Prologue #3
He didn’t come every night. Usually just once or twice during the week, and then again on the weekends.
Weekends were the worst. Probably because he was home from work and grew bored easily with the lame ass stuff on television.
He still only had those stupid antenna ears so he barely got any channels at all.
Adeline once considered using her babysitting money to pay for cable. Maybe then he’d find something better to watch and leave her alone. A knot formed in her throat, knowing that would never happen. She could get him every porn channel in the world and he’d still want her.
Just the thought of him made her skin crawl, but there was nothing she could do.
She considered calling the police on him, but she’d heard of all the horror stories about kids in foster care.
Her life wouldn’t get any better, and might even get worse.
She often thought about running away, but she couldn’t.
Not yet. She had a plan, but she needed more time.
Her babysitting job for the Donaldson’s across the street every day after school for an hour and a half was perfect because Albert didn’t get home from work until half an hour later.
So, she didn’t have to tell him about it.
She hid her money in the very back of the space where she’d kept her dolls. A place he’d never think to look.
She’d already saved up almost two hundred dollars, but she needed more. A lot more, if she was going to make it out in the world on her own.
Adeline, Age 16
Adeline stood outside the family planning clinic feeling like her entire world had just come crashing down on her. She hated Albert for so many things, but this…
The entire four-hour bus ride from Dallas to Oklahoma City, she’d tried to tell herself there was a choice to be made. That she had options. But the truth was, she was still a kid and there was no way in hell she was ready to raise a baby.
Especially not his baby.
She heaved and barely made it to the bushes in time before vomiting more bile that burned the back of her throat. She was exhausted and constantly felt sick. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep for days, but there was no way she was ever going back to that house.
The problem was, she didn’t really have anywhere else to go.
She tucked a loose strand of her dyed jet-black hair behind her ear and rubbed at the nose ring that was getting infected again, probably because she’d done the piercing herself.
She hated how all this crap made her feel.
She’d only done it in the hopes of maybe making Albert not want her.
But nothing she tried had worked. The black hair didn’t bother him.
The nose ring didn’t faze him. The zits she’d let herself get after weeks of not washing her thick makeup off her face every night also didn’t seem to bother him.
Even the scars on her thighs from years of cutting herself didn’t seem to matter to him.
He just took what he wanted from her whenever he wanted it, not caring whether she had anything left to give.
Well, when he got home tonight, he’d be in for a rude awakening, because she wasn’t going to be there and she was never going back.
She looked down at the papers in her hand.
The name she’d given the clinic wasn’t even her real name.
She didn’t think Albert would try to find her, but she didn’t want to chance it.
So, she gave the clinic a fake name and they never even asked for identification.
They just had her pee on another stick, as if she hadn’t already done that before getting on that stupid bus, and gave her some pamphlets with her various options. What a joke. What a fucking joke.
She wanted this to be a nightmare. She wanted to wake up and find out her parents were still alive and that Albert never really existed. She wanted to be able to go home and sleep, and not worry about some old guy creeping into her room at night to fondle her, and more...
Instead, she walked down the sidewalk, clutching her backpack filled with clothes and a few items of food. She didn’t have a destination in mind. Just two thousand dollars, and the determination to never go back to Albert’s house.
Her only regret was that she’d never see or talk to Ford again.
She tried to console herself that he was just a ghost. That there was nothing he could do for her.
But he’d been more of a father to her than her own father had been.
He’d sat with her when she cried. He’d comforted her when she was scared.
He’d even helped her with her homework, and told her stupid dad jokes when she was sad.
Tears streamed down her face for the dead man who lived in her bedroom. But the reality was that Ford was dead, and she wasn’t. And now she had a life growing inside her.
A life she had to protect from Albert, no matter what.
***