chapter 2

3 days later.

I woke, staring up at ceiling panels. I was in hospital. I groaned as I lifted my head off the pillow to see what happened. Broken leg and arm by the look of it. I said in my head. I laid there thinking about my life, trying to pin point when things started to go wrong my childhood wasn’t the best I didn’t like to talk about it. Ryder new nothing about my childhood other than it was bad. I couldn’t talk about it. It was all still so vivid in my head even 20 years on.

Ceiling tiles. I’d nodded off again and was starting to wonder if anyone knew I was here. I’d have though that someone would have tried to wake me up to see how I was feeling or something by now. I cleared my throat. It was like sandpaper, I carefully turned my head to see if there was anything on the bedside table to drink when my eyes landed on the very man I was not at all prepared to see at this moment. Ryder.

He was staring right at me. He looked like he hadn’t slept for days. He had deep black bags under his eyes, his eyes themselves were puffy like he’d been crying.

“You were leaving me” he croaked, emotion gripping each word. I said nothing, I was in shock. What was he going to do to me now? Have me pinned to a wall while he spat words through gritted teeth then let a bullet slide through my head? There was nowhere to run, hell I couldn’t even walk!
“Say something… please!” He begged with urgency. I decided it was time I told him.
“You know you always wanted to know my story but I never told you. I couldn’t bring myself to relive the memories, you never pressed. I thank you for that, but i’m ready now.”
“Okay” he said wide eyed clearly not thinking this is what I was going to say.
“I had a family, kind of, once. A Mum, a Dad even a sister. She was 6 years older than me. She’d be 34 now. My dad disappeared when I was 1. My mum was destroyed, she loved him with everything she had. She made excuses for him all of the time but in reality I found out later he just didn’t want children and after a year of raising his second child, me, it was too much for him so he left. My mum loved us both dearly and tried her best but often went hungry because she could barely afford the basics, there was barely enough food for me and my sister. Fast forward a couple of years my mum met someone new. He was amazing at the start. Seemed like he loved us all. Thinking back now I think it was a means to an end for both of them. My mum wanted someone to be there at the end of the day to talk to bring in some money so that she could give us a better start in life and do be some sort of a father figure to me and my sister. He wanted someone to wait on him hand and foot. My mum did everything for him. After a couple more years things started getting bad. He used to get drunk all the time he was physically abusive to all of us including my mum who sank so far into herself I could barely recognise her. My sister became my protector. I always looked up to her, I wanted so much to be like her. She had the courage of a lion at just 12 years old she was the only one who would ever stand up to him. My mum told us we were never to speak of it to anyone. She was ashamed. So we didn’t we carried on he eventually lost his job and didn’t spend a moment sober. He got heavily into drugs which kind of softened it a bit, normally then he was so doped up on whatever he was taking he could barely lift his beer never mind muster enough force to put behind his fist. Then one day” I croaked tearing up a little. Ryder came over and perched on the side of the bed delicately wrapping himself around me.
“You don’t need to keep going if you don’t want” he said looking down at me with eyes full of sorrow.
“No I have to tell you this. One day me and my sister were walking home from school. She was 14 i was 8, she had a job on the market packing up the stalls on the weekend so that she had a bit of pocket money. We went to the shop and she bought us both the biggest pick and mix bag each and we carried on home, happily chatting and laughing eating our sweets. I don’t know what happened. Whether the drugs he’d taken that day had something in them or they were a different kind or if he was on a come down or what but as we were walking up the stairs waving to our neighbour, a little old lady across the street. The door to our house flung open and he gripped my sister by the front of her school shirt, she fell backwards knocking into me sending me flying backwards down the steps. The old lady across the street rushed over he looked down and shut the door. I heard shouting and screaming from my sister I just laid there frozen the old lady made her way over to the door as a gun shot rang out. I heard my sister screaming for my mum. I started to move as the old lady pushed open the door as another gun shot fired and the screaming stopped. I raced up the stairs as she disappeared behind the door I flung the door open to the old lady gasping at the sight before her, I ran over to her side but stayed a little behind her, seeing my mum and sister laid lifeless on the living room floor. My eyes welled up with tears as I looked up at the man with so much hate I have never felt before. Then he put the gun to his own head and shot. His body fell to the ground the a thud that sliced through the silence of the house. I fell to my knees screaming as the old lady cradled me in her arms on the floor. I watched as the wheeled them all out on stretchers the police took me in to find out what had happened. I was then put into care and then into a foster home. Where the family was a lot better than what I had but I was still treated like the scum of the earth. I have always been realistic, right from being a little girl. I never wanted to grow up to be a rich princess and live in a castle with Prince Charming like all the other girls. I wanted a man who would treat me well and look after me as I would him. Have a house in the country side with chickens and a nice big kitchen and a huge garden so that maybe we could have a few children who could run around and play hide and seek, climb trees while we sat on the decking watching proudly over them. I thought that man was you” he was sobbing now. I had never seen him so emotional before. He was always very different around me than he was with everyone else, but I had never seen him cry before.