finally free; the fear used to consume me from the ages of 10 to 14, my sister and I began talking again when I was 13, and we talked a lot until the fear that used to be there was replaced with something quieter, something that doesn't feel as close to fear as it used to be, and I'm grateful my sister helped me see that.

I still make choices that are to avoid him, but less than I used to; I just need to keep moving forward. Growing through my trauma like a lotus flower growing through mud to reach the sunlight

© Airabella. All rights reserved. If you are interested in quoting this story, contact the national team and we can put you in touch with the author’s teacher.