This is Life

Regrets

My eyes were closed as I felt the warm water of my shower running over me. It had been nearly two weeks since that magical night with James. I rinsed the bubbles of shampoo out of my hair and watched them go down the drain, before I just relaxed under the warm flow of water, day dreaming about Jamie and I.

But I was soon jolted back to reality by the ice-cold water that began splashing over me.
My eyes shot open and I was instantly paralyzed when I found I was staring into the bloodshot eyes of my uncle. His hand was still on the faucet handle.
"Thought I should throw a little cold water on you," he growled, "What in the hell are you doing?"
I could feel my mouth open, but no words came out. I was frozen with fear. I was shaking from the cold water and was thoroughly shocked and embarrassed. "What’s going on?" I asked. He grabbed me by the hair and pushed me down so I was kneeling in the bathtub, and slapped me until I was crying. I didn't understand what was wrong. Then he tugged on my hair and dragged me over to the mirror and made me look at myself. I was naked, soaked and shivering from the cold water that I had been drenched in.

He stood behind me, and I saw resentment in his eyes.
Leaning in so his mouth was right next to my ear, he whispered through gritted teeth, "I saw you with James." The hatred in his voice shook me to the core, and my knees felt as if I would collapse. I saw my green eyes were opened wide, and my pupils get small with fear.
"How?" I thought to myself, "We were so careful."
"Take a good look at yourself you little whore,” he said in a low, disgusted voice, then started screaming. "What did I tell you Ehvie?! What? I said you WASN'T allowed to have sex till you was 18!!"
I looked at the floor; hot tears blurred my vision and ran down my face as I hung my head in shame. He laughed in disbelief. "Oh, so you don't wanna listen?" My head jerked up as he grabbed my hair again and dragged me down the hall to his room. I tried my best to keep up, but he was going too fast and I continued to slip and stumble.
The cold and fear together made me shake and my muscles began to twitch violently. When he slammed the door closed behind us he let me go and continued to stand in front of me and insult me, occasionally slapping me. I hadn't noticed we were slowly backing up until I fell backwards onto his bed. He grinned. I felt like a small animal that had been trapped by its predator.

Picking up my body, he placed me directly in the center of his mattress. "Grab the bar," he instructed me, pointing to the bar on his headboard. I already knew something was definitely wrong, because any time I had been spanked before I was always told to lay on my stomach. So he could hit my back, butt, and thighs. Never like this.
I tried to think of any way to escape this, but before I even developed a thought he was looping rope around my wrists, binding me to the bed. I felt as if I were being closed into my own coffin as the ropes tightened.
"Uncle Robbie, I'm sorry..." I offered an apology, but the cold look I got in return told me it wasn't even worth wasting my breath.
"You're gonna be a lot sorrier when I'm through baby girl." he said grabbing my right ankle and tying it to the foot of the bed, then taking my left ankle and doing the same, to where my legs were spread wide open. He stood there silently, admiring his work while I was lying there shivering and terrified. I stared at the ceiling to avoid his eyes.
"How old are you baby girl?"
"I'm f-fifteen." All I could think was "I'm going to die"
"Fifteen!" He roared. "That’s right, oh, but you can give it away to some nineteen year old?"
He walked over to me and grabbed my face, pushing it to the side harshly; inhaling the smell of my body wash before speaking. "I'm going to hurt you like you could never imagine." he whispered, I could smell the alcohol on his breath.
Uncle Robbie stood over me, with his belt looped in his hand, "Tell me what you are." he spoke. I knew what he wanted to hear, but couldn't form the words in my mouth.
"WHAT ARE YOU?" he shouted, striking the belt down on my inner thigh. I cried out, "I-I’m a-a whore," the words stumbled out of my mouth.
“That’s right.” He said, slamming the belt down to make a matching print on my other leg. “I bet you want me to punish you, don’t you?” he questioned.
“Yes sir. I- I mean no sir…”
“Which is it Ehvie?” he yelled angrily.
“N-no, I don’t want you to hurt me Uncle Robbie.” I said tearfully.
“Well you should have thought of that before you went whoring around in my house!” The belt bit into my inner thigh, close to my most tender area. He began beating me, smacking ever inch of my poor lower body, directly on my sensitive little privates, making sure I could never predict where the next blow would land, until finally excruciating pain brought me to the point of unconsciousness.
When I came to, I was no longer tied to the bed, but still on top of it nude. I looked next to me at Uncle Robbie standing in front of his dresser. He picked something up and put it in his mouth, swallowing it with no water, then turned to face me. “Ready for round two?” he chuckled. He was high on something; this was the drugs talking not him. And it was the drugs that had beaten me so badly. He climbed on the bed with me, scooting close until he straddled my upper legs. I wanted to scream in pain. “Please, stop.” I begged weakly.
“Shut, your mouth.” He said. He took my hands and pinned them both above my head, lowering his head down to my face.
“Why couldn’t you just listen to me?” He asked, “Why did you f*** him?”
I turned my face away from him in shame. “Oh, so you don’t wanna listen? Huh?” He let go of my hands and sat up on his knees. He began to unbutton and unzip his shorts pulling them down as far as they’d go. I started to struggle, and try to get away but he backhanded me and I fell back on to the pillow. I wished desperately that I could cover myself.
I could see he was turned on, and I knew what he was about to do. “I’m sorry Uncle Robbie, please don’t! Please!” I begged him, crying. He pulled it out through the whole in his boxers and made sure he kept it hard. The whole time I was pleading him for mercy. “You big enough to give it away to some guy?” he whispered harshly. “No…” I whimpered.
He grabbed my face and slowly pushed it to the side, kissing my chin all the way to my ear. “You big enough to f*** James, then you big enough to f*** me.” He said.
“NO!” I screamed. “No! Uncle Robbie please!” I cried, my body shaking. “I’m sorry, I’m sor-“ he slammed his hand over my mouth, cutting me off, and said, “Baby girl, it’s too late for that shit.” And pushed it in as hard as he could. I screamed in his hand as he moaned loudly in my ear. “This is for your own good baby girl. Your mine now.”
I was irreversibly dirty. Nothing, no amount of scrubbing, or bleach, or any type of corrosive acid could get this dirty off of me and out of me.

