Despite what I knew about this man, I had zero fear of him. He wasn’t good. He wasn’t someone you drop your kids off with and he wasn’t someone you trusted, especially with your daughter. He was a crook, just like my dad, and maybe that’s what drew me to him. Maybe that’s why I had some sort of weird twisted trust in him. He was a bad boy with a scar down his face and was built in a way that intimidated those around him. He didn’t back down from anything. He was estranged from his family because even they could see that having him around was unhealthy. But I saw him differently. He was kind to me. He didn’t treat me like a child, and I felt oddly protected when I was with him. He was close to ten years older than I, but our strange friendship brought us to the same level. We had completely normal conversations and laughed like old friends. When he took me out of school for lunch, we’d go straight to lunch, enjoy the hour or so, and then he’d take me right back. Nothing more. We were friends.
In addition to sending this man to pick me up from school and take me to lunch on several occasions, my dad also started filling my purse with little blue pills. He would hand them over to me by the handful. They were given to help me with anxiety—which I didn’t even have. My dad created imaginary anxiety in my life and prescribed Xanax as the fix. He was suddenly my doctor and pharmacist. He told me I could take one whenever I wanted or needed it. He said it would make me less nervous and less stressed. I was not either of the two but took the pills anyway. I just believed him. I believed that he knew what was best for me and that somehow taking these pills would make me better or make my life easier to deal with. I don’t know where they came from or why he felt the need to give them to me but I took them, often. They would put me into a mild coma on a daily basis, and my grades began to suffer along with my friendships. He had convinced me that I needed the meds and that they would help, but, like everything else he touched, they made me sick and dependent.
The day that my dad sent his friend to pick me up after school, I should have gotten out of the car and asked someone else for a ride home. Instead, I closed the door and watched him put the car in first gear. It was more important to get to the lake than it was to do the right thing. In the back of my head I wondered how mad my mom was going to be when she found out this man had driven me to the lake. The need to get to the lake outweighed the fear of her anger. I reached in my purse and grabbed a little blue pill, knowing it would make me not care.
The hour drive was completely uneventful. We were friends and joked and talked like we were in the same grade at school and had known each other forever. Despite what everyone thought about him and the kind of man I knew he truly was, I liked him. We had a comfortable friendship that never crossed any inappropriate line. I was neither impressed by him nor put off by him. He was a friend, and even though from the outside looking in it may have seemed alarming, it wasn’t. I knew he was a criminal, but that lifestyle had always been a part of my life. It wasn’t strange to me; it was normal. I had already learned the ins and outs of it: I knew what I could ask and what I couldn’t; I knew when to act like an adult and when to be a kid. I was wise beyond my years. My dad took me to a bar for the first time when I was thirteen years old. It was on a school night but that didn’t matter. It would be the first of many nights that I would sit in a booth at a bar and watch my dad get drunk. Then I’d get in the passenger seat of his car, too young to drive myself, and go home in time to get ready for school. There was a bar right off the highway called The Horned Toad. It was attached to a hotel and had become a hot spot for my dad. I don’t know why he took me with him instead of letting me sleep. Maybe I was bait because the women in the bar flocked to me. While I sipped my Dr Pepper, they sat next to me and giggled at how cute I was. I was wise beyond their years, and I knew their game even when they didn’t. I knew buttering me up was an easy way to get to my dad, who was always the most handsome guy in the room and who they thought had a loaded bank account. I played along because it was nicer than laughing in their faces.
While sitting in that dingy bar, I wondered if I was like them in God’s eyes. Did he consider us the same? Did he know their names and not mine, or did he not know any of us? If there was a God, as I had heard so many people say there was, why was he putting me in the corner booth of that bar? I strained to hear God’s voice over the loud lounge band but only heard the laugh of Satan reminding me that I was his.
As my dad’s friend and I pulled into an empty spot in the yard of the lake house I could see my family smile at our arrival. The windows were tinted, and they only knew who was there because of the car; they didn’t yet know who held the keys. They assumed my dad and I would emerge from the car. I soaked the scene in before the car stopped. My aunts, uncles, and cousins were sprawled out over the property. Some were in lawn chairs and some were on the porch, some were in the boat and some were swimming in the lake. I wanted to make a mad dash to the bedroom upstairs so I could change into my bathing suit and jump in the perfectly smooth water. I wanted to be dripping with lake water all weekend long and get so kissed by the sun it would hurt to sleep. The lake has always been my favorite place to be. It’s carefree, and time moves so slowly that the days seem to last forever.
I only made it a few steps from the car when a few of my aunts and uncles realized whom I was with.
“What’s he doing here?”
“Dad told him to bring me.”
“He can’t stay here.”
My trip to the lake didn’t last as long as I thought it would. Everything in me wanted to stay, and the part of me that made good decisions begged the other part of me not to get back in the car. But he insisted I stay with him like my dad had said, and against my better judgment I got back in the passenger seat and shut the door. I sat in silence while secretly wishing someone on the other side would open it up and demand that I get out. I waited for someone to open that door and grab me.
He started the car, put it in drive, and drove out of the driveway. I turned and watched out the back window as the lake got smaller and smaller and then was completely out of sight.
