"Have you ever wished that your fate turns out in different ways? Well, I have, ever since I was a little kid–"
My name is Bridget Haynes and I used to live in a happy family until one tragedy made us all fall apart. It all started when my mother unintentionally caught my father cheated on her and everything started to change 360 degrees. Every night when father came home, they would argue a lot, and I, on the other hand, lock myself in my own bedroom crying soundly while asking for them to stop. When the heat from the fight eventually died down, I would open the door of mine slowly and go check on my mom while my dad went out, got away from every fight they both got into.
There was this night I lay in my bed listening to the sound of fighting again over the same thing. But this time, it was different. My mother would shout, my father begins laying into her and the screaming would start. She cried, he seethed, and I pushed my face into the long toy snake my five-year-old body was wrapped around. I would think to myself that when mother left, I would leave with her, flee the violence. Then one day she did leave... and I remained right where I was with just a toy to comfort me.
Three years after my mother left, my dad remarried one of his sluts. The way my dad uses to act toward me also changed, he becomes more abusive. He would beat, hurt, and torture me till death, and my stepmom, Claudia, does nothing to help me, she just is looking me in the eyes while plastered that evil smirked on her face.
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Twelve years passed by and my dad has become more aggressive and abusive towards me day by day. There's no day where I get no bruise on my arms and legs or wounds on my body. Dad will never touch my face because he knew that if there's a bruise or scar or any small wound on my face, there would be an investigation and could be a police case in the child abuse section of law.
There was this night where my dad had to overwork at his workplace, leaving me with my evil stepmom, Claudia, all night alone. The clock strikes 10 p.m. as I have just finished my homework for school tomorrow. Just I was about to went to bed, Claudia storm into my bedroom without even knocking on the door. She went straight to me and pulled my hair, dragging me out to the kitchen downstairs. I couldn't do anything to protest.
Once we inside the kitchen, she threw me on the cold, hard floor while giving me a dirty look on her face. "What are you cooking for me, huh?!" "Do you want me to die eating this poisoned food that you cook?!" Claudia shouted to me and before I could do anything she grabbed my hair tightly and pulled me up.
She forcedly opened my mouth using her left hand and shoved a full spoon of the food that I cook this evening. I choked and spilled the food on the counter. She strangled my neck and slaps multiple times, pushing me straight to the counter causing me to fall on the floor. Blood began to flow from the nose and the head due to banging on the counter in the kitchen.
"Do you think you could live happily with your father when I died because I ate that poisonous food you cooked?! HELL NO!" She stepped angrily on my leg, my stomach, my hands while I keep on begging her to stop. Not enough with stepping on me, she took my father's golf stick and hit my body and legs many times.
"Please, stop... Mom Claudia, please stop..." I cover my face with my hands from getting hit with the stick while begging to stop
"Please, I'm sorry... I swear there's no poison in it..." "Please, stop hitting me... It's hurt,"
"Hurt? Come here," She pulled me up by grabbing a full hand of my hair "Mom Claudia, it hurts! Mom, it is painful!"
"You and your bad attitude!" Claudia released a painful slap on my cheek and mouth. "How dare you cooked that kind of food to me?"
"Why don't you just leave with your mother? Or better much, die?" She continued to shout in front of my face, "Mom Claudia, please..." I put my hands together, begging to spare me this time
"Having you here just gonna give me and your father problems!!" Claudia's protruding my forehead using her index finger really hard "I pray so hard that you will die soon!" She shakes my head by grabbing my head from both sides
"It hurts, mom." I put my hands on hers, trying to stop her from doing so but my energy keeps getting low due to no rest since the morning.
"Mama! Help me!" I yelped for help even though I know that my mother wouldn't come. Hearing I called my mom, Claudia pushed my head, "Yell for your mother! So, she can come and take you back with her... Maybe much better take you to your grave!" She smacks my head causing me to bump with the sink.
"Listen here, Bridget! If you still try to poison me and haven't learned your lesson, you will be dead!" With energy at maximum, Claudia protruded my head once again. "Please, mom Claudia. I'm begging you, please have mercy on me..." With blood flow nonstop from my nose, chin, and forehead, I keep on begging with my hands tightly hold each other.
"You are lucky there is no boiling water, or else I would have poured it on you! So, that your face will become disfigured!" She grabbed my mouth with full force, shocking me before pushing me back to the sink.
Before I could reply or say anything, she grabbed my chin with her right hand while her left hand pulled my hair, "You rotten... How dare you poisoned me, not enough you humiliate me in front of my friends the other day!"