I limped through the kitchen the next morning. Each step was agonizing, but I tried as hard as I could to ignore it, and grabbed bowl of cereal. I sat down as softly as possible, listening to the sound of Uncle Robbie’s snores drifting down the hall. All I wanted was to avoid him and be as far away from here as I could be.
“Hey Ehvie!” James’s cheerful voice startled me enough to make me drop my spoon. Milk and Lucky Charms landing on the table right next to it. “Wow a little jumpy this morning?” he walked over to the fridge and grabbed the carton of milk. My mind was in overdrive. I thought about last night, and Uncle Robbie, he was just down the hall! And here was James, the reason Uncle Robbie even did that. I didn’t say anything to Jamie, just cleaned up my spill and set my bowl in the sink. Then grabbed James’s hand and pulled him outside with me. “What’s wrong sweetie?” he asked. I had pulled him away so fast he still had milk dripping down his chin, but reached up to wipe it away.
“I just, I need to get to school.” I told him. My voice was unsteady, but I hoped he hadn’t noticed. His sparkling blue-green eyes told me he didn’t completely trust my answer, but he just went along with me, picking up my book bag and then driving me to school.

The whole day felt like a hazy dream, I don’t think a work anyone said to me got through. I felt ashamed and angry and disgusted with myself. I was furious at the world. It had taken everything from me. My damn family for Christ’s sake! The only blood-tie I had left, cut off anyways! It wasn’t fair! My cell phone vibrated in my pocket with a text message. It was from James, saying that he had to work late and he couldn’t drive me home. Great, just what I needed. It wasn’t even that I was scared of walking home, I had been living in Detroit for 6 months, I knew most of the people in my trailer park. I was just petrified of having to be alone with Uncle Robbie again. For the first time I wished that Geena would be back.
The bell rang 30 minutes later, and I left along with everyone else. “Hey girl! Wait up!” I heard Kara’s voice behind me. I turned around and put a little smile on for her, but immediately she wasn’t buying it. “Wow, you look a mess.” She said pushing my hair out of my eyes. “What’s wrong Ehvie?” My eyes downcast, “Rough night,” I said, and I was basically telling the truth, “Don’t ask.”
“Alright, your call,” that was the good thing about Kara, she minded she own, and moved on to the next subject. “So… James’s brother told me you guys, well, you know…” she winked her purple eye shadow covered eye at me and nudged my aching side. I could feel my mouth drop open. “What?” I laughed in disbelief, “I can’t believe Alex told me!” Feeling my aching thighs, I only wished now that it hadn’t been true.
“So its true?” she asked.
“Well yeah, but that was a couple weeks ago.” I replied, kicking the dirt beneath my feet.
“Oh my god girl! We should celebrate!” she smiled at me, her eyes were glowing. By now we were down the street, about three blocks from Hearthside. I looked over at her still staring at me. “What?”
She continued to smile, “Aw look at you Ehvie, all grown up now.”
I laughed out loud and pushed her. “Shut up Kara.” She giggled and kept walking by my side. “Oh,” she said, “Don’t let Robbie find out.” I winced. “What? Does he know?” she asked. I looked up and shook my head really fast. “No…no he doesn’t know.” I lied.
“Good, I heard him and my Dad talking about it a few months ago at the car shop, Robbie said if you did anything with James before you were like, eighteen, both you and him were gonna pay.”
I gulped. I didn’t wanna think about what Uncle Robbie would do to James, if he could do that to his own flesh and blood. “Well Ehvie, I’ll come over later,” she said, “Be home!”
I turned around and kept walking towards the trailer park. The occasional person would wave at me when I walked down the road. I walked by Taleeb’s trailer at last and he was sitting outside bouncing his little girl on his lap. “’Ey Ehv, Rob was looking for ya.” He set her down and walked up to me. “Man he seemed pissed. What’d you do?” He asked playing with his earring.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“Yeah, man he was trippin’ too. What’s he on?”
