The only person I hated

I stayed up late at the computer, accidentally came to this site, read other people’s stories and, for some reason, wanted to share mine. I can’t talk about it with people I know, and sometimes it’s easier to tell the most personal things to strangers than to family and friends. I don’t want to be pitied or asked for advice, everything I want to tell about has happened and was there long ago, I just hope that my confession can help and support someone who is in the same situation as I was once. This story is about the one person in the world I hated and the one person I wished dead.

My parents divorced when I was 10 years old because my father was drinking. My mother herself is from Belarus, relatives are all far away, I don’t know how she decided to do it, but one day she took me, the most necessary things for the first time, rented an apartment and we left. She worked as a receptionist in a restaurant, often worked night shifts, and then I slept over at my grandmother and father’s place. Mom and Grandma maintained a wonderful family relationship, Mom called Grandma Mom, and I just adored her.

My parents divorced when I was 10 years old because my father was drinking. My mother herself is from Belarus, relatives are all far away, I don’t know how she decided to do it, but one day she took me, the most necessary things for the first time, rented an apartment and we left. She worked as a receptionist in a restaurant, often worked night shifts, and then I slept over at my grandmother and father’s place. Mom and Grandma maintained a wonderful family relationship, Mom called Grandma Mom, and I just adored her.

The next two years were the most carefree of my life. Dad soon went to work in another city, and there was peace and tranquility at home. My mother was looked after by different men, but I didn’t like all of them, for some reason, and my mother was alone for 2 years.

When I was 12, my mother and I were going on vacation to the sea, and on the train we met my future stepfather. I liked him immediately: he was funny, kind, interesting, told a lot of funny stories. They exchanged phone numbers, met several times on vacation (he was there for work), and when we returned home, he called and said he missed me and would come. And he came. And stayed for six years.

At first, everything that was going on seemed like a fairy tale to us. He told us that he had a huge house in another city, half an hour away from the sea, a grown-up daughter from his first marriage (he was 15 years older than my mother), his own business, which brought in a very good income, a huge Korshun parrot, and it would all soon be ours to share. We believed, we really wanted to believe.

The first few days he and I went shopping together and bought me a bunch of clothes and my mom a ring. He called me Baby. I really wanted to be his baby. After a month of this beautiful life, we started going to visit him. He was away at work for a couple of days and was supposed to pick us up on Friday night. We packed our bags, but he didn’t come on Friday, and neither did Saturday, and Sunday. His cell phone didn’t answer. Mom cried and calmed down. We started to live like before, but he came two weeks later. He said that he was having problems at work, and Lena (the daughter) was doing some repairs at the house, so the trip was delayed.

The first quarrel occurred about two weeks later, I don’t even remember what it was about, something I said that he didn’t like. He said that I was ungrateful and he would leave us. My mother made me apologize, without really understanding why. We somehow made up. And then it went on and on. I never thought a man could be so duplicitous. When guests came over, we had the perfect family, we took pictures, we laughed, we played crocodile… When he came, he always brought 2 bouquets of flowers: gorgeous roses for mom, and some tulips or orchids for me. He brought my mother rings, chains, pendants (we laughed that my mother had twice as few fingers than rings), and me, too, a pendant, earrings, or a hand bracelet. Naturally, he insisted that Mom quit her job. He bought a refrigerator, a huge TV set, a VCR, and a cell phone for us (and this was the year 2000!). He was the heart and soul of the party. My mother’s friends envied me, my aunt wept with happiness: at last her sister was lucky, and the man was great, and her daughter adored her, and there was money, he did not drink, he did not use foul language…

When it was just the three of us, everything changed. He was a tyrant, and we were two sheep. I was constantly listening to insults against me (shut your mouth, you belong near the toilet; you’re growing up to be as fucked up as your dad; you’re a worm that I don’t even care to kick…) these were just everyday little things. When I snapped, he told me he was leaving us, made me take off everything he bought, even my underpants, and made me put all the things from the closet into a bag, saying: better to let the kids at the orphanage wear them than a schmuck like you. My mother kept quiet and made me apologize. She loved him fanatically somehow. I was afraid to say a word, he could pick on any little thing, I could sniff my nose and he would yell that I was a snot-nosed asshole and no one would ever love me (I’m not exaggerating).

I begged my mother to divorce him (they were already married at that time), but she said that all the problems were because of me. My relatives didn’t want to hear it either. When we went to Minsk, we were the perfect family, everyone thought it was just childish jealousy. He, of course, forbade me to see my grandmother (my dad’s mom), but since he often went away, there was no problem, I went to see her very often. Until she fell and broke her arm. She called and asked me to come help, and he was home. I went, spent the day with her, and when I came back, there was one of the grandest scandals, my mom sobbing, him insulting me and my in-laws. He leaves, my mother tries to throw herself out the window, I go through the worst seconds, while I think he didn’t have time to pull her off the window sill, hysterical. I pack my things again and stay in my old pajamas, which my mother bought me, wondering what to wear to school tomorrow.

