Chapter 1

I'm trying so hard to forget but it just keeps happening I'm here one minute and gone the next.

It takes me over

I freeze.

I become stone cold …

I can feel the world spinning, my head pulsing I sit at the bottom of the ocean and scream.

I can feel the bubbles leaving me.

No one hears anyway.

I bang and bang my head against the air. Till my face is red,

I'm running and running and I’m not moving

      My heart is racing and faster

My fingers trembling the hairs on my neck standing on end

just lay down.

Draw red lines,

the moment fades away.

But I need just one more line…

The walls of the office a light gray, over the olive-green couch the  a painting with nine circles that never hung straight.

“  painting can't even hang straight, B***h thinks she can help”

A woman walked into the room. She was tall her chestnut hair covering her icy blue eyes." hello I'm Jessie" she reached out her hand, as we shook she sat down. Her pants the same color as the couch. Blending in she seemed to disappear into the couch. Her legs crossed. All I could do is stare at her feet. Her gray penny loafers both contain a penny, one face up  one face down.

      “Tell me about yourself”

I sat down on the couch with my knees to my chest

“Well, I just …  I don't know … just need to have a hold of something …something I just cant touch. I dont know what i just need it i cant  hold anything.

They worry I don’t eat, I hate the way I look, just covered in spots and bumps”

“Why don’t we go back a bit further what really brings you here “

“How far back?”

“As far as you can remember’

“I don’t want to remember, it’s safer to forget “

“I’m not sure I understand…”

“You aren’t meant to”

At four, I lived in a world of imagination. Back when driving in the car at night you smile because the moon is following you. The factories are making clouds. The world is a beautiful loving place. There is nothing to fear. Except, maybe the dark. But Mr. Teddy Bear is the bedtime monster slayer, the night light is kryptonite to the monsters.

Growing up I loved the dark, it was quiet and peaceful. I looked up at the moon and I knew I was safe nothing could hurt me there, I knew the real monsters came out with the sun.

But for now, I am at peace. The moon is watching over me. My bed faced the window I fell asleep every night, knowing the moon would be watching over me. I pulled the pink covers up, my eyes only exposed. As I slowly drifted away.

The morning came. I could feel the warm sun on my face, holding my eyes closed. I felt the covers being ripped off me.

My father was standing over me".

” Get out of the bed",

 my head screaming,

get up you know what will happen next!"

jumped out of the bed and flew to the bathroom and locked the door. Pulled the step stool over to the sink, I turned on the tap, I brought the cool water to my face. I looked up. I stared into my eyes, my reflection.

This is me.

I walked out of the bathroom and into the kitchen.

The kitchen had a window it investigated the living room. I pushed the chair to the counter, I pulled myself up. I opened the cabinet and pulled out my red heart bowl. I climbed down holding the bowl, on the counter I grabbed the box of cereal. I never knew what I Was going to pour. The box was white and in big black letters it said cereal. We didn't have milk. I would eat the cereal dry, it was good because I liked it that way rushed to get ready.

I was at my cousin sissy's birthday party it was at her house at the end of August. It was a pool party. Sissy was that girl you called a cousin but had no idea how you were related, you just were.

I had a girl walk up to me, touch one of my spots

 "do you ever just play connect the dots on you look like a coloring book"

another girl I grab a maker and walks over and starts to draw on my skin.

"See just like a coloring book".

I pushed her away. She fell to the ground.

"You know that you should just cut them all off it would make you look like me".

I covered my face and ran into the house, I went into the bathroom. I remember sitting on the floor playing with the tiles on the floor. Three of the tiles didn't stay on the floor. I tried over and over to try and make them stand up on their own. I finally was calm enough to leave, I retched for the handle and twisted and pulled. The door did not move.

My heart started to race. I pulled the door again harder, I pulled and pulled. I imagined growing old in the bathroom, being trapped in there for years. My family moving on without me. Me alone in the bathroom. The door finally flung open. I fell the ground., trying to catch my breath. I push past, I ran to the back of the yard. Climbing over the piles of large rocks, slipping as I reached going higher and higher.

