I’m silent. What I’ve gone through makes me silent. I look ‘emo’ (that’s what everyone says). I look the way I look to hide the hurt. I fake smiles to get through the day.

I’ve been hurt several ways. But one way makes me the way I am. I’ve tried to kill myself because of one person’s action. He locked me in rooms with him. He would offer to watch me when my mom had to go out shopping. He told me to get undressed in front of him. He would try to get me in bed with him.

I was little. He was in his thirties. I was scared of him. He was my living breathing nightmare. He would threaten me all the time. So I never really spoke. I would run. He would catch me. I would hide. He would find me. I finally spoke up (saying more than two words). To a friend. At a party. Then I was silent once again.

At school a few days later. I was called into the guidance counselor’s office. Sitting there were the nurse and the guidance counselor. I had to tell the whole thing to them, to watch their face expressions change like they did. Their eyes in amazement. To look at them sit there with their hands over their mouths. That night Child Protection Services (C.P.S.) was called to go to my house. To speak with everyone.

When C.P.S. Came I was eating dinner with one of my little sisters. Also, my cousin was there to hang out. We all got questioned. But then when we saw IT run up the stairs and out the front door….. I knew he was told to leave our house.

Months of going to the doctor, speaking with police, and a judge. Months of therapy. Months of me finally saying more than two words. I would shake being near anyone. I had to go to school where people would always try to get me to talk.
When things finally started to settle down, I was still a little jumpy around people. I saw his face everywhere I went. But now I talk. Now I smile. I have friends. I’m his worst nightmare. He is no longer mine. When I see him in my nightmares, I laugh. Because I know that the bastard can’t touch me. Because I have won this war.
Although I’m scared. I will win. Facing my fear and taking it down. That’s what I have done. Now I can smile without faking it. Even knowing I’m living in the place that it had happened in, I have won. I won’t lose to him. I refuse to. He may scare me but I terrify him.
He will not make me unhappy anymore because I have put him in his place. Jail.