A flash of black caught my eye, and I flinched toward it. My bike careened up the steep embankment before hurtling toward me. I didn’t even have a chance to move. Its heavy weight clamped down on my arm and snatched my fingers into the burning hot engine.
I screamed. It was a feral, unchecked sound that tore out of my throat before the blinding agony cut off my senses, and I was left panting on the road.
There were no sounds around me. The motorcycle engine cut off after the crash and all that remained was an eerie hush. The skin on my elbows and left hip burned from the way I’d landed. My clothes must have been torn. I could feel a cool breeze stinging my grazes.
I lay like a helpless starfish on the road. My arm was trapped, and I was too afraid to move in case I’d broken something. I didn’t even want to lift the visor on my helmet.
A hawk swooped above me, gliding on the wind currents and then disappearing into the ever-brightening sky. All I could do was lay there, caught in an unfathomable nightmare…and like some sick joke, the only thing I could think about was damn Jimmy Baker and the way his photograph warped and faded as I tried to let him go.
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Excerpt From
I am Free
by Regina Bartley
Prologue
Grace- Fifteen Years Old
My faith was the reason I kept from killing my father. His fists were heavy, and served their purpose. They were forceful, and though my mother witnessed, she never said a cross word or any word in my defense. I sometimes doubted her love for me. She was just scared, I told myself. She knew that if she spoke up, that her punishment would be far worse than mine, at least that was the excuse that I told myself. The one I repeated over and over to cover up her unexplainable parenting skills. Hidden behind that apron was a woman that was just as frightened as me, but despite it all she still loved him.
And somewhere deep down inside, I despised her for it.
From the moment I was old enough to remember, I wanted to run away. Not because I hated my life. Not because I hated my Mother or my older brother Thomas. I had love for them, somewhere hidden, no matter how hollow they were inside. I loved my home, and our farm, the entirety of it all. Our way of life was different, but I never dreamed of anything more. The only reason that I ever wanted to leave was because of him. My father.
The summer after my fifteenth birthday I almost did it. If I could have walked or talked after his beating then I would have.
Early morning sunrises in Oklahoma were picture perfect, and that morning was no different. I made sure to be up extra early. As in before the rooster crowed. I knew it was going to be a hot one, and I had one hour before I had to begin my chores. Never once had I considered defying my father, but I wanted to go swimming and he’d said no. He always said no. Girls weren’t supposed to wear suits that bared their skin for anyone to see. It was preposterous, and quite surely the biggest sin. I was allowed to wade in the water but had to wear my skirt. There was absolutely no fun in that.
I knew the risk when I snuck down to the pond that morning, but thought I’d never get caught. I was extra quiet and was sure that I’d covered all of my tracks. Ducking low behind the shed, and making sure to walk along the far side of the tree line so that I wouldn’t stir up the animals. My father never went down to the pond. It was too far of a hike for his bad leg.
I had it all figured out. I would not get my hair wet, and I would leave my dry clothes on the dock so that I could put them on once I was done. The plan seemed flawless, but what I didn’t suspect was someone else catching me. The pond backed up to the Turner farm, and Katie Turner and I had never gotten along. She was a snobby piece of work who hated me with a passion. I never understood why, but it only made me dislike her worse. Her, and her beautiful tan legs that she showed off every chance she got. She never gave me a chance to be her friend, never tried to like me. She made fun of me and made sure to make my life a living hell.
Splashing around in the water, I hadn’t heard her sneak up to the dock. I was too busy relishing in my morning of fun. I was unaware of her cruel intentions.
She’d taken my dry clothes and ran home with them. Leaving me with nothing. I’d try to call after her, but was too late. The only clothing covering my skin was my bra, a white tank top, and my underwear. My father was going to kill me. I knew that he was.
We weren’t really the religious type of family. I mean we believed in God, but we didn’t go to church. Dad said that the only organized religion that we needed was prayer before supper. My dad had his own set of rules for us to follow. He was a strict man, and he firmly believed that a woman’s body was not to be tampered with or to be seen by the eyes of anyone other than her husband. We wore long skirts and collared shirts. We were allowed to wear short sleeves if the weather was hot, but only then. We never wore makeup or did anything to make ourselves appear older. It was unheard of. I never cared much about those rules. I followed them, because I had to. I never complained, at least not to my father’s face. It was all I had ever known.
But sometimes he went overboard, and this was one of those times.
I crept back to the house knowing full well that anyone who would see me would be able to see right through the clothes I was wearing. I had no choice. I had to get back.
