At seventeen my boyfriend introduced me to the guy he bought his drugs from and who I ultimately ended up going to live with. He was the scariest man I’d ever met. It wasn’t just his huge mass that made him terrifying, it was the abuse and the sadistic threats he made.
My parents couldn’t force me to come home even though they tried calling the police; plus my father tried to come get me once when I was willing to go home. The drug dealer arrived home just as I was collecting my things to leave, flew down the stairs and proceeded to put my head through a wall. I went and told my dad I changed my mind, I wanted to stay.
It was the very first abusive relationship and I was scared. In addition to the beatings I took he threatened to tie me up and do unspeakable things to me like letting his friends all take turns fucking me; and he threatened my life more than once. I had every reason to believe he would make good on them. I needed to get out and badly but how? He had me practically chained to his hip all the time. Then something happened.
Remember the boyfriend I mentioned earlier? Well, the drug dealer threatened his life and had to do thirty days in jail. If his homecoming was to be anything like when he came home from the hospital after recovering from pneumonia, it was going to be a beating for me for sure. The night before I was supposed to go with his aunt and uncle to pick him up from jail I packed up the four joints I had, the one change of clothes I had with me and the last ten bucks I had left to my name. I waited until everyone was asleep and I hit the road.
I hitch-hiked all the way to Toronto. Lucky for me, I hitched a ride with a couple who was traveling to Toronto so they took me the whole way. They made sure I was fed and gave me some helpful tips on how to stay safe in a huge city. I got in touch with my parents and from there I moved in with my older sister and her new husband in a tiny little community in Ontario.
My older brother back in New Brunswick was followed for a year because the drug dealer thought he would lead him to me. He managed to somehow track me down and get a letter to me through my brother-in-law’s cousin (she has a similar name to my sister’s). It scared the hell out of me and I did not go home for Christmas that year.
I had a falling out with my sister some time after that and moved out but the whole time I was still living with her, I was looking over my shoulder not knowing if he would actually come after me. A few years later I moved back to the Maritimes and any time I had to go near the town where I used to live with him I’d become hyper-vigilant. I got word a few years later he died while traveling between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and that is when I took a big cleansing breath knowing I was finally safe from him forever.
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My Phoenix Rising 