It's difficult to remember what happened after all of this but I do know that "K" was brought up on charges related to the abuse of "S". Through friends of his family, I heard that he had additional assault charges against him for attacking the judge (in the courtroom) who heard his case. Nobody ever really knew of what happened between me and "K", except for what was revealed in the letters and I don't know how much was gleaned from that either.
As things calmed down and "K" seemed to stay away from "S" and the rest of us, she went back to her house to live. In 9th grade, a few friends and I, from my hometown, began to go rollerskating in the city where I had lived with "K" and "S". Each of our parents took turns taking us, through snowstorms and everything. One parent who did the most for us was also my old bus driver from when I went to school in my hometown. Sadly, he killed himself a few years later. His death was one of many we experienced, over an 8 year period. It seemed people were dying in accidents or committing suicide at an alarming rate. By the time I had graduated from high school and a few years after that, I had lost 8 people I knew. Car accidents, drowning, accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, shootings, hangings...it was a terrible time.
It was still tough to go back to that city but we had so much fun rollerskating and it got us out of our little hometown. I don't think the few of us really felt like we fit in. I know I didn't but it was not because of the people I went to school with, it was because I felt as if what had happened to me was written all over my face. After about a year, a couple of us became so intent on getting out of our town, that we decided to move to the city where I had lived with "S" and "K". I moved in with "S", transferred schools and began high school again. Despite the memories, that was where all my friends were from skating and at the time, that's where I felt I fit in.
I met a boy named "Lee" before I moved, when my friends and I were still traveling to go skating. Lee and I began dating. When I found out he lived right around the corner from where I would be living with "S", I was thrilled! Lee had a best friend "Jared", who began hanging around with us, soon after I moved there. It was just the three of us almost every day and we had a lot of fun. We didn't go out much of anywhere because we all had at least one big thing in common...we felt like misfits. "Lee's" father had an old car that he wanted to sell but for a long time he let it sit, tucked away at the end of their driveway, near the backyard. It was perfect for three bored 15 year olds. We would get our smokes, Cheech and Chong, George Carlin and Blue's Brothers cassettes =) and take turns sitting in different seats of the car, portraying the different characters. Many days we easily spent entire afternoons acting out the songs and sketches. We knew them all by heart. We'd pretend we were driving, putting our bodies into it, hooting and hollering and laughing our asses off. By the end of our fun, we had overflowed the ashtray and pretty much lost our voices.
Finally, after a whole summer of acting like nuts in a stationary car, Lee's father said he was putting it up for sale. We were so bummed. One afternoon, "Lee's" dad spoke on the phone with people who wanted to buy the car. They were coming over to look at it. We got out and had to clean it up, as there were cigarette butts and garbage all over. Then we went to sit on the porch, wait and pray that no one wanted that car. I was sitting in an area of the porch where I could see down the driveway a little ways and the car was right by the porch. We heard a car come into the driveway. As the people came crunching down the gravel driveway, my stomach turned, it was "K" and a woman. I jumped up in a total panic and ran inside Lee's house as fast as I could. I didn't want him to see me. He ended up buying the car.
"Lee" was very possessive and I ended up breaking up with him after 6 months. At one point, he had pulled a knife and slashed the paper I was reading because I guess I wasn't paying enough attention to him. I was done. "S" met a really great man, through friends, and was going to move out to California. I had 2 choices: Move back to live with my mother, or move in with my best friend and her family, so I could stay at that school. I moved into my best friend "Ann's" house.
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