Attack of the Sugar Monster!

He touched me and I say it doesn’t matter. I say it didn’t happen enough. Or, at least, I don’t remember enough. It didn’t happen enough to matter. How many times is too many? How many times does it take before it’s real? How many times does it take before it matters?

It doesn’t count because it could have been worse.

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In elementary school I cried every day. When class was over I would sit and watch the parking lot for hours. And I’d cry because I was positive that THIS would be the time my mother decided to not come back for me. I was always the last one picked up, just me and the one worker who got stuck waiting with me. I was mocked and teased for being a cry baby.

I was just so sure that, one day, she’d decide she no longer wanted me.

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As a child I spent hours in the library. I would get dropped off in the morning and picked up at the end of the day. Once I spent an entire day researching divorce. Taking pages of notes on how my mom could leave him. How she could divorce him and finally be happy.

She told me it was my fault that she stayed.

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When my writing caused a string of events that resulted in my mother, father, and I sitting at Child Services, they said I “misunderstood” what had happened. The social worker believed them. I begged her for therapy; I was suicidal and so afraid I wouldn’t survive much longer.

I never heard from her again.