EPT
Background: I'm wrote this one day because I had too much on my mind and too many promises to never tell anyone about secrets I've been told. I'm one of the persons, the others are people I know.
It sets early these days. As I close the doors and switch on the alarm, walk the few steps to the car and then sit down in the driver's seat it is all around me. To feel the natural heat seems so far away, and yet it is only a tiny few months the wait. I close the door, take of my sweater and lean back to relax. Twist of the key and the v6 roars onto life, quickly settling down to a nice, calming sound. I close my eyes for a second, and the images comes again. They fill my vision, blocks out every other sense, and it flickers like cellar lightning in a bad horror movie - or a good one.
I'm fourteen. I'm sleeping at my father's house, and as usual he has been drinking. His girlfriend is scared because he gets angry and violent when he drinks. I am in bed, hiding behind the blankets and wanting to sleep. He walks in. I can smell the familiar alcohol on his breath. I expect him to lean over and make something resembling the sound of "good night". But it is different. He lays down beside me and starts stroking me. He puts a pillow over my head, and I have no clothes. I cry softly as he does the unthinkable, and in one drunken act destroys everything I was, am and might become.
I'm fifteen. My father, the big, horrible man, makes a speech about how proud he is of me. He is sober now, and he, the big man, cries about how he never gets to see me. It is as it never happened. As the single act that changed the very essence of me is something he has burried and never wants to speak of again. I smile at him, my soft innocent smile, but as I do something breaks inside. I still smile. Nobody knows but him and me, and because I can't deal with it I chose to leave it. He is my father, and I want to see him.
I'm eighteen. Last year of college, and I am a different child. I come home from school and a nice hour in the city with my friends. I am happy. As I walk down the three stone steps and onto the grass, I look for what seems like the first time at the steps to the door. There is something about them. They seem longer, darker, taller. Walking them is a chore, and as I walk my god spirits slowly ebb away. I can't explain, but somehow I feel it. I put my hand on the door handle, and it is ice cold. The sun shares 30 degrees with us, but the black metal door handle is ice cold. I'm still here, but in the woods a mere mile away hangs the ghost. The ghost of a loving, caring father whom only knew how to do good onto others, but missed the importance of doing good to himself. He leaves behind a broken heart, a crying family and a scared child.
I'm eighteen again. I have a great friend. A great, great friend with whom I can share anything, and who always listens. Like you want a boyfriend to be if you are a girl. I'm not. I celebrate my birthday at his house, a few other friend are also there. We go sleep, I sleep on an inflatable bed. I'm very much under the influence, and sleeping soundly. As I wake up I have the weird sense of a hand on my ass. I look around in the partly lit room, but there is only him in his own bed, and me in mine. I shake it off as a dream and quickly go back to sleepland. And wake again, the same feeling. I lay awake the rest of the night.
I'm ninteen. I punch my former friend in the face. Not for being gay. For feeling me, his best friend, up in my happy sleep. For not telling me. I never speak to him again.
I open my eyes again, let out the air I've been holding. Hands are firmly placed in the ten to two position, seat position adjusted and I drive away. Slowly at first, then as the roads get better and the people fewer, I speed up. My todo list is full. It's a young day still.
I added some and fixed.
