Trust Is A Work In Progress (editing)

1*HEY SWEET CHEEKS (REVAMPED)

08.02.2009

Dear My Forever,

When I was six years old, I lived in a huge house. It was one story but colossal all the same, consisting of three bedrooms, master bed and bath, and a kid bathroom.

On one side of the house, a hallway lined with bent and warped shelves swelled with movies from floor to ceiling. Needless to say, it was our maximal source of entertainment. Lining the vacant living room wall was a row of desks parallel to the hallway for the incompetent schooling of the applicable children. An 'L' shaped couch cut off the living room from our father's work study, centered across from a television with Tom and Jerry running across the screen twenty-four seven. The kitchen's pounding heartbeat reverberated with the sound-waves of the wails and drops of tears through the multitude of lashings and lectures given over the singular decade that family managed to stay legally acknowledged as such. The master bath presented a pair of sinks and a mirror covering the majority of the wall- as if someone's head needed all of that expensive glass just to fit their ego into the picture. A walk-in shower was placed in the corner, tiled and fixed with two shower heads on either side. The tub sat on the wall across from the sinks, easily being registered as a small hot tub, great for two naive siblings to swim in until the heat left the water and the bubbles became too flat to stand.

Surrounding the house was acres of land that took four kids and two adults to keep up with its obnoxious growing as if it was determined to reach the sky. Pine trees scattered themselves across the outskirts of the yard providing the coveted illusion of privacy while the steep hill from the road down to the front porch provided the rest. A long gravel driveway winded down the hill to the two car garage, complete with an ac unit and ceiling fans.

Looking back on one of the few days I remember, I was standing out back, peering through a living room window. I shouldn't have been, but I couldn't help it. My mom wasn't home, but my dad was.

I can't recall what the predicament my four year old brother, Keith, had festered up with my dad. Nonetheless, like always, I'm sure it was minor and unworthy of a beating; however, Keith was receiving his punishment. I didn't watch the whole thing, but I didn't have to. Keith was crying and screaming profusely.

I felt as if his pain was my own.

I've always regarded my father with the unusual grudges many don't, can't, imagine to possess against their own. I've never opened up to him or given him an emotional hold on me, at least not voluntarily, but he is my father. One doesn't seem to have a choice with the roots that grow when they come into the world. I mind my own around him but rarely gave him more than that.

The time with Keith wasn't the only encounter I witnessed that consisted of my father exercising his control over his minor children. There was another I remember clearer. It was the time I gave up all hope for a possibility of normality. He had my big brother, Tanner, cornered up against the wall, ramming something metal into Tanner's shins.

My mom wasn't home then either.

I haven't lived in that house since I was eight when my mom announced to us that we were moving away without my father, and that they were getting a divorce. I wasn't surprised or even saddened. I was a perceptive kid and had already foreseen such. My mom told me that we would be living with my grandparents for a while until we found a place of our own. Through the divorce my only worry was whether I would keep my seven cats. Just a year prior, they'd been born in a kennel at the foot of my bed at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Now I live in a little town in Louisiana. We have a three bedroom house for my mom, Keith, and Richard, whom has the unfortunate title of being the step dad. My mom calls him Richy... He's a complete asshat by the way. Tanner has already moved out and completed his Bachelor's degree in Environmental Science at Florida State. I guess that makes sense with the time he would always spend outside in the woods hunting or fishing with his buddies. Then again, the house was not the most pleasant place to be around at times. Tanner and I are five years apart, but Keith and I are only two years apart with myself being the oldest. I'm sixteen, and as you will soon find out, people scream my name all the time for all sorts of reasons.