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By Root 326 0

claims to be the perfect dad, but he strives to be better than the dad he had. He wants to be in his son’s life through good times and bad. In my mind this makes him a super dad. He reminds me of my mom in a lot of ways. Another dad I have met is a stepfather. My experience with stepfathers wasn’t the greatest. In my mind a stepparent never loves the stepkid as much as their own. I guess I think this way because I never felt loved or accepted by my stepfather. Now I see there are many forms of love and a stepparent can love their kids and the stepkids differently but still love and accept them. Although some stepparents and stepkids might not see eye-to-eye on some things, they can still have genuine affection for one another. I have never seen this stepfather making fun of his stepkids like Carl used to do to me. Shayna was his daughter; there was no doubt about that. He was very proud to have a daughter of his own. It left me feeling in the way. Perhaps this added to my sense of loneliness that I feel I have carried around for a long time.

I don’t know why my biological father made the choice not to see me. I might never know the answer. I know now that he has two families, and I wonder if he takes the time to appreciate them. I know he must feel badly about what happened to me, but it was not his fault and could not have been prevented. Well, maybe it could have been prevented by some law changes and more supervision for sex offenders by the government, but that’s hindsight. No one could have foreseen what would happen to me or ever thought it was possible in that small Tahoe community. The fact is it happened. It’s over now. I do not live my life constantly wishing that I could change the past. I am thankful to be alive. I am thankful for my daughters. I am thankful I have an incredibly strong mom who never gave up on me. I am thankful for my beautiful, bright sister and loving aunt. And I am thankful for the countless others I have come to know since my rescue. Genes, I have learned, do not make a family. Families are the people that stick around through good and bad times. Sadness is part of life. Choosing to be happy and see the glass half full is a struggle we all must make. At this point I don’t know what the future holds for me. I am enjoying what freedom I have and discovering things about myself I never knew. Will I choose to meet my biological father one day? I don’t know the answer to that. I know for now I am not ready, and if that’s too hard for him to understand, then that’s too bad for him because I think I just might be worth waiting for.

The First “Run”

I just want to sleep. I sleep a lot, because when I sleep I can dream about better things, like being home with my mom and sister. When I wake it is dark, but something has woken me up. I hear the rattle of the lock. He is coming. He usually doesn’t come this late. I have not thought he would come this late. I should have thought of all the possibilities and this wouldn’t have happened. I am scared. What does he want? I want to sleep. He enters with a flashlight. I pretend to be sleeping. I squeeze my eyes tight. How long can I pretend to be asleep? I can hear him crouching down in front of me. Go away, I scream in my head. He shakes my shoulder and I pretend to wake up. He whispers to me, “It’s time to wake up, we are going next door,” and puts the blanket on me.

A few days ago, he brought in a pink flowered one-piece jumpsuit for me to wear and a pair of undies. It feels good to have something to wear. I hate taking it off when he comes for sex. Where are we going? This is different, I haven’t left this building since I got here. He says I need to be quiet as we make our way out of the building. I cannot see where he is leading me, but we are there quickly, so it must not be far away. I have taken about ten steps when we arrive “next door.”

We have entered another room. This one is different. It’s all one room with three windows. Two of the windows are on each side of the building and the third one is by the door. On the back wall halfway