God, I was so afraid of him! I caught every change in his mood, went to the library after school and studied my homework there, so as not to provoke a scandal. It’s so awful when all your friends go home, and you think you’re ready to go anywhere but home.

When I was about 13 years old, I noticed that he would try to “accidentally” go into the bathroom when I was bathing. Then his touch when my mother was in the kitchen frying pancakes. No, he didn’t hit me or rape me. He was just humiliating me, breaking me down, trying to touch me between my legs… I was so afraid of him, I didn’t know how to behave and I would just freeze and wait for him to cum, often pretending to be asleep, but he knew very well that I was awake. I don’t want to go into details, I’ll just say the following: Two or three years were my personal hell. I hated him so much that there were times when he yelled at me, my head was pounding and my eyes were red in the face, so I physically felt the hatred. As he ate, I looked at him and thought to myself: “Please choke on it, it happens, please choke on it, I beg you.” When he was asleep, I begged him not to wake up. I asked God to kill him. Is there a worse sin? I don’t know, there probably is. I hatched plans to kill him, I thought, “I’m 14, I’ll tell him he raped me, I’ll defend myself, I’ll cry and they won’t give me much.” God, thank God I didn’t have the courage.

One day a classmate came to our house to get his homework. My stepfather invited him over, gave him tea, and when he left, he started yelling that I was a whore, I had been fucked by the whole school, he couldn’t take it anymore, and so on. I went to 8th grade. I kept quiet.

When I was 15, my grandmother had a stroke. He forbade me to go to the hospital, my mother and I did go once secretly, but she didn’t even recognize us, the nurses said that when she woke up, she was waiting for Olya, looking at the door. I wanted to wait until she cleared up a bit so she could see me, but we were afraid that my stepfather would suspect something was wrong, so we left. She died alone, in the hospital.

God, I’m writing this right now, and I’m getting a lump in my throat and a pounding in my temples, why am I writing this? It seemed to me then that life was over, that I didn’t care anymore. And my mother and I, spitting on him, organized a funeral, and he left, of course. He came back six months later, of course, and my mother accepted him. But she had already got a job, and I was finishing school. He tried to touch me, and I looked at him and said: one more time and I’ll kill you. I guess he believed me (for good reason, by the way). We just stopped talking. At all.

He had some problems with his job, he had no money, he lived on his mother’s salary. I graduated from school, went to university by correspondence, went to work at the market (there was nowhere else I could go when I was 16). I paid my own tuition, supported myself, and helped my mother. He stayed home for a year. I was incredibly proud of the fact that I had my own clothes, my own phone, and my own money, and no one else would say to me, “I bought the bread you are eating, so spit it out” (again, I am not exaggerating). True, my classmates wrinkled their nose at the market, of course, but I didn’t care.

One day when I was 17, I came home late. I thought I had the right to do that, I thought I didn’t have to answer to anyone, I was fully grown up. Something came over him and he hit me. The first time. After a year of silence. In the morning I packed my things and left. Quietly, quietly. I called my mom and told her I was fine, but I wasn’t coming back. I stayed at a friend’s house. I called regularly, I had a summer session. I met a guy and after a week I was already living with him – his mom suggested it. About a month later my mom called and said that he had left and asked me to come back. I came back with the condition that we move to live in the apartment my grandmother left me. And his foot wouldn’t be there. They divorced, and he went to a neighbor, a close friend of Mom’s. She was so hopped up: ripped off her perfect man. I didn’t pity her, the fool, but I pity her son: he’s three years younger than me. Maybe he doesn’t touch boys, though.

Well, it’s gone now… a decent number of years have passed. I live with a man in a civil marriage, I’m doing well: I have a cat and a cat, I also want a child. We are finishing building a house, a big, two-story house, we plan to move in by winter. I told my husband all this, of course he was furious. He can’t forgive my mother, but he’ll get over it.

One day he and I went into a store, and my stepfather was walking toward us with a basket. We said hello. I showed him to my husband, and he was shocked: “That grandfather? Old and ugly? With a goat under his nose? (excuse me) Is he the nightmare of your childhood?” I looked at him with different eyes. He had gotten very old. He’d gotten kind of flabby… Ugh, I turned away and walked past him.

Mom is still alone, very painfully experiencing the breakup with him. And he disappeared somewhere, the neighbors stopped seeing him, his madam sold her car, everyone is wondering where he is. I hope he’s dead, though I don’t care. I told my aunt later, too, and then they understood everything themselves, and she apologized to me for not believing me, for not standing up for her, although I didn’t tell her any intimate details, I didn’t want to hurt her or to tell my mother out of anger.

Girls, if anyone is in this situation, or maybe worse (I know some parents drink, beat up) know this: everything will pass, everyone will be where they should be. The main thing is not to break, no matter how much you are broken. Sorry for the many letters, thanks to those who have mastered, maybe tedious, but I’m writing for the first time, so… Good luck, happiness and fortitude to all.

If anyone is going to comment, please don’t write anything about my mom: her mistakes are her mistakes. She has to live with them. We have a very close and trusting relationship now. She is my closest family member.