Growing up I had one person in my life, my mother. Sometimes I think that she didn’t deserve that title, ‘mother’, because she wasn’t one. It was always about her and what she could get out of this life or the people around her. In her eyes, people were objects that were made to be used.

I lost count of the amount of men she brought home to our small trailer. What made it worse was the fact that I didn’t even have a room—we slept together. So, every time she was off fucking someone in our one-bedroom trailer, I had to hear every detail. No matter how much I tried to block it out, by turning up the television or trying to fall asleep, nothing worked. It was always there, the sounds of her lying pleasure—yes, lying. She would complain about how much of a lousy fuck they were once they left. Telling me all about them, even when I wasn’t old enough to understand what sex was. Though, I learned that part pretty fast, once you walk in on someone who was always having it.

I used to think I hated her, despised her for keeping me. Why couldn’t she have given me up for adoption? Sent me into the system. Let’s face it, she didn’t want me or need me. But I was her check, I learned once I was old enough, and she was not doing anything to fuck up that income.

Going to school I didn’t have any friends, I was an outcast because everyone knew who my mother was and what she did. She slept with most of my schoolfriend’s fathers, even some of the teachers at my high school. Her reputation was starting to rub off on me, and I had only just grown boobs.

Teenage boys would ask me to suck their cocks. I was shocked and appalled at their words until I made friends with one boy. At first, I didn’t think he saw me for what I was, or who I was raised by. Going to his house after school was my new favorite thing. He had a pool and a house—an actual house. I couldn’t remember the last time I was in a real house, unless it was a quick stop with my mother to pick up something, even then I was told to wait out front.

So, I met a boy. One that didn’t speak to me as if I were my mother. One who showed me an ounce of respect. His name was Derrick. I lusted after Derrick, or so I thought because he was so different, so popular. He liked me even with my old clothes, which were my mother’s because she hated spending money on me, and buying me clothes was definitely not on her list of must-haves. Anything to do with me was a waste of money that could be more easily spent on her.

After two months together with Derrick, and feeling like I was a human again, not something that a person kept because she wanted what she could get out of me, I felt alive. And it was all thanks to him. So, I gave him what I never thought I’d give another person—for the simple fact that I never wanted to, never felt the need to—I gave him myself. He was different though, wasn’t he?

“Just pull it all off,” he’d said when we were in his bedroom. I’d never done this before, so he was instructing me on what I had to do. He was naked, and already lying on his bed waiting for me. Removing my clothes, one by one, I saw his eyes light up at what he saw.

No one had ever seen me naked. Even at my own house, I made sure I showered with underwear on. For one primary reason—I did not trust who Mom brought home, and who could possibly walk in on me.

So there I was—not a scrap of clothing on me. My black hair was long and shapeless and skimmed the length of my back due to not being able to afford a salon visit. My fair complexion was so light due to never showing any skin. And here was a boy that was looking at me like I was everything. And in that moment, I honestly thought I was. He was popular and had dated the head cheerleader. Still, he chose me.

That experience was not one I enjoyed. I believed I’d never have sex again after that. It was too painful, and he wasn’t gentle with me at all, he was rough and it hurt. Then it happened again a week later because he was being nice to me, only this time it wasn’t as painful. Nevertheless, I still had no pleasure in it.

Thinking I was meant to tell him, I asked him, “Will I enjoy it eventually?” His face went from caring to angry within a second. His nostrils had flared, and I watched as his pupils dilated. He stood to throw my clothes at me, and I had no idea what was happening. He called out a name I didn’t quite catch, and one of his friends opened the door and looked between us.

“She wants to be fucked…” He looked at me, still so angry. “Let him fuck you, and be a good girl,” he stated as he threw on a shirt and walked out of the room.

I was still naked under the bed sheets as his friend started to undress and climb in with me. Thinking I should tell him no and that I didn’t want to do this, was all I wanted to say, but I didn’t. Letting one of his friends climb into that bed with me, in that moment, was the biggest mistake of my life. It was the exact moment I turned into my mother, the person I hated the most.

