Splitting: The Aftermath of Running (Part II)

Sadly enough, the running-away incident made me more than noticeable and what's worse, I wasn't imagining the gossip anymore. People would sing Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" and all I could do was acknowledge their taunting with the line "Sometimes I feel I've got to ... RUNAWAY" while we were toppling over each other to make our way out of the doors after school. I was grabbed by another boy the same way Adam had grabbed me before, but this time there was such a large crowd of kids that everyone saw but I had no idea who had done it.

Mother made me stop wearing make-up until I managed to coax her into buying me some neutral colors at Eckerds. To compliment the shades, she bought me a brown eyebrow pencil to help my appearance until my eyebrows grew back. A week later I started using it to line my lips like a typical south side hood rat. When the overwhelming response to running away died down, Roger asked me to sit with him at lunch. Our conversation was brief and I never figured that would be the last time I'd have a chance to sit with him.

High school was supposed to be a new start for me, but I ended up used after those four turbulent years. I was boy crazy and starved for attention and as a result I regretted all of the times I'd had sex. Every time I let myself be seduced, I hated myself for it. Guys were my friends and I hardly ever hung out with girls my age.

I started to sneak out alot just to go out with boys or cruise downtown on Saturday nights. Getting high and drinking too much for a girl my age manage to make me an easy target for not-so-slick guys. I met Joaquin through a friend of his that was the friend of an old boyfriend I'd had. Sounds complicated huh? My whole life has since been made up of relationships like this. I always know people who know people that knew people that knew me somehow. Anyways, Joaquin became my best friend and the first time I was much too wasted was at his house. The room was dark and there was some boy, some skinny, not too good looking boy, but he was interested in me and we made out on Joaquin's mom's musty smelling couch. Being my best friend and all, Joaquin thought I was being taken advantage of and hooked his dogs on a leash and brought them into the house to bark gutterally at the skinny boy. He had already unzipped his jeans and when I tried to help him zip them back up, he thought I was still trying to mess with him. He made some retarded remark like "Stop it girl! We can't anymore" or something to that effect and I rolled my eyes in disbelief. Thank God for those vicious dogs. If it wasn't for them and the love Joaquin had for me at the time, I would've added another mistake to my tremendous list. After caving to his pleas to get with me, Joaquin and I lasted two years until the night I took off on him to go and sleep with another guy. That night, instead of sleeping with one guy, I slept with two under the spell of wine coolers, beer, and vodka. To top it off, the message I had left my parents about staying the night and not being able to come home was never received. My mom called the last number on the phone and reached a guy I'd never managed to go out with. He told her he had chopped me into pieces and thrown me in a ditch. I never left the house again without telling someone where I was, even if it was just my sister.

I had never really been in love until I met David during the summer of my junior year, but what started off like the perfect couple you see in movies turned out to be five years of cheating, drunkenness, getting high, and physical and mental abuse. David was always gone and always drunk but the details of where he was all those times are still sketchy to this day. He helped me so much in high school that when this demon came out in him, I scarcely recognized him. Before school was over I had left home to be with him after accusations arose that he had cheated on me on Valentine's Day of that year. Refuting the thought that David could ever do that to me I stole away into the night with him and for about four months I didn't speak to anyone in my family. We were living in a comfortable little motel. Times were good to us then. Suddenly being together was the only thing that mattered and we fell back in love but the itch stayed with me that he may have slept with someone else. Eventually we moved into my parent's house together and soon after, David started to become a ghost in the home. I was made out to serve to him and wait patiently till he decided to come home at night. The following years the tearing of my split ends grew considerably to the point that in 2005 I was driving my car with my forearms resting on the steering wheel and my split ends up in front of me so that I could see the road and split them at the same time. I spent three years of my life this way. Insecure, under appreciated, used, dismissed, and depressed, I still managed to tolerate all the things he'd done. After having my first son and after David got out of jail for the eighth time in three years, I realized that even though my dad had not been in jail or had a problem with drugs, I had sought out the same type of man he had been to my mother. Besides, the only reason he wasn't in and out of jail was because my mom wouldn't call the cops on him. Instead she'd cake on her make-up and hide her tears and pain inside because my dad was the bread-winner and she was just a housewife.

Perception of the depth of my illness came on a bright Saturday afternoon in March of 2007. The ride in my Explorer to the local drug store with my sister put my mentality in a perspective I'd have never confronted alone. A thirty minute journey to the store revealed all of our personality disorders.

"I make things up and act them out to feel more important," Rocky confesses to me. "I can be going to lunch and I'll tell a co-worker that I'm headed to Compliance. Oh, and I'll tell them that if anyone calls for me, to take a message, but we all have our own phones. No one is gonna answer my line! And when I walk away I hear people saying 'Freakin' psycho' but I like it. It gives me satisfaction."

I laugh and decide to share with her, " When I'm driving, I'll put my blue tooth in my left ear and at red lights, I talk to myself so people can think I'm on the phone."

Bleeding hearts and all, we trade our evil little secrets and laugh. Rocky tells me how she had nothing to eat at home, and instead of buying something, she cooked herself expired eggs. I immediately imagine my sister as a Dr. Seuss character and I make up a story about myself not having food either and eating an old sweaty piece of cheese that had stayed on my counter. After a quick gross out, I admit to the lie, even though I had the full intention of allowing both of us to believe it. Letting our sick minds spill out on the dash in front of us, we laugh while gulping energy drink which becomes a sort of truth serum to us. My mother assures me that I've lost it too. A diagnosed bi-polar and me, the self diagnosed obsessive compulsive. It seems we take so much comfort in each others complexities. My sister and I used to be so wrapped up in our own lives. I can't really remember where she was when I ran away or if I had even seen her during that time and I barely remember who she was right after she graduated. We grew close somewhere between the time that I was her little bratty sister following her around unwanted and the time she got wasted with her boyfriend and called me a slut while I cried and held her hair back so she could vomit. We experienced such different lives but managed to come out quite alike. After the high from the energy drinks wore down and I drove home, I thought about how much I love her.

I settled into a new apartment and a new life after having my second son from David. During my most aggressively depressing times, I had purchased a home and lost it after finding David had been driven to drug abuse. He refused to leave the home, the police could not help me due to common law rules in Texas, and all I could do to avoid him was pack myself and my son up and move back into my parent's house so they could care for me while I carried my second child.

He wasn't there when our new baby was born. I had become very sick and needed a blood transfusion and several medications including Glycerin to lower my blood pressure. I was at a high risk for heart failure.

When David is around I can sit on the toilet for twenty minutes straight, just picking at my split ends and thinking about the fables of good men. What is it that a man is supposed to be anyways?