A Day for the Victim?

You could definitely say that my younger brother and I haven't had the most traditional childhood. On a dreary day in February four years ago we began a life that most kids never experience. For those that do, it's usually a bit like standing in front of big, angry, relentless tidal waves. A child is standing in waist deep water, minding his own business when a deceiving wave crashes down on him, pulling him under, tumbling him along breathlessly as his face and then back face and then back scrape along the sand on the bottom. When the wave's power has subsided, and the troubled child pulls himself back to his feet, gasping for air while he rubs the stinging salty surge from his eyes, another one comes along and sends him on another bruising ride. It's a vicious cycle that the child unfortunately has to endure. It's not his fault, it's for the best, but he doesn't know that. All he knows is that his mommy and daddy do not want to live together anymore, only one of them wants to live with him.

That's how Evan feels, anyway. That's the way I feel too, from time to time. At least I'm older though, I can see the bad sides of my parents. I get to look deeply in to the aspects of them that make me not want to be around either of them so much. Evan doesn't see that, and he was just old enough when the split happened to remember what it was like before. He doesn't remember the arguments, he doesn't remember the police, he doesn't remember the holes in the wall, he doesn't remember Daddy being gone for a while. He remembers Mommy and Daddy and his loving big sister having picnics in the park, he remembers big birthday parties at the house, he remembers Daddy teaching him how to play tee-ball- and he misses all of it now.

Me? I appreciated the good times. Sure. I also remember the bad times vividly. I remember not being able to sleep at night because I could hear them screaming, hurling obscenities at each other that I'd never even heard before. I remember the utter fear pulsing through my veins when one time, during one of their "heated discussions", there was a loud crashing sound. I could hear glass shattering and then scattering in all directions on our hard wood kitchen floor. I heard the glass shatter and then, all of a sudden, mid word, mom stopped screaming. I could still hear my dad, I knew HE was alive. I could hear his well worn in work boots sliding heavily on the floor across the kitchen as I sat upstairs in my bedroom, paralyzed with fear. Suddenly, a brilliantly horrible idea buzzed in to my head- my dad may be coming for me. The thought shocked me, my jaw dropped, my breathing sped up, and I immediately broke out in a cold, cold sweat. The concept that Dear Ole' Dad might want to kill me was totally foreign. It sent shivers down my spine as I heard his footprints sliding in to the living room. As they passed over on to the carpet, I couldn't tell where he was any more. The shock wore off, and I leaped off of my bed over to the door. I locked it and stood with my back leaning against the door. The room started to spin and I finally noticed how quickly I had been breathing. I slid slowly and carefully down to the floor and cradled my head in my hands. As I closed my eyes, I started praying in a choked, whispered, and hurried voice. "Please, God. Don't let him go for Evan." The front door opened and slammed shut. He hadn't been coming for me. He was leaving. I heard my mom start crying out to God as she cried and whimpered in the kitchen. I was so stupid. Daddy wouldn't, he couldn't. Would he? The crazy scenario I had created in my head could have very easily been very real. A sob rocked my entire body and I had to cover my mouth to keep from letting out a small, muffled cry.

And that was just one time, the first time.

These horrible, waking nightmares happened more and more as the years went by. Each one was no less horrifying than the first. Each time I feared for my mother's life. Each time I feared for my baby brother's life. Each time I feared for my life. Each time I feared that my family would be ripped apart.