Differences

part twenty-two - realization

As time passed, so did the count down till Tessa would finally leave the one place she thought she was safe.

Next week Friday would be her last day. She couldn't be any happier, an old friend of hers Deserae, had shown her a good paying job that was only cleaning homes or old buildings.

She looked forward to it because of the fact that cleaning helped throw away all of her frustrations, it helped her focus and gave her something else to think about. When she got to cleaning, she was in her own other world... just like when she was typing. She'd disappear mentally and wouldn't return till she was done.

The one thing that must be frustrating for Tessa, was probably the fact that she was such a perfectionist when it came to cleaning. One piece out of place would drive her crazy.

It's why her room could not stay dirty longer than a few days, it's why she cleaned out the closest she shared with her sister every once a week - even though the mountain of clothes always reappeared in there - and they always belonged to her sister.

Once Max found out about her flashbacks, she felt guilty for not telling him in the first place... but she had not told anyone at all but her own self. She couldn't really face her fears, but when she was messaging Max one night. He told her something that would stick in her mind forever.

"Why are you keeping things." He had said, and then continued on, the next sentences changed her out look.

"Who cares how much I have on my plate. A relationship is about us. Sharing our burdens and our strengths."

She grew up viewing a disfunctional relationship from afar and close-up. Between her parents and her grandmother and her grandmother's many boyfriends, they all hid things from each other. So watching them, she didn't really properly learn right from wrong when it came to a healthy relationship. It took her 16 years to really understand how toxic they all were to each other. All the arguing, the physical fights that lead to tears and them leaving the house and splitting up for a day or two and then everything going back to normal.

But Max showed her right from wrong, by hearing that she was free to express whatever she had to say to him that was buried deep in her cranium, she realized he was right. Everything he said was right, he was angry when he said that. She was angry because he didn't realize how hard it was to even talk about it.

She stopped being angry though. She understand why he was angry in the first place and calmed down.

But they never talked it out, they hadn't had the time to discuss it after that and so it stayed buried up there. Knocking her around and taking her off guard whenever her mind wandered.

It was horrible. The images that rummaged through her brain, horrid visualization of her cousin Terrance and uncle George invited her into their bedroom where they played video games. She remembered those days, where her grandmother dropped her off at her great aunts home where her children would torment her because she was the only girl there.

Tessa grew up around guys, all of them being her family, and none were too kind to her...

It didn't stop at the sexual harassment, but it did end with her being bullied by them.

Shoved the ground, told to eat dirt.

Then, there was the big dog in the back yard. It always barked, she didn't remember a time where it wasn't yapping away at the birds or the squirrels.

George was mad that day, her great aunt had sent her up stairs and told her to go and play with him. He protested and fought back with his mother, not wanting to have to 'babysit' her, as he had put it.

Being Hispanic, his mother put her foot down and he shut down quickly. An hour into her playing with his action figures and watching him play Kingdom of Hearts, he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her down stairs.

With his mother gone, he had thought up of a plan. A deviant one that scared tiny little Tessa to death just about.

After dragging her down the carpeted stairs and through the maze that was the rear of the house, he brought her to stand in front of the back door, opening it as he positioned her towards the porch.

He pushed her in front of her and slammed the back door shut behind her. The lock clicked horribly and all of a sudden she was locked in the back yard with a vicious dog growling her..

She remembered, she remembered hiding in the old garage where all the creepy crawlies lived. How the dog scratched, growled, and barked at the door to the garage. It was broken, so she ended up sitting on the other side to stop it from opening. She threw her scrawny arms around her short legs and ended up sobbing till George came back and called off the dog, putting him back on his chain and then 'rescuing' Tessa.

That night, he made up a story, saying she disappeared while he was in the bathroom. He didn't find her till he heard her crying, that the dog must've gotten off his chain again and went after her.

They listened to him. Probably because they didn't care how it happened, but just that Tessa was hurt.

Next year, the dog was dead and Tessa still hid in the garage once in a while to get away from her horrible familia.

As time flew past, as she remembered these incidents five months before her 18th birthday. She tried hard to suppress them, what good would they do her but cause her to become dysfunctional on a emotional and sleepless level?

She already had begun to lose sleep, reducing down to 3-4 hours when she had just gotten back to 6 whole hours. Her small accomplishment to improve herself had just been destroyed, and with that went her good dreams, the ones that made her smile and the ones where she had adventures with the people she cared about.

Gone were the good and in with the bad.

Gone was her good mood and in came the worse.

Sometimes she felt bad, she didn't want to be like this. But she realized that it was half her and half the situation... despite how minimal it seemed to others. It was large for her, her mind had placed up guards, she was reverting back to the first two weeks at her high school.

The ones where she carried around in an empty shell and ignored and glared at everyone, rejecting the help from teachers and escaping as fast as she could from anyone.

Uncomfortable feelings crept back into her. Reminding her, that even as a child she was far to tainted for the likes of Max.

Girls like her, who grew up like she had; they had children at fifteen years old. Lived with their parents till they were twenty-five... and survived on fast food restaurants with drug money.

Max may not believe he was perfect. But to her, he grew up in a life far more different than hers. But with many similarities as well.

Their situations may be different, but what they have taken from each lesson, each tragedy, was one in the same. They grew morals and had different mind sets then what was expected of them.

Tessa, she was expected to be like her late aunt. To jump from boy to boy, to have a child at young age, expected to live in poverty and not complete high school. To be raped and killed.

They predicted one thing correctly. But not the other.

Her parents hadn't stereotyped her, but her family did. They already labeled her as a lost cause, but continued to become surprised whenever they saw her at a family gathering.

Still in school. No children. No skimpy clothing. No drugs.

She did the opposite of what they thought she would grow up to be.

The future was in her grasps, but she didn't know if it were becoming brighter or not. She could only hope that she'd just gain the stability and the security she so desperately craved for her and her future family.