You hear stories of people who walk away from their lives and start over. I was sixteen when I realized that's what I wanted to do. The only problem was where could I go? Sure, other sixteen year olds had run away from their lives in the past, but statistically things don't work out well for most of them, especially the girls. I had reason to know. My grandfather was a minister and had helped more than one runaway over the years. The stories these kids shared were never good. Frankly, many were downright horrifying.
No, as bad as things were, they weren't bad enough for me to run away from home and chance facing that kind of life. I mean, it's not like my parents didn't love me. They did. I knew that. The fact that they were so clueless wasn't even that odd. Aren't most parents that way when it comes to their kids?
Okay, maybe mine were a little more oblivious than most, but they came by it honestly. They were good people brought up by good families. They weren't exposed to the darker side of life. I think to some degree it was by choice, at least in my father's case. Dad never really wanted to follow in his own father's footsteps. If he had he might have had some idea of how to help me.
My father graduated college with a degree in architecture. He joined the Peace Corp at his father's insistence. I think it was part of deal they made before grandfather agreed to pay for dad's education. It sounded like something he would do. Knowing Grandfather, he probably figured that not only would the Peace Corp, a worthy institution in his opinion, gain from father's skills, but that my father would also gain from the experience. I don't think either of them expected daddy to meet the woman he was going to marry while overseas, although I wouldn't put it past my grandfather.
Mother was also a volunteer. My parents quickly fell in love and decided to get married when they returned to the states. Mom was a housewife, but spent most of her time working on one committee or another after they settled near my father's family. It was a small town where dad's father was the local minister and had been since before my father was born. I spent a lot of time with my grandfather growing up. In many ways, he was my hero.
For the first fourteen years of my life we lived in our small town and I was happy being the minister's granddaughter. I knew everyone in town. I had a good group of friends. We had fun together without getting into any serious trouble. In short, I lived an idyllic life.
All that changed, at least for me, when we moved. My father had done well for himself as an architect and received more than one job offer over the years from big companies. I'm not sure what was so special about the one he decided to take. It entailed us moving to the big city which I think was a plus for my parents. They jokingly called the move their midlife crisis.
Me? I was just as excited to go. Sure, I'd miss my friends, but I could always talk to them on-line. It's not like we lived in the Stone Age. Besides, I fully planned on following in my grandfather's footsteps when I grew up and what better place than the big city to get experience helping people? Yeah, I guess my parents weren't the only clueless ones. Of course, my naiveté disappeared not long after I started high school.
Some days when I look in the mirror I can still almost make out the girl who left our small town staring back at me, but it was an illusion. She was gone. I knew that.
I won't bore you with the gory detail on what happened. Let's just say that the high school I went to had more than enough people who could have used my help. Unfortunately, most of them didn't want it. There was one particular senior boy who took offense at my attempts to help him. I should have backed off. He gave me more than enough warning. I never should have accosted him at that party. He was drunk, but I just knew that given the chance I could help him.
Still, that didn't give him the right to do what he did to me. Well, him and his two friends. The threats they made afterward about what they'd do to me if I ever told anyone what happened were unnecessary. I'd learned my lesson that night.
You see, up to that moment my life revolved around God and a desire to do his works. They stripped me of that belief along with my innocence. The problem was that without God I was lost. He'd played such an important part in my life up until that moment that nothing could fill the void. Of course, that didn't stop me from searching.
I tried all sorts of things. I drank. I tried drugs. I'd slept with more guys than I cared to think about. In short, I developed a well-earned reputation, none of it positive. It didn't helped. I was pretty messed up when it finally all came to a head.
I'd done my best to hide what I'd become from my parents. I succeeded reasonably well for a while, but by the time I hit the summer before my junior year there was no hiding it. Hell, I could barely control it. My parents were at wits end by that point.
That's when they decided to send me back to our old town for the summer. I tried refusing to go, but they didn't give me a choice. I didn't see the point. I'd lost contact with all my friends and the last person I wanted to see was my grandfather. Ever since that night at the party I couldn't even think about him without being both guilt ridden and angry. A part of me hated him for making me think God was the answer to everything. A bigger parted hated myself for feeling that way about him.
My grandfather wasn't nearly as clueless as my parents. Maybe it was because as a minister he'd seen more of the darker side of life than them. I remember the first hug he tried to give me after I arrived from the airport. I stiffened like a board. That didn't stop him. I pushing him away, but that didn't blind me to the compassion, understanding and love that showed in his expression. I hadn't said a word, but I could tell he knew. Maybe not the details, but the details didn't matter.
Some of my old friends tried to reconnect during that summer, but our meetings were awkward at best. I wasn't the girl they remembered and seeing them and the innocence they still held on to was more than I could stand, especially as I dried out.
There was no alcohol in my grandfather's house and if our town had a local dealer it wasn't anyone I knew. I would have tried picking something up at the liquor store, but I knew there was no point. Mr. Simmons would never sell my anything. He was a good man and knew I was underage. Besides, even if he wasn't that type of man, no one in our small town would be stupid enough to cross my grandfather.
I'm not sure if my old friends started avoiding me first or I started avoiding them, but halfway through the summer I was spending a lot of time alone. That wasn't a good thing without the alcohol and drugs to subdue my thoughts. That's when my grandfather took a sabbatical from the church and focused all of his attention on me.
Grandfather was patient with my outbursts. I refused to listen whenever he tried talking about God, but I still loved hearing his voice. It was oddly calming. We began to bond once more despite my resistance.
