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Authors: Courtney Noel

When I Forget You (22 page)

BOOK: When I Forget You
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Chapter 50
: Healing -->

             
Kade and I have been our strongest since I told him what happened with Henry that night. It’s April now, and Henry Snap-Chatted me Happy Easter and I responded. Isn’t Easter about showing love and passion and perhaps forgiveness? We started talking about graduating and all that. It feels nice, just like the good old days, but the good old days eventually turn into the memories I block out so damn well. I don’t want those to come back, and I can’t have the good days without the bad. It’s hard to keep myself from being so damn curious. What is he doing right now? Does he feel bad for what he did to me? Does he even know why I left him? Is he upset?

             
Then I stop responding. What the hell am I doing? Actually, WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING? I sit down on my bed and begin to cry. I am the biggest fucking idiot. I am so disappointed in myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I ruin everything. Everything. I ruin anything that could potentially lead to happiness. Could I be any weaker? I walk across the hall and into Kade’s room. He’s lying in bed listening to music and reading a motocross magazine. I crawl into bed with him, not even caring that my parents might see. I wrap my body like a “burrito” as Cynthia would call it, with the comforter and lie my head on his chest.

             
“He Snap-Chatted me happy Easter and I responded. Then he started asking me questions about my life and I responded,” I tell Kade. I don’t want to look up and see his disappointed face. I can feel his breath getting shorter and shorter

             
“Are you a fucking idiot? You make no fucking sense, Becca.” Kade gets off the bed, letting my head fall onto the bed and stands on his feet. His face is red and his arms are crossed over his chest. Huh he’s saying the things that are matching my thoughts are. The problem is, I’m already my worst enemy. I don’t need someone else putting me down, too. That’s why I left Henry for goodness fucking sake. If I want someone to tell me how stupid I am I can just go back to being Henry’s Barbie.

             
“You’re an asshole, Kade.” I say as I get to my feet too. He can’t treat me like this.

             
“I mean what the fuck? You went through all this shit to get him out of your life and one Snap-Chat and you respond? Were you even using your brain?” He laughs a little. “The funny thing is that you had to fucking accept his friend request for him to be able to Snap-Chat you.” He shakes his head and claps for me. Tears stream down my eyes. He turns around and I hear the front door slam. I was curious. God, Becca. I hate you.

**

Now I’m eager for Kade to get home because I have some news I know he wants to hear. He comes back at two-thirty in the morning. What the hell was he doing until two-thirty in the freaking morning? Is he hunting for elephants or something? I come out of my bedroom in the exact same pajamas and slippers I was wearing the day Cynthia told me Kade was going to be living with us. I meet him in the kitchen and wrap my arms around him.

             
“So. You didn’t really give me a chance to tell you what else Henry said,” I tell him, squeezing his waist. He’s wearing a really soft shirt and I feel like I could fall asleep in it.

             
“I don’t really want to know,” he confirms. I relax my arms and look up at his eyes. I put my hands on his hip bones and raise my eyebrows. He’s still angry and I will not allow that. Not during this time of celebration. I know he wants to hear my good news.

             
“So you don’t want to know he’s moving to San Francisco?” I ask him. His eyes go wide and his smile practically touches his ears. “For good,” I say.

             
“When? Why?” He’s stoked, like a little boy on Christmas morning.

             
“Today. His mother has never been the wealthiest. We’ve always known he was going to have to move sooner or later. They just happened to be living in one of the most expensive cities – Dana Point, California. So I guess they’ve been planning on moving for months but he didn’t want to tell me until the day of so it won’t hurt him as much. However I would have wanted him to tell me sooner so he could live with the fact that I don’t fucking care about him moving, but whatever. That day just happened to be today. He said he wanted to say goodbye to me in real life and I just giggled and said no.” I laugh then shrug. What ya gonna do? Henry. Henry is officially gone. I never have to see him ever again. And that is probably the best feeling in the world.

**

An hour later, we are rushing to the hospital. Destiny had a little baby girl- seven pounds, four ounces. Her name is Nicole. She looks exactly like her mother.

