I was only about six years old when I met him. In my head he was labeled as the best dad ever. My real dad has passed away & the way he had treated me, he had deserved to have the title of being the best dad ever. My mom had nothing, but good to say about him. We met him in Beebe, Arkansas. I can tell you that Beebe is the smallest town I have ever lived in. Nothing, but country. He would always invite us to his apartment that he shared with his gay friend, Scotty. Every time he would invite us over, we would end up spending the night. We loved being around him, because all he did was spoil us. We were treated like princesses & there I knew life couldn’t be this good, specially my life. 

In about a year later him & my mom got married. I was excited! Now, I thought I was really going to get everything I wanted & more. Me & my sister had spent at least a year getting spoiled to death, until my mom had broken the news to us that she was pregnant. I was excited & scared, because I knew what that meant. The baby’s going to take my place of being spoiled. He’s going to show all the attention to the baby! And, let me tell you, I was right! It turned out to be a little baby girl named, Erika. I could tell that she was going to steal the light from me, when every time he held her in his arm, his face always lit up in joy. But something just started to feel wrong. 

One day he had asked me if I wanted to go to the store with him & I agreed to go, because I loved going out. Just going to the store was extreme for me. I loved to get out of the house! Once, we got in the truck he had started messing with me. We were stopped at a red light & he layed his hand on my thigh. I moved it away, because I was old enough to understand what was going on & what his intentions were. He slapped my leg & it made me yell.

“Stop!” I screamed. I looked back out the window to look at the flower store that I always looked at every time I got stopped at this particular light. Ever since that ride with him, I was scared of what would happen the next time I would be left alone with him. Now, I was scared to leave the house, especially with him.

A year later we had moved on up to Cabot into a nice house. I will never forget that year of my life. My grandparents were taking me & my sister to Disney World & so my grandma had taken me to go & get some white sandals for me, for the trip. Well, the day of the trip I was excited than ever! My dream was coming true! We had so much fun & we stopped at a beach on our way back to Arkansas. But the trip was so fun I didn’t want to go back home. Where all the cussing & abuse will reoccur again. While, we were in the car I had looked down at the sandals & I had noticed that they were filthy dirty. Something inside of me had made me start to feel like I was going to be in trouble by the sand all over the sandals. In some way I felt like I was going to be in trouble. At that moment fear started feeling up my body. 

 “It was so much fun, daddy!” I exclaimed, while my grandma, Me- Maw had her arm wrapped around me.

“Good,” he looked down at my feet & his whole facial expression had changed. I knew it was coming, but he wasn’t going to say anything, until my Me- Maw & Dad- Dad left.

“Thank you Me- Maw & Dad- Dad for taking me to Disney World,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” they gave me a hug & left. I walked to my room, but I didn’t get very far. “Come back here, Hope,” he ordered.

I came back to him & dropped my bags down on the carpeted floor. “Look at those sandals. Didn’t your Me- Maw just buy them for you?”
“Yeah. For the trip.”
“Look at them, they’re dirty.”
“It’s OK.”
“No, it’s not. You wasted her money. Go to your room & sit & think about it.”

It had never made sense to me about why he made such a big deal out of sandals. It was obviously a big enough issue to make me hold hard back books straight out on my arms, while on my knees, having me put rice under my knees, while making me put my nose in a corner. He made me do the exercise six inches & if I dropped my feet, he had a spatula waiting in his hands to smack the bottom of my feet. If he was busy doing something else, than torturing me, he made me read the bible. It wasn’t a bad thing, but a little ten year old would’ve liked to have been doing something else, besides reading the bible, especially a bible that I could barely understand. One day I had gotten the nerve to ask him how long this was going to last. A week! I had to live in misery for a week! The night time came & that meant it was time to take a shower. I would make sure that it was a quick one, because he would come in there with a pitcher full of ice cold water. He would pull open the shower curtain & pour it all over me. All of it came to me of why he did that. It wasn’t just me that he did it to, either. He did it to my older sister, Mikayla, too. It was because he wanted to see what he had under our clothes. At these times all I wanted to do was die or runaway. 

After the week of the cycle of hell, he had moved off of me & onto my Mikayla & started messing with her. I always knew he was full of it, but I just had to see it in order to believe it. He was a child molester, abuser, & a liar. I’m glad I had the strength to put him behind bars & the only fear I have now is what’s going to happen when he gets out. He’s hurt other little girls in the past & you know what? I bet you he would do it again. Now, I have a wonderful stepdad that takes care of me & my family. Sometimes I wonder that in the back of my head he would be just like him. Thanks to Eric, I can’t trust any man that comes into my life. He’s ran the fear out of me, so now I’m barely afraid of anything. He’s ran the trust out of me, too. But everything that he’s done to me has made me a better, stronger, independent woman.