Yours Truly, Ramona

chapter twelve | misery.

"I read your shit. I know you slit your wrists."

I back up slowly to get away from him, my mind in a state of utter confusion.

This can't be real—how does he know?

All the effort I've put into making sure no one finds out about my cuts, all the times I've tried to keep it a secret. Above all of that, the first person to ever find out is Allen, one of the biggest assholes I've ever had to put up with.

I don't know how much he read, either. He might know about the things my father did to Mason and I, about my deepest thoughts and fears, about Joseph and about every single foster home I've been put in.

"Believe me, Ramona. One call to your social worker and you're out of here. I can get rid of you with one fucking call. Honestly, it would make my life easier if you weren't here."

He needs to keep his mouth shut about that journal, and I'm praying he does. I have a feeling he will, though. Last time I checked, the foster stipend they get each month for me is the same money that's paid their bills for the last couple of months.

Either way, I fucking hope this bastard calls social services and gets me out of here. Anything would be better than having to put up with his bullshit all the time.

"I fucking hope you do, Allen. Go ahead, call them. Put me out of my fucking misery."

This makes him smirk, as if he enjoys watching me suffer.

"Maybe I'll make you stay just to drive you crazy. You're getting what's coming to you, Ramona."

His tone of voice is so sick that it makes me scared. The way he says my name disgusts me.

I don't scare easily, but he's managed to put some new kind of fear into my mind. I don't know what it is, but it's familiar. It's the same thing my father did to me, although my father actually had a physical advantage over me, unlike Allen.

"Is that a threat?"

I hide my fear and anxiety well—it's masked underneath my confident voice and my unfazed appearance.

"I don't make threats, I make promises."

He creeps back slowly, letting every inch of terrorization take over the air. It envelops me in a blanket of fear and weakness, something that I hate more than I hate being alive.

How dare he intrude on my past like that. How dare he use my own emotions to blackmail me into a corner of dread and panic.

I escape to my room as quickly as possible, not wanting to spend another second around this horrible human being.

I just need to find that journal.

It has my life story in it—it holds everything.

Every feeling I've felt, every bad thing I've done. It's all in there and I can't bear to lose it.

As traumatic as most of the memories in it are, losing the journal would mean forgetting. Whether I like it or not, those events shaped me into the person I am today, and I need to remember.

It's thankfully laying safety on my bed, open to a page from January of my eighth-grade year. Maybe he hasn't read the whole thing—maybe he doesn't know about Joseph.

The entry the journal is open to is actually one I remember writing. I was thirteen at the time, and Mason was five. We were in our second foster home with a couple named Joel and Lisa, who were probably some of the worst foster parents we've ever had.