Through fragile eyes peeking out from beneath the blankets, I cased the room for any looming dangers I had long learned to live with in the vague lighting that allowed just enough for me to feel close to knowing. Close to knowing what the night would bring. It never mattered that I was on the second story, as long as there were windows I knew there was danger. I had never forgotten the night, three years earlier, that the large dark figure, I was staring at, made his way into my room, through my window. I hadn’t forgotten the ignored cries and screams as the laughter amongst them continued the hall where they spent all of their time, laughing- or how big the bed was for me to climb down and finally run towards safety.

My eyes perused the shades pulled completely off track, a habit of mine that was very contentious for my mom. I rolled my eyes around the room, averting the pictures of the clowns that hung prominently in the little light peering in the slightly cracked bedroom door, where the bathroom light was to be kept on at all times, or I was terrified. It was a cruel game at moments; punishment meant being the dark at times. It wasn’t the dark I knew I was afraid of, it was not knowing what was in the dark with me that embedded this fear in me as permanency. It didn’t matter that I could make out the toy box, the dresser, or that I could see into the open closet doors. I was 6 years old, clinging tightly to my raggedy Ann and Andy. I cried endlessly, not just then, always. I knew then, I just didn’t belong.

He opened the door to my room that night, and stood tall, and drunk and mean. Down the hall, the party continued- my mom, his brothers, and  my cousin Vicki, who was 8 that year, and warned “if you don’t stop you’re crying, I’ll give you something to cry about!” I knew it was most possible so I stared a moment at him, wishing my real dad didn’t leave me, that maybe he was looking for me, and in time, maybe sometime soon he’d come and say he was sorry, and I could tell him my name was Jenny and that I didn’t know how it worked but I wanted to be an angel more then anything in the world. I didn’t want to be the ugly, four-eyed, friendless lonely little girl anymore. Maybe he would love me, because no one else did besides my Grandma and two Aunts and Vicki- but I was mad at her, because she got to stay up late with everyone. My mom loved her more then me, that I knew pretty early into my life. She didn’t just show it, she’d said it many times over. Vicki was the prettier girl, and as for me, well- I was just always in my mom’s way for happiness.