**

Seven months later, Kade and I are home from college. We both ended up going to University of Washington. He’s only one floor below me, so we’re still always together. He was right, I Skype Chasity every single night, and call my parents and Cynthia twice a day. Even though I’m not technically home, I feel like I am because I have Kade going through everything right beside me. Kade and I are home for Christmas break. He still lives in the room across from me.

             
We’re home for a more important reason, though. Destiny wants Kade and I to be Nicole’s God parents. She wants someone to be there for Nicole like Kade and I are there for each other. She is getting baptized tomorrow morning.

And I am finally healed.

Prologue: How I Feel Now

             
In life, I say you should never regret anything. Which is true. My mom always says how she wishes she never quit gymnastics when she was thirteen because she could have been so good. Who knows, maybe if she kept doing gymnastics she would have never met my dad or had me. The hard times, the mistakes, only make our life stories more interesting to tell. The interesting stories are always the best ones, too. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t hate some memories, those memories of him. The ones I hate. The ones I can’t even bear to think about. The ones I can’t talk about without crying. The pain and manipulation was so much for a little fourteen year old girl to go through. Never getting the truth, forced finally accepting that everything he says is a lie. I’m tired of being stabbed in the back, and I told someone when it was already too late. I broke – snapped completely. The medication, constant struggle, and heart-wrenching therapy were necessary. Having demons constantly interrupt your thoughts and making you feel scared and insecure, is awful. It was all because this one guy had to emotionally abuse me to feel better about himself.

             
However, I do love who I became because of what he did to me. I changed and grew into ways I could never have if I didn’t experience abuse. I’m stronger. I stand up for myself and other people. I only allow myself to be treated the way I want to be treated, and nothing less. There’s a difference between people having flaws that need to be worked on and people who will just never care about what they are doing to you as long, as they are happy about how they feel. The second kind of people are what he is and what he will always be. He never changed, even after I left him, and he never will. Strength, however, is a blessing and a curse. Thanks to him, I don’t trust. All guys want are naked photos and someone to boss around. And girls, all they do is gossip. My guard is constantly up. Oh, he doesn’t really like me. He’s just joking when he says he does. He’s leading me on to hurt me on purpose. Which leaves a lot of room for the negative things he called me like “slut” and “selfish” to linger in the back of my mind, constantly. So blocking everyone else out left room in my mind for me to analyze what I did that made the real Henry hate me so much. It left more room for me to think all those things he said about me are true. He not only abused me in the year I knew him, but left me lots of damage to fix the year after. The damage is harder to deal with than being called a slut in the moment. It left me constantly worrying about what other people thought of me. Do they think I’m a slut, too? Do people think I’m a selfish person like he does, too? All these negative questions come with negative answers even though I had no idea where the answers were coming from. It definitely wasn’t my own voice answering.

             
A fourteen-year-old girl having to talk about getting a restraining order with her parents, waking up one day and having your best friend that you trust completely turn on you, waking up to texts every morning saying how selfish you are and that you screwed up a life, that someone regretted meeting you, waking up to five-page-long texts, then still going to school and holding her head high, getting in her mom’s car to go home and having tears immediately stream down her face, It showed me I was being too strong. Yes, there is totally such a thing.

             
Now, a year later. I don’t remember anything. I don’t remember why we stopped talking. All I know is that he was manipulative – that’s what my family tells me. My doctor says I experienced so much trauma that my mind pushed out all the thoughts and events out completely. My body won’t let me relive what happened. Which is a good thing, I guess, but frustrating because I don’t have answers. I have to ask my parents what happened when I need help remembering.

             
That’s when I thank myself. I wrote it all down in a journal that I referred to when writing this book. It helped me with closure. I made up characters in my head, to tell Becca (me) that everything was going to be okay. When in reality, it was really me telling myself it was going to be okay, and I needed that.

Because of him, I broke. I was ashamed of my life and the person I was. I was constantly afraid to go to school and see his face. Any kind of abuse, whether it’s physical or verbal or emotional, is hard to get over. All three are equally painful, just in different ways. They steal the light in your life. Give you so much pain and wounds to wear for the rest of your life. So thank you, Henry. I hope you can one day feel the feeling you gave me and understand why I had to leave.

 

 

 

BOOK: When I Forget You
8.89Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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