Let me introduce myself. My name is
Belle. I’m a twenty two year old brunette that many consider to be
pretty but I don’t believe that. I am just me. I work as a waitress
in Café Rouge in the town of Grassville, south of Bellingham, the
125 th largest city in North
America. I am the oldest daughter of 5 children.
This is my story. In my own words.
I have lived a hard life from childhood due
in part mostly to sketchy and violent parenting thanks to my
father. Unfortunately all the side effects of that carried on into
my adulthood and greatly affected my love life. I cannot say that I
had a happy childhood, not even close. I have a real problem
trusting men. And I blame my father. My father worked during the
day at the local lumber yard under a terrible boss and at night, he
ruled at home like a terrible father with an iron fist with all the
frustration his angry loud voice could deliver. When he wasn’t
hitting my four siblings or me, he would be yelling at us fueled in
part to his heavy drinking or severe frustration in having to be
the sole parent. Too often just for little things. Stupid,
unimportant things. Whether it was leaving crumbs, streaks or
missed corners while cleaning up or doing our chores, or boisterous
horseplay, he would blow his top according to his mood. He was also
pretty skilled with the insults and put downs; when words failed,
the hitting would start. That usually left us with little
self-esteem but many bruises.
As I developed as a young woman, I am certain
he had designs on me to fill a void in his life having been long
without a wife or girlfriend. He did try to do more and come on to
me but I don’t want to get into that. I have put that in a vault
and will never open it. It’s painful to live but even more painful
to relive it but talking about it, I am not ready yet.
I am positive my older brothers had their own
issues. I was too wrapped up in mine to notice theirs. However, as
my two older brothers got bigger and wiser than our father, he
tended to leave them alone knowing they might hit back. Harder and
more often. That left my two sisters and me being too often the
only targets he continued to pick on knowing we couldn’t fight back
or too afraid to tell anyone.
My mother had died years earlier when I was
younger, too young to remember. We never knew what took her and any
questions, well our father would never elaborate on the matter
should someone dare to ask him. I did have some vague memories of
my mother remembering her delicious cooking and her loving arms,
always hugging us and taking care of life’s hurts. Some say I even
looked like her. Alas the more that time passed, the more I forgot
about her, her touch and her smell long fading into a distant
memory. Any photos that may have existed had disappeared over the
years as if my father wanted us to totally forget her, or that he
wanted to forget forever. I know I had one picture that
mysteriously disappeared.
I was glad when I finally left school. I did
surprisingly well at school although most was just a quick series
of events I soon wished to forget. I was very studious but socially
inept. I was quiet and tended to blend into the background often. I
never had many friends and the few I had, I would never ever have
been courageous enough to have any of them come over. And
boyfriends, forget that. I would have been too embarrassed and
afraid that my father getting a hold of them, would mark their
lives so badly and I wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt. I had
one thought in mind and that was to be free of my father’s grasp
and be independent, as fast as I could.
I got a job quickly at the café in town with
one goal in mind: trying hard to save lots of money as quickly as I
could. I wanted to leave home as soon as possible. That was my main
goal. My only goal. I didn’t think about where I would live and how
I would make ends meet, I just wanted out. Out of the house, away
from
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