"Mom, stop... Please," "I'm so pissed with me!"
Just when I thought it's done, my stepmom comes back and grasp my neck. "Hey!" "Mom Claudia. Enough."
"Do you think I will feel sorry for you? The pain you are feeling can't even be compared to the shame I have received from my friends the other day. My best friend has criticized me! She has insulted me! And it's all because of your attitude!" She threw me with all his heart until I collided with the sink. Despite that, I still begging her to stop because it's already hurt enough.
She pushed me to the sink once again and this time, I fall to the floor with tears flowing down my eyes. "Stop wailing." She crouches down to me, slapping my right cheek "Your rotten heart is enough. No need to tell the whole neighborhood that I abuse and torture you." I cry without trying to make any noise while looking at my stepmom angry face
"If you act or do something like that again, you will get it!" She smacked, slapped my head and face, "It hurts, mom"
Kring~ Krringg~ Kringg~
Claudia walked away from the kitchen to the living room where we placed the home phone. She's leaving me alone in the kitchen, full of blood and wounds all around my body including my face.
[Mama... I don't want to cry anymore. But I can't take it. I am hurt... My physical and emotional were hurt badly.] I monologue in my heart,
"Hey!" I wiped my tears before looking up to my stepmom across the counter, "Your father said he couldn't make it to come back home... So, it just two of us until tomorrow!" She informed before went upstairs
[Why are dad and his wife doing this to me, Mama? I am not strong.]
I keep on talking in my heart, letting everything out as tears nonstop fall from my eyes and blood flow from the wounds on my face.
Just when I think it's enough already, I gripped the rim of the porcelain sink and tried to stand up by steady my hands on the sink. "One more last time... You can do this, Bridget," I whispered to myself making sure that I steady enough to walk upstairs.
I tried to take one step by step but as I step for the third, my vision becomes blurry. I close my eyes tightly while breathed in and out but when I open my eyes back, a pitched black vision started to be seen, and before I knew I started to fall back and pass out.
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I remember waking up in a brightly lit room. My eyes were starting to get hurt as the light straight into my eyes as soon as I opened it. As I started to get used to the light, slowly I try to sit upon the bed that I had been laying on.
Wandering around the room, I recognized it as one of the rooms in the hospital. But how? I don't remember that I went to the hospital the other day. What I could remember was that my vision was blurry and I passed out at the spot.
"Bree!" My eyes dart to the door of the room, revealing my childhood friend named Mason.
"Thank goodness you're safe, Bree! You're in critical condition yesterday. The doctor who examined you said your blood pressure is low." He sat at the chair beside me as he held onto me while staring at me with worried eyes.
"If you're taken to the hospital a little bit too late, the possibility for you to die is higher. Only God knows how I felt then." He continued with teary eyes
"You safe me?" I asked, looking at him straight into the eyes. He nodded his head while stroking slowly my head that had been bandaged
"Bu- But how? The door was locked, and–" "Your butler, Mister Harrison? After he sent your stepmom to her workplace, he came home just to find you on the floor inside the kitchen unconsciously."
"Thanks, Mason" "You know I willing to do anything for you, right?" He answered cause a small smile on my face.
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It's been two weeks already and today is the day that I discharge from the hospital. My dad's security comes to bring me back home. As soon as I arrived, I went straight into my bedroom and locked it. But before that, I reminded myself to take the spare key from my bedroom just in case they want to abuse and torture me cause the police came to the hospital two days ago. Why? Because one of the doctors who come to check me up called the police and make a report about child abuse cause my wounds and scars all prove that it's from the abuse and torture that I got.
Just what I had thought, my dad came home in a bad mood. He knocked on my door like he wanted to break it.
"Bridget! You better open this door! Or I'll break it!" The loud knocking was disturbing me and it scared me when I immediately imagine that it will get much worse if I opened the door.
[ I need to get out of this house. IMMEDIATELY!]
I rushed to my closet and packed all the clothes I could fit in my backpack. I went to my dressing table and take my phone and other essentials for me before putting them in the other small backpack. Leaving a few spaces to put on my three sneakers and slowly opened the window. I jumped carefully not to hurt myself from the window and as I land on the ground safely, I run as quickly as light to Mason's house.
That day was the day where I promised to become stronger so that I can approve to my dad and stepmom that I'm stronger than they could ever think and I'm not vulnerable anymore.
No pain, no gain.