Affects of Abuse

She looked at herself in the mirror blood on her face and what would most likely be a black eye. She couldn't help but to wonder how she got there. She remembered the first time that she sow her mothers face the same way. It must have been happening for a long time before she sow it, she realized. She toke a deep breath and did the only thing that she knew to do, she cleaned up. She cleaned her face up, and got herself together. She went out into the living room and realized how much her life had become just like her childhood. The life that she swore that she never would have, the life that she promised herself she would never let happen. But somehow it had become the one thing that she never wanted, the one thing that she knew maybe. And just like when she was her a child she cleaned up so that she could go to sleep and wake up like it never happened. She went to sleep telling herself that she just needed to not make him so mad, she just needed to change and be better.

She made breakfast the next morning, hoping that it be okay if she just could be better. He woke up and at first just sat down to eat breakfast.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes, I'll be fine. A little bruise but I should be able to cover it."

"I'm sorry, I really am I hope that you know that."

"I know."

"You just make me so mad."

"I know, I know it is all my fault. I'm going to do better."

She said it and wanted to believe it, she wanted to know that she just had to be better and it would all be okay. So she did the one thing that always made her feel better, she went to visit her mother's grave. She sat there for a while trying to make it seem like she was okay. But she kept thinking about all the times that she sow her father hit her mother, about the night that he hit her to death. All the pain that she went through. Somehow she ended up in such a similar position she realized. And she really didn't know how she got there or what she was going to do. She felt so alone, like she had no one to talk to, no one that would really be able to understand. The only one that she could count on was herself. She just had to do better, right? Or maybe not?

A week went by and it seemed like everything was going to be okay. Then one night he didn't come home and she had an idea what that meant. He woke her up at 2 am, drunk of course. Saying something about a snack. When she asked him what he was talking about he got mad at her for talking back to him. This time when he hit her, she knew that she didn't deserve it. She hadn't done anything to him to deserve this. There was some blood, but this time he brusied her ribs, easier to cover at least. So that was something. This time he didn't say that he was sorry. She knew that it was that moment that everything changed. This was her life now, was she okay with that? Why couldn't she know that she deserved better than that.

The next day she toke a pregnancy test and to her shock and horror it was positive. She sat on the floor and cried. What was she going to do? Was she really going to do the same thing as her mother and bring a baby into this mess? She knew that she didn't deserve the abuse that she was now seeing. So that night she tested the waters.

"We can't keep doing this, this cycle that we are on."

"You just need to stop making me so angry."

"What is going to happen when we have kids or something? We can't keep this going. I don't want to leave, but..."

"Leave? Who said anything about leaving? You can't ever leave me."

"I don't mean that, I don't want to."

"No, you can't. You try to leave me I will hut you down. You will never escape me."

He said it as he squeezed her arm. She wasn't sure what to say so she just nodded. She knew in that moment what she had to do, she had to find a way to escape.

It toke her a week to really plan what to do, to plan to leave. He still was going to work, but his friend lived right next door and would tell him anything that she did. The only time that she was alone was when she went to visit her mothers grave. For a two weeks every other day she would go to the grave and bring some thing with her a little at a time, as to not draw attention to herself. And it seemed to work. Then it was the day. She told him that she was going to the grave and would be back. She went to the grave and got the things she had left there and said goodbye. She went to the bank and toke all the money out of their account. And went to the train station. She got on the first train that was coming, which toke her to a bigger station. She toke the first bus that was going the furthest. When the train got out of the city limits she knew that she was in the clear. She felt herself breath a deep sigh of relief. She put her hands on her belly and knew that it was going to be okay. She was finally free, she had broken the cycle. Just in time