Drowning the Hurt

She was 12 years old when she had her first drink. It was the beginning of a crazy adolescence. Her mother would scream at her and she would scream back, running away to go smoke cigarettes with her friends. The only peace she had was when she was drinking or smoking pot.

Her academics never suffered. She remained an honor student throughout high school and the head cheerleader. No one knew the other side of her…the one that sat in pain daily, that drank before school and smoked pot after school, the one that got arrested for shoplifting, or had a bad trip from PCP.

Throughout high school, her perpetrator from her childhood would show up at her school and run laps around the football field. He would always seem to conveniently be there when she had cheer practice and she hated him. She had never hated someone more in her entire life. She couldn’t recall why she hated him so much until she was 18 years old, however she despised his existence.

Him and his wife were family friends, almost like second grandparents to Celeste. She begged her mother not to invite them to her graduation party but her mother refused. Celeste didn’t have a good enough reason at that time and her skin crawled when he showed up. After what he had done to Celeste and her sisters, how could he just show up like that?! Didn't he have a conscience?... Was he some type of sociopath?!

After graduation, in her freshman year of college, all of the memories of why she hated him so much would come back. It was a nightmare…she couldn’t function. She was terrified most of the time that he would show up again, like he had during her cheer practices. He was a horrible, horrible man.

#teenyears #firstdrink #predator #everywoman #everywomanhasastory