To first loves, who held our fragile hearts and helped strengthen us along our journey.
In order for you to understand where I’m coming from, you must understand what really happened from the very start.
I covered my ears and hid in the space between the wall and the bed. The smell of dirty clothes and old shoes made my stomach turn. The sound of staggered footsteps came closer, and I tucked my legs up closer to my chest. Tears stung and ran down my cheeks as I lay there, terrified.
“Who did this?” Andrew, the father with a temper like a light switch, held up a half-eaten bag of potato chips. “Tell me now or you’ll all be punished.”
Their oldest son, Renzo, who always seemed to have it out for me, screamed, “She did it!”
Before I knew what was happening, a hand wrapped around my ankle and jerked hard, tearing me out of my hiding place.
I taught myself how to mentally check out whenever I was alone with Andrew and Julie, the mother. I didn’t understand why they hit me or why they made me watch their kids eat and have fun while I had to sit in the corner of the kitchen all alone, sometimes even overnight.
I came to this house when I was five. All I was ever told was that I had to stay here until my mother came back for me. It had been four years since I arrived, and I had heard people snicker and say she’s his obligation enough times to wonder what that meant, and I didn’t even know who he was. All I knew was that these people didn’t like me, and I didn’t like them.
“I hope you’re full,” Andrew hauled me to my feet and pushed me out the bedroom door, “because it will be the last meal you’ll get for a while.” I followed blindly, not at all listening. I didn’t have to. I knew what was coming.
I wiggled as little as possible as the leather strap tore at my skin. Blood dripped from the wounds, as some spots were barely healed from the last time. I tried hard not to allow myself to let the pain win. There was a part of me that knew this wasn’t right, that if the cops came, they could go to jail for what they did to me, but I had my own reason for staying right now. Besides, the last time I left and was returned, they put Renzo in charge of watching over me, and that was something I never wanted to have happen again. I hated the way he looked at me.
“You hungry?” Renzo came into the kitchen around five in the morning. I jerked awake from my uncomfortable sleep and groaned silently at how sore I was. I knew he had been watching me through the night as he often did whenever he got me into trouble for something I didn’t do. I knew the rules and tried hard to follow them blindly, knowing never to question.
I looked away, but he grabbed my chin and forced my head upward to look at him.
“That sucks,” he eyed my bruised cheek, “but better you than me.”
I hate you.
Renzo was seven years older than I was and the oldest of all their kids. If he didn’t like you, you were his pawn. My only friend here, Cara, said her brother Renzo was like a boy she had seen on a TV show. He was tall with lots of muscles. Once, when we were watching a movie, she pointed out a boy to me and said that he reminded her of Renzo, and he was a jock. I guessed he was okay looking if you were into boys at all. I was young and had my own version of what good looking was, but I certainly didn’t care. I was quite sure even if I were older that Renzo would not interest me.
I knew that boys shouldn’t hit girls, especially when no one was looking and especially just to get the attention off themselves. It was creepy the way he stared. I noticed that Andrew looked at Julie like that whenever she wore her green dress.
Someday I will leave this place. It’s not forever, I reminded myself as his fingers ran up and down my arm. I pulled it away from him, pretending to scratch.
“Sienna,” he rubbed his nose and spoke very slowly as he studied me, “I need you to do something for me.”
I listened, terrified of what he was going to ask.
“It’s time for you to tell Andrew that you want to start working at the dockyard.”
“What?” That threw me. “Why?”
“Because,” he twisted a piece of my hair through his fingers, “I asked you to, that’s why. Don’t you dare question me.” He pulled my hair hard, bringing tears to my eyes.
“I don’t like it there. You know that,” I stammered. The last time I found myself alone there, while trying to hide from Andrew, one of the workers grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go. It took Julie screaming at him to set me free. The fact that I still got hit for not coming to her soon enough was worth it. The dockyard was where they put us to work at ten. The thought of going there was why I started taking money wherever I could find it, just small coins here and there so it wouldn’t be noticed. I sometimes even went through pockets, desperate to try to hide away enough for a bus ticket for when I got the chance to follow my plan. I knew I didn’t have a lot of time left, and I dreamed of getting a ticket to somewhere safe, far away from here. I planned to get myself a hoodie to hide my face, especially from older people who might have questions about where my parents were or why I was on my own. I would lie in bed and think about where I would go or where my Mama was. That thought always twisted my insides. Andrew didn’t like it when I asked questions and would yell about how she’d left me, and he ended up stuck with me to feed and care for. I hated that I knew nothing about who I was or where I came from.
“You will or…” He went to the cabinet, fiddled with the lock, and tugged the half-eaten bag of chips down. He crushed a handful of them to dust and held his hand like he was going to sprinkle them around me.
“Want to rethink your offer?”
“A beating or the dockyard?” I hissed with my heart in my throat. “I’ll take the beating.”
“Stupid girl.” He sprinkled the chips around my feet and over my lap and then freed one of my hands. “Need to make it look real.” He chuckled like a crazy person.
I cringed, knowing a beating and another empty belly would be coming very soon.
A door upstairs creaked, and Renzo jumped, causing the bag of chips to fall on the floor, and the rest of them scattered everywhere. The panic on his face made me realize he could be scared too.
“Shit,” he hissed as he raced through the kitchen door and out into the living room.
Chicken.
Sweat quickly formed on my forehead, and my legs started to shake. Once again, the fear that lived deep within my belly shot through me, and I knew I was really in for it this time.
Normally, I’d sit there and wait for my punishment, but when I covered my mouth to keep from screaming, something came over me, I moved without thinking. I undid my other hand and bolted for the outside door. Renzo must have spotted me through the window, and I could hear his laughter as I ran.
I raced down the path through the thick woods. The deeper I went, the more I could breathe. We were never allowed past the property line. They had made that clear the very first day I arrived, but I didn’t care. I wanted to be free and ran as fast as my legs could go.
Renzo’s laugh echoed in my head as my legs pumped and my lungs felt like they would burst. I tried to outrun the sound of it, and it helped for a while.
I didn’t remember tripping on anything, but I landed hard with a mouthful of dirt. I lay still for a moment, trying to hear past my own gasping breaths until I dared to stand and look around. I stood beside the edge of a small pond. I had no idea there was such a place anywhere in the area. A rope hung from a tree, proof that this was used in summer as a swimming pond. I could only imagine what it would be like to swing from it and land in the water with a splash. Big, beautiful flowers—I knew they were plumeria—grew all around the edges. It was so pretty. The beauty of it all only lasted for a moment before the entire weight of what happened hit me hard.