Her Inner Strength

Return to Hellen

After she returned, life was hell, she made my life a living hell. I remember staring at my mirror many days, tears streaming down my face. I'd beg God endlessly to just save me from this, to end it. And the same thing would always echo in my soul, "it will be over, it cannot storm forever" as I imagined life with her finally gone.
I qualified for advanced classes when transitioning to middle school. But since one of her kids had to be in special classes and the other one just didn't give a shit, she was jealous that I was so smart. How dare I do something better than her kids. She made school a living hell, I loved to read and reading was a requirement in school, she would only allow me to read one chapter a day. I couldn't do any of my homework ahead of time at school, had to bring every single one of my books home every day, only had an hour for homework but she would add a bunch of other shit on top of it and nitpick my handwriting. I was only allowed to write in cursive. I had to read my whole chapter for classes even if we weren't even through the whole chapter yet. So my homework never got done and I got more and more behind. She made the school remove me from my advanced classes because she said I was too stupid to be in them.
I remember one time I had to do a science fair project. Every smart kid dreams of doing the perfect science fair project. I wanted to do something with evaporation in different containers and different liquids. Of course she wouldn't let me. She gave me two Gatorade bottles and wouldn't let me execute said experiment like I wanted. I failed that assignment and the teacher was so upset with me.

School was still my escape and the panic attacks I felt at the end of the school day, worsened. The knots in my throat often times caused a small leak of tears as we would drive away and get worse as we neared my house. I was good at hiding it though, I had to because if my dad was home, I'd catch hell if he saw me cry.
One time, a tall black boy caught my attention. I really liked him. He liked me. So like middle schoolers do, we "started dating." Hellen's son was friends with a boy down the street. He had a sister my age and one a couple years younger. We would go down there sometimes and I'd be forced to sit there and do homework while everyone else had fun. The girl in my grade told them that I was "dating" this black boy. On the way home and for a long while after that, I got called a "nigger lover" My dad has always been a racist man. So he avoided me even further when he heard this news and Hellen gloated about how pissed off my dad was. I was told to end it and I got grounded. I spent a lot of time grounded. Forced to sit in the middle of my bedroom doorway and do nothing unless Hellen was going through a religious spell then I was forced to sit there and read my Bible. 
She had me believing that same girl was spying on me at lunch and would tell her what I ate every day. I wasn't allowed to eat the "dessert", had to get regular milk and couldn't eat my fruit either.  I felt fat every time I'd eat.
I wasn't allowed to go to the "during school" dances but my friends still paid for me to get in.
Life when Hellen returned, was absolutely hell. Some of the events that happened (such as me being raped) happened after she came back. My memories are a blur so events are not in exact order.