Ed - 3

 The girls family wanted her daughter to spend time with them in TN. Now, her step-mother and little brother were coming to get her.

The girl was in a panic. She was afraid someone would end up getting hurt. She didn't want her family hurt. She needed to get away but she didn't know how. She couldn't tell them because she knew that Ed would be right there watching everyone.  She wondered if she could signal somehow. No. That would be too risky.  Her only hope was that her step-mother might sense the situation and come back with help and get her out of there.  The girl's fear was that her step-mother would be hurt. That his anger would be aroused because of her. Unexpectedly, it ended up being her brother that caused him to become angry. 

The exchange was very quick.  They came in and got the baby and her things and were ready to leave. The girl had missed her brother so much and her heart was just swelling with love for him.  Ed noticed. 

They turned to leave and said goodbye.  The girl raced upstairs to watch them leave hoping that they weren't really going to leave her there. 

She looked out the window. She heard Ed come into the room.  

"You wanted to sleep with him didn't you?", he said between gritted teeth. 

The girl looked puzzled.  

"Who?"

"Your brother!!!!!"

(He was only 13 years old!!)

The girl took a quick look out the window as their car slowly backed up out of the parking lot as Ed's hands slammed against her ears. She dropped like a sack of potatoes. 

The girl didn't notice that her ears were bruised. But at work....her co-workers did. 

Ed - 2

 One day Ed wanted the girl to make mashed potatoes.  He was in a very bad mood.  She knew that if she didn't do it exactly right that things would get very bad. 

She didn't know if he wanted real mashed potatoes or instant. She was too afraid to ask. She chose wrong. 

Ed walked into the kitchen and saw that she had not made what he had wanted. 

He screamed in anger and grabbed the pot of mashed potatoes and flung them onto the ceiling. 

He grabbed the girl and drug her to the door and flung her outside and locked the door. 

She sat on the step for about an hour.  No coat. No shoes. In the snow. 

He finally opened the door. All smiles. Let's eat!!

Ed - 1

 17 years old

The girl lived with Ed for 9 months. The story of how she got there can't be told yet becauseno one wouldunderstand. He was 45. He was mean. He was sick minded. The girl was terrified of him. She was so afraid of him that she was too afraid to even tell anyone because she was afraid that he would hurt the person she told. She did sneak off to a payphone once and called the police. She told the police that he was telling her that he was going to kill her. The police, "it's just words".  

Every day for 9 months Ed physically abused her in one manner or another.  Most things that happened in those 9 months she will never tell another living soul. 

But she had food.  Every day she had food. 

She had gotten a job at the apartment complex she lived in. Before she left her husband he had made her get a job. Her son was just a little baby. She hated leaving her babies with the baby sitter. The baby sitter was a young girl herself and also had a small baby. Her husband wasn't coming home until late at night. His sisters told her how to get set up on food stamps.  He was wanting to escape and leave her on her own. 

Ed lived nearby in another section of the apartment complex. He was a painter.

One day a girl that worked for the apartment complex wanted to be her friend. They were about the same age. The girl was excited to find a friend. But, the new friend showed up at her apartment one day. This was bad.  Very bad. Because it wasn't a safe place to be.

The new friend showed up unexpectedly and was let in. Ed was being friendly and smiling. Smiling and nice words was just a ploy for Ed to make you feel relaxed.  The girl had learned that him smiling could be very dangerous.  But her friend didn't know that.

Ed looked at the girl and said, "you need to use the bathroom.  Go now."

The girl was afraid for her friend. She couldn't leave her alone with him.  She told Ed that she didn't need to go to the bathroom.  

Ed smiled at her and repeated himself. She again said that she didn't need to go. He screamed at her "go to the bathroom now!!!!"

The girl started to head in that direction when her friend stood up for her.  She berated him for treating her bad. 

Ed grabbed the girl and flung the apartment door open and shoved her off the top of the stairs.

As the girl fell she could hear her friend screaming. 

The friend descended the stairs and told the girl that she needed to get away quick.  But the girl couldn't. She had nowhere else to go.  She had no choice but to go back inside the apartment and face Ed.

Ed. The one story the girl very rarely speaks of. The worst part of her life.

The Crayon Tip - 12/13?

"You've got one hour to clean your room," her dad said.

She looked around. It really wasn't dirty. It wouldn't take long. She picked things up and put them away. She got the broom and swept. 

