“Bundle up.”
That’s what he said to me.
I don’t know exactly what made me so fed up at that time, but I was. The discourse in my life, it had reached a level that was totally unbearable to me at the time. The shouting, the arguing, the fighting, crying, panicking. Logic eluded me at that time. All I wanted was an escape, and a solution. And I thought I knew how to get those.
I knew it was stupid, I knew that. But what else was a kid to do, being the victim of a narcissistic abuser like that, with no other options? CPS didn’t do anything. Cops didn’t do anything. Family didn’t do anything; they didn’t even believe me. And all the while I was suffering just about every day. You haven’t felt it. A house with the floor made of eggshells upon which I tread softly but still reap the hatred. I felt the cracking every day, especially of the recent days. And what do you do when there’s a house floored with hazardous materials? You leave.
My two accomplices were helping me. My friend and her friend, both of which I met online. You know, it’s shameful when two people you’ve never met in person are designated to save you from one person whose been with you for 16 out of 16 years. The blood was really thin.
Earlier, a fracas ensued. Such had been waiting to happen since the hellish chain of events late the passing summer. It was now November and this conflict had come to a head. It was the beginning of the end of my depressive phase and yet, I saw this as my only obstacle. But my family, they were a real obstacle. They were an immovable object, and I was a completely and utterly stoppable force. I had to break through. And I had a plan.
The first friend, Alys, was who I considered to be my best friend. We’d met online a few years prior and had kept in touch on and off ever since. The other friend, Yanni, was someone I met only about a month prior, and he was the “boyfriend” of Alys (don’t ask why I put that in quotes). Alys, she ended up telling Yanni everything, and he was very willing to help me. He lived far away, but he had room in his house. I could lodge with him until things got better, I just had to be able to get there. After the argument–I can’t even remember what triggered it– I called Yanni. He and I both agreed that it was time for me to bounce. We spent about 10 minutes planning the logistics of it. I would leave, walk out the back door in the dead of night, and arrive at the hospital. They would see my desperation, and there would be no way they’d have the heart to send me back to that house.
I only saw 1 problem: the bitter cold. It was around freezing those upcoming days, and I knew that the cold would bite my skin, almost as hard as I liked to bite myself in anger. So I brought that up to him. I said to him “it’s gonna be cold out. What should I do to at least prevent hypothermia or something?”
He just told me “Bundle up”.
And I listened to him.