I just sat at the top of the rocks. Rattling my head in my hands.

” How could they hate them, they are my magic spots?”

I had them and no one else did, and they would just appear. What I have is called neurofibromatosis.it causes spots called cafe-Au-lait spots as well as tumors all over the body and along nerve endings.

Later that night I got into my mother's makeup and covered myself with it. She walked in and screamed as she started to wipe the makeup off my body

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW EXPENSIVE THAT IS!

I loved the look of all the makeup on my skin and not seeing the brown spots covering my body, I looked normal, beautiful even. It was the only time I could cover all my spots. But summer goes away, and school will start. This is my first year at school my first day of kindergarten.

The things I expected to wake up to when I was little were mom pulls the covers off you, get dressed, eat breakfast, walk to the bus, and go to school.

I was wearing pair purple tights and a black T-shirt clutching onto my teddy bear in one hand and a princess lunch box in the other hand.

In the background I can hear my mom and dad screaming, daddy had come home silly again.I never knew what I did wrong, but I must have been bad if dad would lock me in the closet.

Crazy way to spend your birthday. First day of school and the same old happening.

At 5 years old I knew how to take care of myself. How to get myself dressed in the morning, how to make scrambled eggs and How to put on my favorite TV show in the morning,

Most people would say that was big for 5 years old. But what I remember most being able to do, it wasn’t big nor was it brave. I was doing what I had to do.

“daddy out of bed when he was silly.”

One thing I remember is, most days he would get me on the bus for school as the bus pulled away he would touch his eye cross his arms over his chest and point to me.

This was his was saying I love you. He never said the words out loud. I never did hear him say it.

Actions they said would speak louder than words, but when you never hear the words the actions are meaningless

I came home though it'd be different, I'd be told to sit room and shut up. I was not allowed out of my room for any reason.

When I turned 6 My dad would start to steal my tooth fairy money. I would scream “daddy that’s my tooth money”. Anytime i would fight back the belt came out. Then i was thrown into a closet ad given a jar of peanut butter. At least in the closet i was safe. Its small dark and warm.

Its safe..

We always had money problems. Between Mom at work and going to nursing school .My brother going through chemo treatment.

Money was tight always tight.

My lunch was only a quarter to buy at school. Most days I didn’t even have it I would have to wait till all the students got their lunch, then I would get mine.  I got the leftovers. Most days I would have a milk and fruit cup when I didn't have my quarter. I never got to finish eating.

There was this one Christmas, I won't ever forget. I remember waking up that morning and running down the hall to see cans of food all on the table. Santa brought us food it I screamed Santa got me real cheerios! It was the first time I ever had real Cheerios.

It wasn’t till later I found out my landlord got us the food.

My landlord at the time his name was Robert, but I always called him bob-bob he lived in the downstairs part of the house. Bob-bob was a Korean war vet. You would never know it unless he told you. He was so soft-spoken, He had ships in bottles everywhere. He would tell me

“you can make a whole world in there, keep them safe”

he nodded. Bob-bob would watch me in the mornings that no one could bring me to school. His house smelled of pine the mornings I would go downstairs sit on the couch and he would make me pancakes. I only got pancakes when I went to his house.

We could never afford the ingredients. But every bite of the fluffy pancakes made me smile. The sticky maple syrup on my hands and all over my face.

      My school was a small one story like most elementary schools. But I would spend most of my play time in the library. Reading for me is being sucked into a world that is free and away from everything. Mr. Mutter was our head librarian. He would sit with me read with me. He gave me my favorite book. I read that book till the pages fell out and had to be taped back together. Bridge to terabithia.  I wanted to make my own world so badly and run away from it all, A place I could call home.  No matter where I went I would make a world only I could see even into my late teen years.

My little brother who was A year-and-a-half-year-old was diagnosed with cancer. He had a tumor in his right eye.

So, most of my mom's attention went to my brother, she was going to nursing school at the time. It was the year we left my dad. I guess this made me alone 7 years old and having nothing…

No home

No Father

No will to go on I'm alone.

There is nothing I can control

, except what I put in my mouth. Or what I wouldn’t put in my mouth Or at least I can try