The Day I Was Forgotten

One night my mom's boyfriend, Chance, started threatening my life - he told me that he would slit my throat and break my neck - and that it would be worth the jail time.

When mom tried to protect me from him, he swore that she would be dead in the river with me. She stopped protesting after that - she had never learned how to swim.

Then Chance started in with even threats; trying to break us down the only way he knew how, like calling me a "half-dead motherfucker!" (At that time I was really suicidal and too deep into depression.)

When he got really violent, mom ran upstairs to get her drugs out of the house so we could call the police. I followed Chance and Mom up the stairs, got in his face, and started screaming at him. "I'm not scared of you and you need to leave. Now!" Well, obviously, that only made him angrier. He went to grab me, but Mom jumped in between us and told him to get away from me. He grabbed her arm - the same arm that I heard snap when my father, Andrew, broke in front of me when I was 9. I lost my mind and started yelling at him even more because nobody touches my mother like that. He was stunned for a minute, but his flood of anger returned quickly. He hurled Mom into a door that had a full-length mirror on it. By then, I was on the bed and yelling at the top of my lungs. That's when he pinned me down on the bed and pulled my right arm back. Mom jumped up and grabbed him, giving me enough time to wiggle away and run down the stairs.

When Mom and I got to the car, none of our neighbors were even looking out their windows to see what the noise outside was.
Chance had said that if we left him, he would call the police and tell them that Mom had an ounce of weed on her. I told Mom to give me the drugs, so if the police were really called I could play it off like it was mine. She agreed, handed it to me, and I bent it so it would fit nicely between my hip and the waistband of my sweatpants.

We left for one of mom's friend's house, dropped the drugs off, and left...just like every time before.

Mom called Chance four times from a payphone. He wouldn't leave our house unless we paid him $1,200...last time it was $380. I overheard Mom offering to drive him home. I jumped out of the passenger seat and screamed, "You aren't taking him home! There's no way I'll let you be alone in a car with him for two hours!" Chance had beaten her up in a car a few times before - he tried to choke her to death, there had been bruises on her face and throat.

I yelled, cried, begged, pleaded, ranted, and prayed. Finally, I just got out of the car and started walking in the opposite direction of my house. I didn't know where I was going and I didn't care as long as it wasn't home.
Eventually, Mom pulled up beside me and told me to get in the car unless I wanted to walk all the way home. I said, "If I get in the car, we have to go back to that payphone and you have to call the police. You can show them the bruises on your body. Or we can stand here all night, at least I'll know you're safe."

After a few seconds of silence, she drove off.

She left her 14 year old daughter in the middle of unfamiliar territory at late at night. I sat down on the grass and cried for what seemed like hours. Then, I went back to the road and waiting, hoping she'd come back for me.

She never did.