Remembering...

The other day I went out to breakfast with a friend and we were talking about my past and she was asking some questions and how crazy that more things keep coming to the surface? I was talking to her about that last day that I had seen our abuser, because she asked if I have seen him since he got out of prison. Thankfully I have not, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t go through my head. One day at my store, I saw someone walk towards a blue truck, just like his mothers, and the walk and look from the back, and the bedazzled back pockets (I know right), just reminded me of him completely. I immediately grabbed my sharp kubaton and my phone for the camera and went to the door of the store. Thankfully, when this man turned around it was not him.

Regardless, I was talking to my friend about the last time I did actually see him. I always remembered that he had me by the throat in Tennessee and pinned up against the bedroom door frame. I remember that one of the boys was upstairs already, but I needed to go back down to the parking lot to grab my other son out of the car. We lived in an apartment building at the time that was two floors and we lived on the second and we faced the parking lot. As he had me by the throat, for whatever reason it was this time, I remember finally clawing back at him and he just let go. In my mind I remembered him walking out but there is more that I finally remembered. He packed a duffle bag with clothes and left and went to a motel down the road. I remember him calling, or maybe texting me after, and us discussing him coming back and I held firm. Next I remember him saying that he was getting a bus ticket to go back to Michigan (where we are from) and that he was going to “make things right.” I THINK he meant about there being the warrant out for him for 2nd degree child abuse, but honestly I don’t even know if he meant anything or what was really going on through his head. He stayed at the hotel that night, and he asked me for a ride to Nashville from where we lived (Smithville) the next morning to get to the bus. I did take him and he pretended to be upset and asked if he should still go and I held firm.

He got out of my car and got onto a Greyhound bus and that was the last I saw him. I still don’t know where he went or what he did. He never sent money to help with the kids or do anything and he didn’t get picked up or turn himself in immediately because it was a couple weeks or months, I can’t even remember anymore. I know he started dating a girl that was fresh out of high school and abusing her from what her step mom contacted me and told me. Other than that, besides social media harassing, that was the only communication after that until he was in prison and I got letters. I did think that at one point he was following me because my (now husband) boyfriend at the time, was getting texts saying that it was our abuser and that he was near and described what we were wearing. I started to have a panic attack and was going to start packing up my kids and leaving. Next thing we knew, my boyfriends (now husbands) worthless brother was laughing inside of my boyfriends house and admitted that it was him that was doing that to fuck with us. Clearly as you can tell he has abusive traits himself because of thinking that is a funny game, and so much more.

Thankfully though, my abuser didn’t try to see me or the boys and just moved onto the high school fresh girl and abuse her (that part is not okay but moving on from us was). But those two would harass both my boyfriend and I in texts and on social media trying to make me feel like I had done something wrong. Until he was in prison and he and his monster of a mother worked together to constantly track us down so they could send letters to us. Understanding the mind of an abuser and the people who support them is something that is a rabbit hole to never be understood.

I will say though that finding out that he is officially off of tether made my stomach sink the other day, but hopefully he just disappears off the face of the Earth, along with his family. The world would be a lot better off. Knowing that a monster can only have 15 months parole and 3 months of that on tether and get a plea deal for 2nd degree child abuse when you give a 3 month old 30 multiple rib fractures and a broken clavicle bone is mind boggling to me. I know they wanted to get him for something, but once parole is done, I know him enough to know he will move away to where no one knows him and he will start new. He will find a new victim and possibly kids again, it is a terrifying thought.