All I Want Is A Friend

Letter 6 - Ramsey

Letter 6

Dear Aubree,

            Thank you for those letters, they really made my day every time I got one. I’m sorry to hear that, everything I mean. I’m not going to write five letters, (which were very sweet) but I will write one, this one. I will go through my life for you, I think you’d enjoy that, right?

            We’ll start when I was three. That was the first time my father (we’ll call him Nick, because I don’t like calling him ‘Dad’) put me in the hospital. He broke my left leg, all the way up on my thigh. I was in a full body cast for six weeks at three. When I was four, my mom walked out on me and left me with my father. I hated her with all of my heart because of that. How could she? How did she have the nerve to leave me with that… that… that monster? Because really, that’s what he was. When I was five, I started kindergarten. I was made fun of because I was chubby and had a lisp.

            When I was six, my dad lost the house because he was always drunk when he went to work and he got fired because of it. We moved states and he tried to sober up. He got a job and wasn’t such a jerk anymore. Of course, that didn’t last very long. When I was seven, I started getting bullied about my weight and my ever persistent lisp. When I was eight, my dad broke my arm in a drunken rage. “It wasn’t my fault, really.” That’s what he kept saying. “It wasn’t my fault, really.” But it was, I know it was.

            When I was nine, my dad got really, really mad at me. He got mad because I spilled a can of paint in the garage. It was his fault that I spilled it. I was only nine years old, how on earth did he expect me to be able to carry five gallons of paint? Anyways, he made me clean it up, then nearly beat me to death. On the way to the hospital, he told me that if I told anyone that it was him, and not a bully, then he would go to jail and I would have to live on the street. I did as I was told, and the hospital staff believed every word, and I hated them for it.

            When I was ten, the bullying started again. I was still fat, and still had a lisp. That didn’t really bother me though, I just kind of blocked them out. When I was 11, I received a call that my mom had died in a car accident. I wasn’t even sad, Okay, I was a little, but I didn’t cry. I didn’t even go to her funeral. When I was twelve, I discovered self-harm. I didn’t cut though, I burned. I used the curling iron that my mom left behind. At first I only left it on for a second, and I screamed the first time. But pretty soon I started to hold it much, much longer.

            When I was 13, I was taken away from my dad because he got a DUI. When he got out, though, I went back to him and he beat me up. Bad. He almost took me to the hospital, but then he decided not to. When I turned 14, I decided I was no longer going to be the fat kid. I ran five miles every day, did 500 pushup and 500 sit ups. I lost almost 100 pounds, so I was around 140 when I entered high school.

            When I was 15, I started cutting, along with burning. I was bad. When I was 16, I ran away. My dad found me a few days later, and beat me senseless. I ran away again when I was 17, to my aunt and uncle’s house, after I graduated, and this is where I currently live. I didn’t make any friends when I ran away, so of course I’d love to be your friend. Thank you again for those letters. We can compare scars, and stories of when we wanted to end our lives.

            Your friend,

                                    Ramsey