Her dad had been keeping time. He appeared in the doorway. Everything looked fine.  Then he looked down. Right by his left foot. The tip of a crayon.  

Horror stricken she thought.. he put it there???

"What's this?" The anger flashed across his face. His brown eyes hard and beady as he slid it out of the loop s of his pants. After a few minutes still not satisfied he flipped it around and let the metal of the buckle land across her back a few times. 

 

Born Bad

 The girl had always felt unwanted. Unloved, unwanted, inferior, scum of the earth from birth.

She longed to be like other people who she called "the good people".

She supposed that they were just born good as she was apparently born bad. Could she do something to become one of the good people?  She didn't think so. 

She wished that it was at least not so noticeable. She felt like it must be marked across her forehead. Beware! Bad person! Mistreat and abuse at will!  She deserves it. She was born bad!

Sleeping Arrangements

 The little house had only one bedroom so the teen slept on the couch. 

She didn't mind. But every morning she was awakened by the girlfriend exercising.  The girlfriend would do toe touches, and her legs would be spread wide open as she touched first one toe and then the other. And because the girl slept on her side the first thing the girl would see every morning was the crouch of the girlfriends panties. 

The girl found this unpleasant.  

Her father used to lay in the floor in his underwear and have her rub his back, scratch his back and pound his back, butt and legs for an hour at a time. She took this time to quietly tell him that this morning routine was unpleasant.  Her thought was that maybe she could turn a different direction but he said that from now on the girlfriend would wake her up and she would go get in bed with her him.

She did this for 3 nights and she went to him again that this plan wasn't a good one either. Each morning as she got in bed beside him he would reach over and rub her butt thinking it was his girlfriend. 

And that was how she came to have her bedroom in the unfinished concrete basement on a cot with a kerosene heater for heat. It was the best sleeping arrangement and she was there until the attempts to end her pregnancy failed. At that point she was sent back to her mother and her mother's new husband.  And there the screaming night terrors and sleep walking started back up 

Meeting Dad's Girlfriend

 Once back in Illinois she was taken to her dad's house where he was living with his girlfriend. 

She was excited. She new the girlfriend was just 6 years older than her.  She thought that they could be great friends. And she would see how other people lived. She could learn how to be like everyone else!  She could then fit in to society and people her age. She was so tired a people telling her that she was weird or that her family was weird.  She was going to learn how to be normal!!

She arrived to their house at dinner time. She sat directly across the table from the girlfriend. Her father was to her right. The girl studied the girlfriend. Just being curious. Wonderingwhat she was like. The girlfriend didn't say anything. 

The girlfriend ate salad. The teen and her father ate a hamburger. The girlfriend had Thousand Island on the table and dad was putting it on his hamburger. Strange!  The girl asked about it and was told it was Big Mac special sauce. Oh!!!  Yum! She learned something exciting and new.

They ate in total silence. The girl would look down at her plate and grab her burger, lift it to her mouth to take a bite and her gaze would naturally go to the person sitting directly opposite her. The girlfriend .

After dinner the girlfriend went to the kitchen to wash dishes. 

"Go wash the dishes for her," her father said.

The girl jumped up and walked into the kitchen. 

"Dad wants me to wash the dishes," the girl shyly said.

"I can wash the dishes myself!!," she responded. 

The girl walked out of the kitchen and back into the dining room.

"I said, go wash the dishes for her!" her father said.

She turned and took 2 steps back into the kitchen.

"Dad said...

"NO!! She snapped.

Two steps back to the dining room.

"I SAID WASH THE DISHES FOR HER!!"

Two steps back to the kitchen.   

"I'm finished," said the girlfriend.

This entire scene unfolded two nights in a row. Each night no one talked. She ate salad. The girl and her father ate a hamburger. A struggle ensued over the dishes. Afterwards, just silence.

The third night. The girl bit into her hamburger and her gaze drifted up toward the girlfriend who never lifted her head to look toward her while she ate. 

All of a sudden the girlfriend jumps up screaming!

"She's staring at me!!!!  She hates me!!!!!"

The girl ran through her dad's bedroom to get to the only bathroom in the house, ran in, slammed the door and squatted up on top of the toilet seat trying to make herself small. Small enough hopefully that she would disappear.  

The door literally ripped off the hinge and there stood the girlfriend still screaming "she hates me, she hates me!!!"

Her father was right behind her gently pulling her back..."now, now, she doesn't hate you."

The best friends idea faded away from the teens mind. Nope. She was still a friendless outcast wanted by NO ONE