“On? Like drugs?” I thought back to the night before when he popped those pills.
“Well yeah,” he said. “I dunno, maybe I’m wrong. He jus really seemed like it.”
I sighed, “Who knows? He’s been acting kinda strange lately. But I thought it was just stress from work or something.”
“Huh? My moms told me he got laid off… like a few days ago.” He said. There was some new information. I was shocked, but I played it off, acting calm. “Oh, yeah, I uh, I forgot.” I said, secretly panicking. “So uh, I’ll see ya later.” He said. “Yeah…” I walked away and up to the trailer door. I tried to go in as quietly as possible, to not disturb Uncle Robbie. “Why the hell are you home so late?” he asked as soon as I walked in. I gasped, not expecting him to be waiting on me. “I-I had to walk home.” I explained. He looked angry, and I made the mistake of asking why. He laughed. “Why? Why?!” He marched up to me and grabbed my arm. “I’ll f***in show you why Ehvie.” He dragged me over to the kitchen sink and threw me against it. I cried out in pain when my side hit the kitchen counter, but Uncle Robbie grabbed me up and by the back of my neck and shoved my face into the sink. “You see that?” he yelled. My face was directly above the bowl I’d thrown in the sink that morning, and the plate I had used for dinner last night.
For fear of being thrown again, I nodded frantically. My heart was beating in my throat. “Yeah?” he shouted, “I don’t ever wanna see this kinda shit again! You understand me little one?”
“Yes, yes!” I said in a broken voice. He let go of my neck and I dropped to the ground, but immediately scrambled to my feet and began washing the dishes.
At six ‘o’ clock Kara knocked on the screen door and walked in. “Hey Ehvie!” she said. I smiled fakely. “Hey…what’s up?”
“You wanna go chill at Ashley’s for a few hours?” she asked. I got up and grabbed my purse. “Yeah,” I said practically pushed her out of the door. “I need to chill out for real.”
We walked the few blocks to Ashley’s house and were greeted by her two younger twin brothers, Terry and Tyler, two little brunette boys about 7 years old. “Hey Ehvie! Hey Kara!” They said in unison. They hugged each of us and then ran off. We walked into her little house and music was blaring over the stereo. “Ooh! Hey girlies, what’s up?” Ashley ran over and gave us a little group hug. “I wasn’t expecting you guys.” I smiled at her, my arms folded across my chest. Looking around it reminded me so much of my childhood home. I could see my sister Britney on the couch, the boys chasing our dog around. A tear rolled down my face, but I quickly wiped it away. The heavy smell of weed passing by my face made me snap out of it. “Hey baby.” Ashley’s boyfriend Steven walked up to her and picked her up by the waist. “Ah! Jason you better put me down!” she giggled. He set her down and kissed her cheek. It was funny to see them together. Steven was tall, around 6’2’’ and slim. He had short hair and a bandana on. But Heather was extremely short, around 4’10’’, with long shiny brown hair. She definitely didn’t fit into the “fat” category, but she wasn’t skinny by any means. She was thick. A definition that Steven loved to use for her. “Hey you guys wanna get high?” Steven asked. We all looked around at each other and I was the first to say, “Yeah.”
We all gathered around in a shed on the side of her house, into the woods a bit. Steven lit up a bowl and his brother Matt lit a cigarette. Jason took a hit and shoved it in front of Ashley’s face. She pushed it away. “Uh-uh,” she shook her head, “You know I don’t smoke that stuff.” He rolled his eyes, “Well then pass it on you drama queen.” She took it and hand it to me.
All of us sat around smoking and laughing for about 20 minutes before rain started leaking through the cracked roof of the shed. “Ah shit.” Matt said. We heard playful screaming and laughing and knew that Terry and Tyler were playing in the rain. Ashley got up to get the boys inside and everyone except Matt left with her.