It’s not their fault.
I was a hard teenager to deal with. I thought I was smarter than everyone else, and I did what I wanted regardless of the consequences I was sure would follow. The adults looking back at me through the rear window were probably exhausted by me at this point. They didn’t have the fight in them that they knew I had in me. It was easier to just let me do what I wanted.
As we drove off, he was laughing at my family because he had won. The prize was sitting next to him, and he was driving away with it. The pit of my stomach ached, not out of fear of him but out of fear for the trouble I was going to be in. If I had stayed I would have been in trouble with my dad, but I knew that leaving meant I would be in trouble with everyone else in my life. As usual, my need to gain approval from my dad outweighed everything else. It was my choice to get back in the car, but it was my dad’s fault I was there in the first place. Not a single other person was to blame for where I was that day.
Halfway back home we pulled into the only gas station on the highway. He grabbed a few quarters and headed to the pay phone to place our dinner order at my favorite Chinese restaurant. He made a few more phone calls, but none were to my dad letting him know what had happened. For the time being, he was going to keep it a secret, delaying whatever ramifications we each would face.
We picked up our to-go order and headed to his apartment. The sun had already tucked itself in for the night, and by the time we reached his doorstep the only light was from the moon and the streetlight on the corner. I could see the door to my high school from his front porch and tried to wish myself back into the desk seat I had been so desperate to escape only hours before. I wasn’t scared of being alone with him; I still had absolutely no fear of him. But I ached for my family and to be one of the normal ones diving into the fresh lake water. I knew I was in trouble for leaving, and I didn’t want to face any of it.
We sat down across from each other at his b
lack-lacquer, glass-top table and made small talk while we ate our meals. By the time we finished it was late, and neither of us wanted to do anything but sleep. He offered his bed and I accepted, thinking he would take the couch. I crawled on top of the blanket and tried to get comfortable. He lay down on the other side, skipping the couch altogether. It didn’t bother me; he never gave me cause for concern. I felt no fear or discomfort. I was tired and just wanted to sleep off the entire day and somehow prepare myself for what I would face the next. I turned my back toward him and shut my eyes, hoping to fall into a deep sleep.
I felt safe and comfortable and could have easily fallen asleep, right up to the moment when his warm, strong hand gripped the back of my neck. In that moment I was unable to move, completely consumed with fear. For the first time since becoming friends with him, he disrespected me and treated me like nothing more than a piece of trash. He spent the next several minutes sinning against me as I lay paralyzed with fear. I didn’t fight or scream. I didn’t say no or yell for him to stop. I froze and wondered what kind of trouble I was truly in.
There was no violence and there was no affection. When it was over he pulled the blanket out from under me like a magician pulling the tablecloth out from under a perfectly set table. His silence was deafening, and I wondered if he could hear the vibrations of my shaking body. He tossed the blanket in the laundry room and flopped back down on the bed beside me. Without a single word he fell asleep. For the second time that night I turned my body away from him, but this time was out of fear. I could hear his heavy breathing, in and out, while I lay there staring at the wall, completely devastated at what he had just done to me. My body felt no pain, but my soul had just been destroyed.
The phone began ringing before the sun made its appearance, and I knew it was my dad looking for me. I felt a nudge on my back.
“Get out of here.”
I had been lying in the same position for hours waiting for this man to give me permission to leave. I quietly got out of bed, grabbed the keys to the car, and left his apartment. My heart was racing, and I did my best not to leave skid marks in the parking lot from driving out of the complex as quickly as I could. I was more scared in that moment than I was when I felt his hand on the back of my neck. I knew I was in trouble for putting myself in that position. I should have stayed at the lake with my family. I had made an extremely poor decision that cost me more than I had ever bargained for. My mom would be crushed. This would kill her. My brother would kill him, not backing down, like the day he pointed the gun at our dad. I feared they would all disown me for being so stupid and now so dirty.
The only place I knew to go was my friend’s house. She knew me well and accepted me despite it. By the time I reached her front door I had made my mind up. I would lie. I was good at lying. I had learned from the best. What had happened behind the door of the apartment would stay locked inside me forever.
When she opened the door and let me in I could hear her phone ringing.
“It’s your dad.”
I didn’t even say hello. I picked up the receiver, and by the time it reached my ear I could hear him yelling. He demanded I meet him immediately. I had no idea what he knew. The actions of his best friend the night before had everything in me completely twisted.
I pulled into the parking lot of our favorite fast-food BBQ restaurant. The complex right behind it was where my mom had lived in a one-bedroom apartment many years before. I wondered how differently things would have turned out if my brother and I had made the choice to live with her. My stomach had never hurt this way before. I was gagging from extreme nausea and wanted to vomit. My neck throbbed with each beat of my heart. I wanted nothing more than to sit there and sob. Instead, I sat up straight and took a deep breath. I slowly got out of my car, moving as though I was caught in quicksand, and reluctantly got into the passenger side of the car my dad was driving.
There were only two sentences spoken in that car.
“If you ever tell your mother what happened, I will make your life a living hell. Get out.”
