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Chapter One

The house made of glass will surely crack one day , was what I thought at ten years old.

It was the little bit of hope I had to hold on to. Things weren’t at all what they seemed and I could only pray that someone would see beyond the surface. The safety of the gates was nothing more than a façade. Behind those walls laid an unknown hell. Upper-class America was no safer than the poverty-stricken ghettos because danger lurked in the most unlikely places. At least in the streets, I would have had some control and a chance to run. No one understood because no one could see.

If I didn’t come from the family I came from, maybe I would have had help; maybe I wouldn’t have been all alone, even when the house was full of people. No, there I had nothing except time. The people who were supposed to protect me did everything but keep me safe. They were more dangerous than the criminals spending their lives behind bars. No one knew what I endured. No one knew what went on behind those walls and closed doors. No one knew what lay hidden behind fake smiles and expensive clothes.

That night, as many others before, the darkness came again as I lay and waited. What was to come would be here before I could prepare. The signs were all there. In my young mind, I hadn’t yet mastered compartmentalizing my trauma. All I could manage was to endure.

One Mississippi.

Two Mississippi.

He would be here tonight. I knew it. I felt it. The red rim of his bloodshot eyes at dinner was the sign I had learned. Any human decency was gone, and in its place was the monster he became. The heartless man who relished my pain always came with the red-rimmed eyes. It was my warning. It was the evidence of his over-indulgence in what my mother called the occasional adult beverage. Only, with my father, it wasn’t occasional and it was always more than one. Like an alcoholic who couldn’t stop with just one, he couldn’t either, except his drinking was what gave him freedom.

The freedom to do whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted… including me.

At ten years old, I had survived one moment at a time, always waiting and counting. Funny how they taught you to count the seconds of time in school as if it was this amazing trick. While I used it to count the seconds passing by at home, I silently begged for it all to end.

Things had gotten worse as time passed. The harder Father worked, the more he indulged. The more he indulged, the more I paid the price for his daily turmoil. The happy possibilities of a little girl’s daydreams were long gone, and in their place was a reality only nightmares were made of.

I had been waiting for my escape, even if it wouldn’t come for years. I had been counting on the future being better than the present. I used to count the stars on my ceiling from the nightlight I once had. However, I got older, and Father felt it was silly for me to have them, so to the trash they went. He controlled everything and no one dared question him.

Once I had gotten beyond the preschool stage where visitors would expect my room to have a theme, I was stripped bare of any color or any extravagances tied to me personally. My walls were plain white with nothing hanging, for we couldn’t give in to the whims of a child for decorations. Therefore, I lived in a room with four white walls, white bed sheets on my bed, covered in a white down comforter. My dresser was white, my nightstand white, and my headboard was a built-in bookshelf, done also in white. Not an off-white, not a speckled white, no everything and anything was stark, bright white.

Not given any freedom of expression, I wasn’t permitted to actually store any books on the shelf. No, personal effects must go inside the toy box that sat inside my overly large walk-in closet. The bookshelves housed classic literature for display purposes only.

Our house was grandiose with a very sterile feeling. My room wasn’t allowed to look out of place. Like everything else in that house, it had to have clean lines and a contemporary feel, my mother always said. Personally, I found it to be just as stuffy as the rest of the house. It fit the personalities of the two adults roaming its halls—void. People who did what they did had to be detached because no one with any amount of feeling could be like them.

Mama and Father always told me not to share the secrets of our home. The special secrets of our family were our own. At first, I thought it made me special in this warped way. Then I realized it was wrong. Every second of his torture was wrong.

I tried to tell once. When it first started, I had hope I could be saved. The doctor at my check-up said no one should touch me… down there—well, except him when he checked me. A light bulb went off. This was the opening my little heart sought for so long. Certainly, if I shared, he would save me. I whispered my truths, and he patted my leg like everything would be all right.

Only, it wasn’t.

No, he called my mother to the room, stopping to tell her all about my creative imagination in the hallway. The door was cracked, so I had heard every word he said to her. He made it very clear this was the silly nonsense of a child wanting attention. Of course, a man such as my father—her husband—wouldn’t do those things. He didn’t believe a word of it. However, he felt she needed to know the malarkey that I was speaking in order to give her an adequate picture of the situation. Meaning, she needed to get a handle on my imagination and mouth as quickly as possible.

My mother laughed it off.

It was no laughing matter.

After that, I decided I would wait. If he didn’t believe me, no one would. As my mother, she knew what was happening and did nothing to save me. There was no hero in my world. The only thing left for me was to be patient. My time would come… I prayed it would, anyway.

As the bed dipped, I closed my eyes tight. The bed in which I should drift safely to the land of dreams and fairytales had been nothing more than a prison of its own making.

Fingers moved through my hair as I concentrated on counting my breaths.

One Mississippi, exhale.

Two Mississippi, inhale.

