The Beginning (The Life 1)

Maybe they were just too sad, but daddy was sad, and so was Grandma Eloise, and they were never mean to me. It’s too confusing, and I still don’t know why things changed. It’s two years later, and though I’ve come to see the signs, I’m still no closer to knowing how to deal with it. I knew, though, that if I didn’t give them what they wanted, things could get much worst.

Ten Years Later

“Gia, come on down here for a second.” My tummy cramped at the sound of my dad’s voice as I sat up in bed. Heart racing, pulse going haywire, I crossed the room to the door I’d long since learned to keep barred in some way. I’d tried getting 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 about me messing around with boys and bringing them to my room when no one else was around.

Without so much as a thread of evidence, my dad had once again gone along blindly with his wife and the new daughter he was so proud of, while I, the disappointment had been accused and banished to the basement laundry room for weeks until Grandma Eloise caught wind of it and raised hell.

There’d been threats of calling CPS, something 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 me to his shoulder and blow raspberries in my neck while grinning at me with a light 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, something that hurts me even though 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 mom died. Now I’m not sure what to feel for the stranger 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 someone I’d grown to resent with time.

It wasn’t so much that he’d married someone else, not even a year after mommy left us, but the fact that he’d since grown to mistreat me for her and her kid. Victoria is a spoilt deceptive bully, something I’d only come to realize when I hit my teens. Until then, I’d believed that they were right, that I was just acting out because my mother was gone.

I’d heard it so often I’d come to believe it myself, and so, had withdrawn within myself after one too many knocks. The friends I used to have when mommy would make play dates had all become Victoria’s, and anyone I even got 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 complain to since Grandma Eloise had stopped coming to the house after Becky convinced my dad that she, along with the rest of my mother’s family, was the reason that I hadn’t adjusted to her taking my mother’s place. That is another cesspit I tremble at the memory of. It all started because I refused to call Becky, mom, after years of her being with my dad.

The mere thought of calling that vile woman by my mother’s title makes me sick even now, and no amount of beatings was going to change that. And believe me, they’ve tried. I’ll never forget the fear and betrayal I felt the first time my daddy hit me. It was, of course, due to some lie Victoria had told about me doing something at school. She’s told so many lies now that I forget which one.

Her favorite game used to be labeling me the bully. She’d spend all day tormenting me at school, making up lies about my home life, like the time we were in the sixth grade, and she told the whole school that I wet my bed when I hadn’t, and I was bold enough to call her a liar because I was truly mortified. She’d cried and told dad and Becky that I made fun of her and turned the other kids against her. All lies, but dad believed it, and I got a beating. I can still see the smirk on mother and daughter’s faces. That was just one of the many things that had chipped away at my confidence.