My cell rang in my purse at 11pm. “Uncle Robbie” flashed across the screen.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Your brother is comin to stay” he said.
“Evan?”
“Yeah, tha five year old.” He slurred.
I smiled. “Oh my god Uncle Robbie, are you serious?”
“Would I lie to ya baby?” he was drunk. I looked down at my feet. “Um, well, how long is he staying for?” I asked.
It had been around a half-year since I’d seen him; I had a picture of him taped to my mirror in my room, and I tried to call him as often as I could. But his father despised me, and usually made some excuse for me not to talk to him. Evan was more like my own child than my baby brother. “Uh…he’s not goin’ back to Osmend.” He said slowly.
I stopped breathing. “Why not? What happened?” I could feel tears forming in my eyes and a million things were running through my mind.
“His Dad got busted for a crystal meth lab in their basement.” He said, I could hear him setting something down in the background. “So he’s gonna be goin away for a while.” Robbie chuckled. “Stupid ass. But yeah, he’s comin to live with us too. Come on home now, I’m feelin better.” He hung up.
I didn’t feel like walking home at this time of night.
“Hey Ehvie what’s up?” Matt looked back at me from the chair ahead of me. “Matt can you give me a ride?” I asked. He stood up and ruffled though his dark brown hair and smiled at me, stretching his arms out. “Yeah, yeah. Come on Ehv, I’ll give you a lift.” His green eyes were nearly as gorgeous as his smile. I could tell he was really high, but I just wanted to get home. We walked outside to his black Ford Contour and got in. “So uh, where you live again?” he asked cranking the car up.
“Hearthside.” I spoke quietly.
“Oh, you must know Taleeb.” He said.
“Yeah, he lives right next to me.” I pulled out a little green compact mirror from my purse to check my eyes. I did not want to deal with Uncle Robbie yelling at me for smoking.
“Oh, I know right where you live then.” He said, backing out of the driveway. We drove for about 5 minutes before he asked how old I was.
“Fifteen.” I answered.
“Ah yeah I figured 16, you know, around Ashley’s age.” He put his hand on my bare thigh.
“Stop it Matt.” I said pushing his hand off of me.
“Gas, grass, or ass. Nobody rides for free.”
I unzipped my purse and grabbed a hand full of ones and fives, change I had gotten at the store earlier, and threw it at him.
He slammed on the brakes at about the third house in Hearthside. “Get the f*** out!” he yelled. “I’m not a slut!” I shouted as I got out. I slammed the door shut and started to walk off. Matt threw his car in reverse and sped out of the trailer park, nearly hitting a cat.
I saw some people looking at me through their blinds, but I just ignored them and continued to walk home. “What the hell was that about?” Uncle Robbie asked when I walked up to the front porch. “No-nothing.” I stuttered. I was shaking.
“Did that kid hurt you? Who was he? Huh?” he grabbed my arm.
I looked at him and started crying. He let go. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry Ehvie.” He said.
“Come on, let’s go inside.” I followed him in. I saw Geena sitting in the chair glaring at me.
“I’m going to bed Uncle Robbie.” I said quietly.
“Alright baby,” he pulled me in for a hug. “Good night.” Geena looked at me with jealousy, and I left for bed.

A week passed and no sign of Evan. He was probably in care of the state until Uncle Robbie picked him up. About a week and a half later, I woke up to a high-pitched familiar laughter and a small body landing on me. “Ehvie! Ehvie! Ehvie!” I opened my eyes and there was Evan, his wonderful bright smile and beautiful brown eyes staring right back at me. I sat up and squeezed him in my arms. I kissed him all over his face. “Oh my god Evan! I love you!” He kissed me back. “I love you too Ehvie.”
I looked past him to my door way, Uncle Robbie stood there and watched us, drinking an energy drink. “Pick me up!” Evan shouted. I put him in my arms and got out of bed. He laid his head on my shoulder. “I’m hungry.” He said quietly.
“Okay baby, lets get you some breakfast.”
“I guess I’m buyin.” Uncle Robbie said grabbing his keys.
We ended up at IHOP. I hadn’t been so happy in a long time. Having Evan be my little shadow was something I had missed terribly. We went shopping and ate out all day, then headed home at around six. It was just starting to get dark.
When Evan got in the bath Uncle Robbie came up to me. “You happy baby girl?” he asked me.
“So happy!” I replied, “I can’t believe that he is here.”
“Good, well, I gotta go stay with Tommy for the night. His girl just broke up with him and took the kids, and he needs some moral support.” He said. I wasn’t really sure who Tommy was. “I won’t be back till morning, and Geena is working night shift at the titty bar. Can you handle the kid for the night?” he asked, slipping on his jacket.
I sat down on the couch. “Yeah.”
“Alright. Have a good night.”
I sat back and watched TV, some stupid show about hamsters eating their babies if you touch them. I hated hamsters. I got up and went to Evan’s new room, the game room, and started unpacking his clothes. I picked out a pair of pajamas for him to wear when he got out, then knocked on the bathroom door and told him I put his clothes on the bed. His innocent little voice replied, “Okay!”
He came out of his room about 30 minutes later. Dressed in the “jammies” I had laid out for him. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Can I go sleepies Ehvie?” He asked. “Aw, yes sweetie you can.” I took his hand and lead him to his room, tucked him in and kissed him good night. I closed the door behind me.