No Matter Where You Are

7

Shelby's P.O.V.-

I took a deep breath before I began to tell everyone the story of my life, leading up to this point in time. "You all already know my name and where I'm from, but there are a few things that you do not know about me that you should probably know." I said, as I prepared myself to tell my story. "First, my birthday is October 10 and I was born in 1997 at 3:00 in the morning, I am a fraternal triplet and the oldest, my siblings are brothers with the second being seven minutes younger than me and the third being 14 minutes younger than me. Second, and you guys aren't going to like this, but I haven't seen my brothers, Joshua and Matthew, since we were about 7 and 1/2, almost 8 years old. We were put into the system when we were four because our parents weren't taking proper care of us and the neighbors called Child Protective Services and we got thrown into the system and never got placed in a real foster home, we lived in one of those group houses for three and a half, almost four years. The system didn't want to place all three of us back with our parents at the same time, so since I was the oldest, I was the guinea pig for that, and that went so badly that I never saw Josh and Matt after that. Unfortunately for me, our parents had taken up drinking after we were put into the system, which I found out later on that their drinking made them angry and susceptible to breaking things and hurting the people around them. Not too long after I was placed with my parents, they started to... they started to beat me and call me mean names. When I was 12, all the physical and verbal abuse led to me cutting, hospitalizing myself a few times between 2008 and 2015. It wasn't until I found Sam and Colby, that I stopped cutting and began to live a 'healthier' lifestyle to try and better myself and rise above all of the hurt my parents had caused me since 2005. When I was reached out to by the Sam and Colby twitter about exploring, I had to make sure that my parents were passed out drunker than drunk before I left, which is why I didn't want Colby to meet them at the time, so that I wouldn't get beaten for wanting to go out for the night and have some fun. Besides the scars from cutting, I have some cigarette burn scars and some belt scars from being burned and beaten and bruised and battered by my parents. It wasn't until last night, when I had a nightmare from a point in my life in 2010 when a teacher at my school noticed a handprint on my face and called the principal, who in turn called the superintendent, who in turn called Child Protective Services, which led to getting slapped across the face and burned with a cigarette several times and being beat with my dad's belt after I got home from school that day. I had texted Sam after I had the nightmare, which is why I'm here now. I had to get the hell out of there, I couldn't stand the physical and verbal abuse any longer." By the time I finished my story, I was sobbing uncontrollably. Everyone sat in silence, staring at me, Devyn and Katrina were crying a little bit and the boys were astonished, especially Colby, that I had endured so much physical and verbal abuse for so long. My legs were shaking so much by the end, that I had to sit down, so I pretty much collapsed into the luvsac next to Sam and curled up into the fetal position, shaking, and bawled my eyes out. Sam tried to wrap his arms around me to comfort me, but because I was so sensitive to other people touching me, I flinched and curled up even tighter until I felt Sam get up and someone new sat down next to me. I looked up at the person that had just sat down next to me through teary eyes and I could just barely make out that the person sitting next to me was Colby, who was also crying. I wanted to be comforted by someone, and so far the only people I trusted to touch and hold me were Aaron and Colby, even though I had hugged Sam several hours earlier. I pretty much crawled into Colby's lap and he pulled me up and wrapped his arms around me and hugged me close to him and he rubbed my back and tried to calm me down. As Colby hugged me, I felt Aaron come up behind me and hug me, and then Sam, Katrina, Devyn, Corey and Jake. We all stayed in that funny group hug until I stopped crying. When I stopped crying and everyone had backed off, I sat up and everyone began to tell me how proud they were of me for telling them the hell that my childhood was and that with them on my side, my parents would finally be put in jail and I would finally be able to get into contact and find Josh and Matt. "I want to see your battle wounds." Colby stated firmly. "Okay." I said as I got up to go to my room to change into a tank top and shorts and take the makeup off my face and hands, since I had burn and beating scars all over and cutting scars all over my arms. I went rummaging through what didn't get unpacked from my bags and realized that I didn't have any makeup remover wipes with me. I went back to the game room and asked Devyn if she had any makeup remover wipes, which she did and when she came back downstairs with them, I ran back to my room and sat down in front of my mirror and began to take the makeup off my face and my hands. When I finished removing the makeup, I went through the pajamas that I brought with me and put on a set that I had just gotten recently from Target[see below].

After I changed my clothes, I put my hair up into a messy bun on the top of my head to reveal a few more scars that I had on the back of my neck that nobody ever saw. When I went back out into the game room, I stood silently in the doorway until Colby noticed me and gasped. I had remnants of old black eyes and a couple of cuts on my face from when my I had been punched and pushed down, I had self harming cuts all up and down both of my arms, with a few cigarette burns thrown in here and there, my shoulders were covered in scars from being beaten with a belt, my neck was covered in random scratches from who knows what, my hands were so badly bruised from being held in place by brass knuckles attached to the wall of the basement by chains so that my parents could do what they did and my legs were covered in random cuts, burns and bruises. When everyone saw how badly I had been abused, they all stood and stared with bewilderment, with tears in their eyes. I just stood there looking ashamed because of all my cuts, bruises and burns. When Colby noticed that I looked ashamed of how I looked, he walked over to me and wrapped me in a hug and whispered into my ear, "There's no need to be ashamed, we will never judge you because of your past. Your parents will never be able to hurt you again, as long as me and the rest of the guys are standing by your side to protect you."