The bottom of my long blond hair was dripping wear the ends had touched water. My hands could only cover so much, and when I stepped up to the back door my father was awake and staring at me through the screen with cold eyes.
“Shed now!” he demanded.
His stare alone was enough to scare me, but that voice. It haunted my dreams.
My head hung low as I tiptoed on the dry ground all the way to the shed. I could feel his eyes burning into me from behind all though I couldn’t see them. The aluminum door made a creaking nose as it opened, and a loud banging noise when it slammed shut.
“You have defied me child, and you’ll take your punishment.” The sweat dripped from the creases in his forehead and the whites of his eyes were devil red.
“I’m sorry,” I started to say with a shaky voice.
“Don’t speak!” He yelled. “Your body is not to be seen, and I will make sure that you never want to show it again.”
I started to sink to my knees in fear, but he screamed for me to stand up straighter.
Many times I had taken a beaten from my father, but never was he this mad. Never had he looked at me with such disgust. I feared for my life, as I stood there barefoot on the hard ground.
He grabbed the first tool he could find hanging on the wall. The rake. He twisted it around so that the metal end was in his hands and the wooden handle was sticking out into the air as if he were holding a bat. “Turn around.” He ordered.
I knew what he was about to do, but in my mind I had hoped that he wouldn’t be too hard on me.
I was wrong.
The first hit to the back of my legs took me to the ground. It completely knocked me off of my feet, and though I screamed it did no good. I was barely able to catch my breath.
“Stand up!” He yelled again, and I did as I was asked. Defying him would only make it worse.
I knew when the next hit was coming because I could hear the whoosh of air as he swung the rake towards my body.
Over and over, he hit me.
The pain was so bad that I blacked out a couple of times. But the next swing would make me conscious again.
I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t move. My body was glued face down into the dirt floor of the shed. Sobs racked my body, and I shook so much that my shoulders banged against the floor.
No one came. Not my mother or my brother.
I never tried to fight back or get up because it wouldn’t have done any good. There was no way I could even walk. The bones in my legs from my knees down felt like they were shattered. I knew they weren’t, but it felt like it.
When he was finally out of breath the beating stopped. I thought it was over. Usually when he was wore out; he would break something and slam the door on his way out.
I was wrong again.
Just when I thought it was over, I felt cold sticks just below my neck. Then pressure. The metal end of the rake was being dug into my skin, full force. He scraped the tips from my shoulder blades to my butt bone. What little clothing I was wearing tore into shreds around me, and I tried to cry out. I tried. The sound was mute though. It never left my body, but shrilled in my brain.
The warm wetness of blood covered my back. I could feel it leaking down my sides. There was a slam of the door, but that was the last thing I remembered when the darkness took over.
My back must have quit bleeding at some point, because when I woke up and moved mere inches it felt dried and scabbed. Like my back was one big sore. I had lain there for hours I assumed, because my legs wouldn’t move. My brain knew that they needed to, but my body wouldn’t listen.
Finally sometime in the night my mother showed up with some aspirins and a glass of water. My father had gone to bed so she came to get me. She helped me too my feet and then to my bed, which took us forever. She didn’t ask if I needed a doctor, because that was out of the question. She barely even looked at me. Probably for fear that she might actually feel an ounce of guilt for leaving me lying there in that condition all day. I could’ve been dead and no one would have known, or cared.
Once I learned that I could walk on my aching legs, I knew that nothing was broken. But it may has well have been. It hurt just the same, and if nothing else, my heart was.
My heart was broken, and what little thread of love I had for my father was gone completely. I’d never care for that man again, no matter what.
The evil man that called himself my father would never be. He would always be a monster in my eyes. He could never live up to those words, and I hoped that one day he would meet his match. That someone would teach him a lesson that he’d never forget.
When my mother waited for me to put my legs up onto my bed, she finally looked at me but only because I made her. I glared so deep at her eyes that they were forced to look in my direction.
She said, “You can take tomorrow off from chores since you’re sick.” Then she walked out my door.
That was it. I could have one lousy day off from chores.
Yippy.
There was no remorse or love, only one smart remark. She wouldn’t even offer to help me clean up.
I would’ve liked to have said screw you, but I didn’t have the energy or the will power.
That was the night that I realized that she was just as heartless as he was, and I vowed that I would leave that place as soon as I turned eighteen. All the times that I wanted to runaway never compared to this one. Soon it would be real. I would get out of this mess of a life, and never look back.
And that was what I did.
The Road That Leads to Us Page 30