I was speechless. I had thought I was going to get into trouble for leaving the lake and for what had happened the night before. I had thought my dad would be hurt and sad for me and worried about my well-being. But in just two sentences he let me know his true feelings. He was more concerned with my mom finding out and getting into trouble himself than he was about me.
His words were completely unnecessary. He had already made my life a living hell. How much more damage could he do than what he had done? He put that man in my life. He made me trust him. He had him pick me up from school and told me to go with him over and over. He had filled my purse with little blue pills to make me more easygoing. Maybe choosing to leave the lake was my fault, but my dad made the choice to hand me over to this man as if I was nothing more than a piece of garbage. I was the child and he was the parent. He was supposed to protect me from this kind of evil, not feed me to it. I exited my dad’s car a completely different person from when I got in. The fight was on. I left the sad little girl behind and got back in my car an angry woman. Fear of breaking my mother’s heart kept me silent. Fear of my dad making good on his words kept me from telling the truth about the details of that night. The voices in my head were different from the one now coming out of my mouth. Lying became easier, almost habitual. I began to enjoy self-destruction and was proud of the fact that I was rougher than most girls. I still longed for my dad to save the day, but I was coming to terms with the fact that he was the one I needed saving from.
I lived my life in fear of being found out. I told only a very few people in my little world. I didn’t understand that it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t understand that at the age of sixteen and in the situation my dad had placed me, I wasn’t capable of making the right choice or giving consent. I was a child. My dad’s friend was an adult. He made an adult decision that night that I wasn’t capable of making or fighting. But fear kept me quiet. I was terrified of others learning the truth. I feared being in trouble. I feared hurting anyone who loved me. I feared looking dirty. I feared my dad hating me. I feared his friend’s wrath. So I stayed quiet, at least on the outside. On the inside, however, everything was loud and clear. I singlehandedly destroyed every male relationship I had from that point on. I didn’t want the men in my life to know I wasn’t good enough for them, so I would, at all cost, tear down every relationship that had even a hint of getting close enough to see the truth.
five
Invisible Girl
It had been a year since my dad sat in his car and verbally confirmed that I held very little worth in his eyes. His last words to me face-to-face still burned a hole in my heart. Behind my smile and humor I hid a very dark secret. Faking things had become easy, and being part of the cheerleading squad gave me an outlet to pretend to be something I wasn’t.
I blended in. I tied my hair up into a ponytail and clipped on a bright red-and-white bow and instantly became one of them. Add a uniform and a little makeup and you almost couldn’t tell us apart. I worked hard to be the loudest and the best because I could no longer stand defeat. When I watched one of the other girls accomplish a goal, I planned how I would top it. They were all kind and good, so I pretended to be too.
Our school was built on traditions. I attended the same high school my parents had attended and held the same position as cheerleader that my mom had. On the surface I was following in her footsteps, but deep down I was dark and she was light. When I dug through pictures and found her in her cheer uniform with the same patch on her jacket that I had on mine, her smile jumped right off the photo and lit up the room. So I practiced her smile in hopes that I would light up the room the same way she had at my age. I hid behind her smile, and it worked. She was my biggest fan. She sat in the stands and cheered the loudest at every event. She stood up for me and supported me even when I was in the wrong. I secretly wished I was more like her and less like me.
My bright red uniform and big bow made me f
eel like I fit somewhere. When people looked at me, they saw me the same way they saw the other girls. Fitting in made me feel like my deep wounds were invisible. I learned to love it. I was happy when I was with my cheerleading team. They made me feel accepted and normal.
My favorite tradition was packing up one of the girl’s family vans and driving several hours to attend cheer camp each summer. We stuffed our matching duffel bags full of coordinating uniforms, shirts, shorts, and bows. Each of us had a personalized pillowcase, and we took bags and bags of snacks to last us all week. It always felt like a big vacation to me. I knew we had hard work and sweaty days ahead, but it was a break from our daily routines with only one thing to think about—winning cheer camp.
We put in hard work each year, and each year we came home with a trophy. I absolutely loved the feeling of winning and being a team and working together.
While we worked hard at camp, we found ways to play even harder. As teenagers, it was equally as important to goof off as it was to win, and we were good at goofing off. We spent almost an hour every day of camp completely abandoning any responsibility and just acting like kids. Two of my closest girlfriends and I would pack ourselves onto a small twin bed during lunch break and sing songs together like we were a trio in a concert. We would put our tongues on the roof of our mouths and sing Reba McEntire’s “The Greatest Man I Never Knew” in our goofiest voices and laugh until tears filled our eyes. They were my girls, my go-to people, with whom I could either tell jokes until we couldn’t breathe from laughter or cry until our makeup ran onto our shirts. They knew my broken pieces and wide-open cracks, but they stayed and made the best of wherever we were.
Another tradition rooted deep in our school was the Spring Show. Our entire spirit team would gather for two evenings and perform for our friends and family. It was a rite of passage for all of us and something we looked forward to the moment we entered high school. The dance team prepared their best routines and the cheerleaders performed their toughest stunts. It was a night of showing off our greatest accomplishments from the year and cheering on each other’s victories. Every participant anticipated the event with excitement all year long. Everyone except me.
The Con Man's Daughter Page 5