Chapter 2

• The following night, my mom left for her shift. I locked my room door and decided to sleep early. A few hours into my sleep, I heard a slow but loud knock followed by his voice.
• “sweetie, open the door for daddy, c’mon” I shivered, I knew he was going to come back again, for the past week he had this look in his eyes, anytime he saw me he’d smile and mouth the words “I love you”. It was suffocating.
• Well, that night he broke the door knob, came into my room and defiled me. It became continuous, each time I saw my mom I carefully mentioned my spoilt doorknob but she barely said anything.
• It’ll be two weeks before the summer break is over and I’ll be in my senior year in high school meaning soon I’d have to fend for myself. I had good grades in school so I started working towards a scholarship program. I planned to go to NYU it was 11 hours away from our place in Kentucky. It was far and I loved it. I didn’t plan on seeing any of the Langstons ever again, I just had to hold on till then.
• I’d fixed my doorknob a year ago so he’d not been able to touch me since but he never gave up. Each night he’d always return repeating his nauseating words, trying to break the door open. Then after some hours he’d leave. I never slept in peace cause I knew soon the door won’t be strong enough to hold him back. He was obsessed so he’d find a way to break it open soon…….
• I never really had friends since I started schooling. Boys irritated me and the girls thought I was deformed cause I always wore oversized hoodies and never looked at anyone directly, I was really sociophobic. Anytime, a guy spoke to me I shivered and threw up, the one girl that had tried to talk me thought I was a stuck up bitch cause I didn’t reply whenever she spoke to me, everyone avoided me like a plague. Even the bullies.
• After the summer break ended, I returned to school. I decided to meet the principal after school to find out the requirements for scholarship at NYU. She was the only one in the school that had seen my full face, the day I got admitted into the school, she had insisted I looked directly at her while talking.
• The day went by normally, had my classes, ate my lunch in the girl’s toilet, then went through the rest of my classes. After the final class, I went to the principal’s office and knocked on the door.
• “Who’s that? come in”. I went in, she was looking through some files while motioning for me to sit.
• “Give me a minute, I need to find something” she said not looking up. After a while, she picked out a file and returned the rest to her drawer before looking up.
• “Ah miss Langston, what brings you to my office?”
• That name, I could never allow anyone call me by that name anymore.
• “I came to find out the requirements for getting a scholarship in NYU, ma’am”
• “Hmmm…NYU…okay…..let me take a look at your files first”. She went over to the cabinets and scanned through the files till she stopped and brought out mine.
• “okay…let’s see….mmm…. well…..your grades are good enough and your extra curricular activities are not that bad. All you need to add is participation in a club or two preferably the drama club or the debate club and that’ll will probably be all you need”.
• “Drama or debate?” well shit….
• “Is there any other club I could join, any other one at all?”.
• My hands were shaking, this was something I couldn’t do, I can’t stand or even make a full sentence in front of a crowd and I don’t want anybody touching me.
• None of the options seemed better.
• “Miss Langston….”
• “Lana…ma’am, call me Lana”
• “Lana don’t you think it’s time you stop staying hidden in that shell you put around yourself, I’ve been watching you and you’re a really brilliant student if you could just socialize a little and associate with your classmates that’ll be very lovely”.
• She’d never understand, it’s not that I didn’t want friends, my mind and body weren’t ready to accept anyone yet.
• “thank you ma’am,goodday”.
• I stood up and left.
• I decided I’d join the debate club and just be a substitute, at least I won’t have to participate except an emergency comes up and hopefully none will. The club members never really discussed anything other than our schedules and topic. Nobody bothered talking to me and I liked it.Time passed and of course prom was drawing closer meaning graduation was also near also meaning I'd be free soon.
• I'd been working part-time at a cafe and night shifts and a grocery store and some weekends doing deliveries.
• The hard work didn't seem bad cause I had made up my mind to leave everything behind and completely start over.
• The night shifts kept me away from home,away from him. Everything was going well and it frightened me, I felt like something night eventually pop up and destroy everything i was working towards.
• But nothing came up, my scholarship application got accepted, I didn't attend the prom,of course, I graduated as the valedictorian but I refused to give a speech, some girl gave in my place.
• Months later, the day I had to leave arrived.
• I packed the new clothes I had got few weeks ago and took everything that was significant to me, everything they bought me I left behind. I had also gotten a fairly used car, it was a black Volvo. I packed up everything, Mr Langston was nowhere to be seen. My mom had dropped an envelope with some cash in it on my dresser before leaving for work. I put it in her wardrobe,I had already sworn not to take anything related to this city or the langston's with me.
• I only had myself from now on. With that in mind, I entered the car sparing no glance to the house I'd grown up in and zoomed off to begin my own journey.....