Why ME?

What did I do to deserve this, God? I am a good person, I treat people with kindness and compassion. I go out of my way to do the right thing. Hell, I even talk to strangers.

It started with my very first teenage crush. 15 years old, I felt like I was floating every time he came around. I had been babysitting for the Shepherd family for two years now, Mike lived across the street. We instantly became friends, with his dark long hair and those crystal blue eyes he was, intriguing. At 15 he was already well over 6 feet tall, and I just a little over 5 feet tall felt like he was the strongest kid I'd ever known. Climbing onto his back, we'd frequently take walks with the kids I watched. As they played, we would walk behind them having deep conversations of school and parents and life in general. We fell and fell hard for each other.

He won my mom over quickly, something about him didn't seem dangerous to her, ahh but my dad was skeptical. Momma and I couldn't figure out why .. until later. Mike won his way into my heart and our home, and at just 17 years old my parents let him move in with us. The old generic tale of a horrible relationship with his mother, and being kicked out with nowhere to go. That relationship was in fact a rocky one, his mother always yelling at him things no mother should ever say to a teenager. The way she talked to him made my heart shake inside my chest with anxiety.

Mike was adopted and unloved by his father, who had left when he was a young child. Leaving behind two very young boys and their mother, life wasn't easy for them, she worked a lot, leaving Mike and his brother to entertain themselves the best they knew how.

As time went on the side of Mike my dad had clearly seen started to come out, there was an anger like a time bomb ticking away inside of him that was unleashed frequently and only on me. A jealousy thicker than molasses that poured into every aspect of my being. Convincing me, at such a young age, that I was responsible for the safety of my own parents, he would remind me any ideas of cutting ties with him would simply end in a devastating loss of life. As the days ticked by one by one, I managed to find the strength to hide the anguish I felt at home from friends, teachers, my parents, coworkers, anyone and everyone around me.

Getting into legal trouble Mike would spend a year in prison for breaking and entering. For that year, I would write him letters everyday, visit him every Saturday, driving 3 hours one way. Those crystal blue eyes and manipulating words ringing in my ears like the sound of trumpets, never quiet, ever lingering in the background of the thoughts I had of packing up his belongings and saying goodbye. But it was time for his release and there I was the faithful, brown eyed girl waiting to bring him to home.

He was going to live with his mother again, his room cleaned and made fresh and neat. As I drove home that day, relief spilled over me that he wouldn't be waking me in the middle of the night to be raped, dragged to satanic rituals in the middle of fields, woken by the cold metal of him holding knives to my throat hurling accusations of cheating at me, because of a dream he'd had. Reminding me of the order he would slaughter my pets if I dared leave him.

In college now, I returned home from a long day of class to a couple unmarked police cars in my driveway. A gentleman in a suit greeted me stating I would need to come with him. As we drove out of the neighborhood I was informed of an anonymous phone call made to Crime Stoppers regarding a journal that was found in Mikes bedroom. I would later find out that our best friend Jennifer would be responsible for saving the lives of my parents and I. Mike had drawn a blueprint of my house and below it recorded the daily activities of my parents and myself. Noting how he would be killing each of us and in what order. I would be followed day and night, everywhere I went, my cell phone would be traced, and our home phone bugged for a month leading up to his arrest.

Sitting in that black unmarked car the loudest thought I had, beyond the fear I was feeling was; "but why me? I am a good person. What did I do to deserve this, God"? I wouldn't know it then, riding in the car with the detectives, but the abuse I had just lived through for 3 years wouldn't be the only abuse I would encounter in my lifetime. I wish those men would have known, been able to warn me that my life would be so hard. So today nearly thirty years later, I still ask why me? It is the one question with no answer.