Because it didn’t stop with his friend.

It went on and on and on.

I could never run from Derrick, and a part of me didn’t want to either. Even after that night, I was at his house every day with him. He had a car, so where he went, I went. After that first time with his friend, who was just as bad as Derrick was, I asked him no more.

He placed his hand on my shoulder and smiled as he looked at me. “You’re mine, Milanka. So, you fuck who I say you fuck.” He turned back to the road and continued to drive. Derrick was a devil wearing a mask. He was my first masked devil, and I was determined he would be my last, the minute I could get away.

I did everything he asked. Everything. Attended all his parties with a smile on my face and dressed the way he chose. My mother never even noticed I was gone, but she didn’t care. I spent more and more time with Derrick. I wished in those moments I was a stronger woman, not a weak one that allowed myself to be pushed around.

Derrick’s arm was around me one night, we were with a group of his friends sitting down talking. We were waiting for everyone to arrive because, as usual, he was throwing another party. Turning to look at Derrick I saw everything I liked in him—from his brown messed-up hair that looked like he didn’t need to style it because he woke up like that, his lips that sucked me in in the first place with his smooth words that he would send my way, to his brown eyes that if you looked close enough you could see the evil leaching from them.

It took me too long to work that part out, though.

If only I were smarter.

If only I had been born a different person.

Different mother.

Different life.

Those thoughts of ‘if only’ always run around in my head.

Why can’t that happen to me?

The girls that came around had perfect lives, yet they complained about the stupidest things. I never understood them. Therefore, I was never friends with them.

Nicole was the first girl I saw walk into the house with her posse behind her. She was Derrick’s ex and the head cheerleader, and she was still madly in love with him. I was constantly on the receiving end of the crude jokes, innuendoes and snarls she sent my way every day at school.

Today, though, she didn’t even look at me as she walked in. Nicole made a beeline straight to Derrick, his arm dropped from around my waist, and I wanted to claw at him to bring it back where it belonged. She leaned in and whispered in his ear, leaving me standing right there wondering what she was saying. He pulled back, looked at her then to me. His fingers clicked in the air. His friend appeared, one of the boys on the football team he was captain of.

“Take Milanka to my room,” he said to him.

I was about to protest when he interjected looking at me.

“Show him a good time, Milanka.”

I didn’t nod because I didn’t see any reason to. His friend already had hold of my hand and was dragging me away, while Nicole smirked as she watched me with laughter in her eyes.

Hated him.

I hated him more in that moment than I ever hated anyone before.

The feelings were strong, but he was the only man to show he cared and showed me any compassion. He bought me new clothes and shoes. It was the first time I’d received something that was brand new, considering I always wore my mother’s old hand-me-downs.

He made me feel, eighty percent of the time, the other twenty percent wasn’t so great. But I wasn’t willing to destroy that eighty percent by disappointing him. So, I did what he said, I slept with his friends. By the fourth friend, I started to really enjoy sex. I liked the way they looked at me when I was naked, like I was more than what I was. Not some trailer park girl.

He was sleeping with Nicole again, and he started to ignore me at school a few weeks after that night. He didn’t pull away straight away, it was a slow burn, and I didn’t even see it until it was in my face. Until I saw him fucking her in the same bed he had me in the night before. I stopped going over there even though I wanted to be there more than anything. Let’s face it, the last place I wanted to be was in the trailer listening to my mother make sounds that I knew all too well now.

Had I turned into her?

I couldn’t turn into that… into her!

He treated me different, right?

Not like the men treated her, I was sure of it.

We went back and forth until the day we left high school. I would always forgive him and go back, let him treat me the same way he’d always done. In return, he would buy me things, some things I didn’t even need or want. The gift, though, in itself was like a child receiving a new toy, every time. I’m guessing it felt like what a child would feel when opening gifts on Christmas morning.

The after-party from graduation changed all my thoughts. It made me clearly realize what I had become.

On that night, I ran, with a single bag and all I had to my name, and never came back.