Three Mississippi, exhale.

Rough, calloused fingers ran down the back of my neck then traced my shoulder before trailing down my arm, all the way down until the hand found the hem of my nightgown.

I tensed. He laughed.

Fallyn, don’t tease me, baby girl. His voice was gravelly and not hushed.

He didn’t have to hide his presence in my room; my mother wouldn’t stop him, so I supposed there was no reason for him to be quiet. She was supposed to protect me; only, she didn’t. The staff always left promptly at seven nightly and didn’t arrive before eight in the morning. Privacy was what my mother said we needed. Really, it was another way to keep the darkness from being seen by any outsiders.

There were many secrets we hid from the world, but none amongst that house. If only the walls could speak for me back then.

Squeezing my eyelids, I forced them to remain closed.

Four Mississippi, I went back to mentally counting.

His hand moved to my butt, tracing the edges of my little girl cotton panties. Why were mine cotton? Mama wore the silky soft ones. I had seen them in the laundry. Why did he touch mine? To this day, I still questioned that.

Count, Fallyn, don’t think of the hands moving, just count. Five Mississippi… Six Mississippi… He will finish sooner rather than later. I just had to endure.

His fingers edged closer to the spot; knowing it would hurt, I braced myself. It would burn, so I squeezed my eyelids tighter, trying to remain unmoving, unnerved, and unresponsive. If he was drunk enough, he would believe I was asleep… If I was asleep, I didn’t have to participate.

I exhaled deeply as if in dream.

Seven… Oh, it stung. It always did. A unique pain worse than any scratch, scrape, or even the time I broke my arm.

When his finger pushed between the curves of my precious parts, I tried to think of the two walls they represented. Mama had bought me a book about little girls, explaining my parts. Why didn’t he understand they were to cover and protect the opening—my opening?

His thumb circled my middle, his finger pressing inside my tiny portal, and I gritted my teeth as I clenched my whole body tight.

My baby girl, always so greedy. He leaned over, licking my neck as bile rose up my throat.

By some miracle, I remained steadfast in my breathing and maintained control of my body. It was a battle, but it was always easier to hide my breathing and pain from him when I was on my stomach. I was in a war, one I was fighting with myself. I wanted to cry, scream, run. Inside, I wanted to jump out of my skin and hide my soul from the world. Then, just as the fire hurt and the burn built, something inside me twisted, and I became removed.

I didn’t feel. I didn’t dwell. I existed.

Sick, screwed up, seriously drowning in disgust, I lay completely still, forcing myself not to throw up as he continued. I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t even want to share the same space, the same air with him. He was there, though. He wasn’t going anywhere until he’d had his fun, and I was left covered in his filthy, sticky mess.

His breathing came in pants, and I was certain if he knew I was awake, my hand would be working or my mouth. At least that night I was saved the humiliation of an audience. He was always rougher when he made Mama watch. To this day, I didn’t know if it was a power play or a sick game between them. Either way, I was thankful for the break that night, even if it was rare.

Over time, I had learned to control reactions. If I cried, he laughed and pushed inside me harder. If I screamed, he laughed and pushed the limits of my body by adding a finger to my butt. If I reacted in any way that made my discomfort, fear, or unhappiness known, then he was certain to make this worse.

The shrill screams of my mother filled the air, yet the man over me didn’t move. I tensed as the fear crept up inside of me. I waited with bated breath for him to realize I was indeed awake. Why was she screaming? What was happening? The high-pitched sounds forced me from my world of numbness and back into the reality of my agony.

He didn’t react as her wails pierced the night air. Then there was silence. Unfazed, he continued to slide his finger in and out of me. It was like he was working to some unknown goal and he wouldn’t be halted until he reached his pinnacle.

Removing his finger, I thought for a moment he might be done early because of the commotion outside my room. I had heard the steps, so surely, he had too, right? Someone was coming to save me, possibly, maybe. I gripped this hope as if it were my lifeline.

I was wrong.

Slowly, as if not to disturb me, he rolled me to my back then moved his hand down the front of my panties as he lay beside me.

Eighty-five Mississippi, I tried to count silently, failing to reach the next number when the burn hit me as he shoved his finger inside me harshly. This was more than ever before, did he use two? I felt my walls ripping from the assault of his pace.

Thud, thud, thud. The pounding of someone walking sounded through the hallway. Why didn’t he hear them? Was I going crazy? Had my dreams for an escape consumed me so much that I was only thinking someone was in our home? For a moment I wondered was the pounding my heart beating loudly inside my head causing me to lose this sense of reality?

My father tensed over me. The pause made me think he had heard the noises too. Only his finger still inside me as he moved my hand to his crotch, I realized quickly he hadn’t heard a single sound. He was hard. And this meant I had a job to do.

I blinked my eyes open as he slid my hand over his covered length. Guiding, directing, forcing, he controlled the pace and my grip. Since he knew I