Page 35 of Control

I felt the blood from another wound slowly drip down into my eye, causing me to feel as if I were going blind or crazy. I could hear my friends calling out my brother’s name and him racing to me. I could hear him screaming, but could not tell what he was saying. I remember looking at him and him looking back at me with tears in his eyes, it being the first time in my life I’d seem him cry. I remember the siren of the ambulance and the screeching brakes from the police cars as they each arrived, the entire time concentrating so much on my breathing that I couldn’t say a word to anyone. I remember the gurney and the smell of the ambulance and the murmur of the nurses and doctors talking to my mother as I was wheeled into the emergency room. I remember the needle stick from the IV and the tightness of the neck brace that had been placed on me. I remember the pain from having my arm reset and the coldness of the bars around my hospital bed I was in for a week. I could not remember the car or the color or the driver or the way in which I had ended up in this position. Only later after I had started to recover did my friends tell me all about it and what had occurred that day.

A broken arm, a major concussion, 2 broken ribs, massive bruising, burns and cuts and bleeding from all over my body were what one could see from the outside. Since then I have had problems controlling my emotions at times. There are days when I cannot concentrate and even simple things like cooking breakfast or taking out the trash can cause my mind to go to dark places for no apparent reason. I have also had trouble with missing time and mood swings, both of which still effect my day to day life.

The only way I know how to manage it all is through keeping myself busy, giving myself something to do, to focus on. I often work myself ragged to the point of pure exhaustion so my mind doesn’t wander too far. As long as I have something to keep my attention, I am able to function without much issue. If I am left alone and able to work on something, I can often fall into a state of hyper-fixation where my only goal will soon become completing that task. If I am forcefully pulled away from it, I almost immediately switch into another mood or physically force people away from me. When I am like this, I do not like to be bothered and I will not give people any sort of sway over my actions. In other words, no one will be able to stop me once I start something. I cannot make myself stop and I will not stop even if I am actively harming myself.

I sat up from the wet grass and refused to let myself think about ex husband Will, his actions, while forgiven, still having an effect on how I interact with the world. Since I left him, I had actively kept myself from letting anyone get too close to me. When we first got together, I trusted him fully and with all my being, but he ultimately turned out to be a monster covered up with a handsome face and sexy arms. I’d made up my mind that I could never let anyone get that close to me again. I’d made the mistake of going back to Will only for me to regret it years later. I’d wasted time with him, time I wished I could get back. I’d promised myself to never fall for such tricks again. I wanted that life lesson to stay with me, regardless of the pain behind it. No one had been able to get close…until Reyna came along.

After each trauma, I found myself becoming more and more uneasy with how the world worked and by the people in it. Having spoken with thousands of players in the game, I’d come to find that almost all of us tend to start out life as I imagined we all did. I started out fairly happy and content with my life or at least the life that my mother showed me. She often worked and was away from home during the day so it was up to my brothers to help raise me. Far too many days were simply me with my brothers and often times their friends, listening to music, playing video games, and being taught how to make fart noises with my armpit. I enjoyed those days and each one made me feel closer to my much older brothers.

My oldest was 12 years my senior and the other was 10 years older than I was. I was very much the baby, but ever since I could remember my brothers just treated me as their equal. They never really babied me, but they also never harmed me in any way other than occasionally body slamming me onto my bed when I was little which I absolutely loved. With no father to really speak of and my mother all too often working her fingers to the bone to keep us afloat, my home life was me and at least one of my two brothers at almost all times. There were times, especially after I turned ten, where it was just me at home alone. By the time I was 12, my brothers had moved out to start their own lives so I would often come home to an empty apartment where most of my time was spent watching movies on cable television and becoming more familiar with Yahoo.com and the various games and chat rooms they had available where grown men often asked me for my personal information.

Even on the weekends my mother would go to her boyfriend’s house and stay with him until Sunday afternoon when she’d finally come home and cook us both dinner. It was really the only quality time I spent with her. Even during the week, by the time she got home she was often too tired from her work to really spend much time with me other than making sure I was fed and to check if I needed anything like new clothes, shoes, or if something was going on at school. We did spend some evenings watching the occasional television show together so we did bond some. My brothers would still come by from time to time to check up on me and see if I was doing alright and if I needed anything. I was given chances to go spend weekends with them at their places, but I always refused, instead opting to either hangout with my friends in the neighborhood on my own or mess around on the internet in more chat rooms.

My mother did eventually marry her boyfriend when I was 17. I was quite happy for her as I knew he had a very good job as an engineer and worked for a local firm making excellent money. He wasn’t rich by the strictest of definitions, but he easily made more than 4 times what my mother had made in her retail job. I believe most people would say he was “well off.” He was very good with money, carrying almost no debt and often paid for large purchases, even his new cars, with cash. He hated paying interest on something when he didn’t have to, the lone exception being the house he bought just before he and my mother were married.

Just before the wedding, my mother and I moved in to that house with him and one of his daughters, a girl named Sabrina. I was glad that I was able to have my own room where I could have my own space to relax, study, and play my computer games. Although I had a Sony Playstation 2, I didn’t play it all that often and it was really only used when my brothers would visit so they could play the few games I had on it like Grand Theft Auto III and Bulletstorm. Most of my gaming was done on my PC which I’d come to love since I was first given one when I was 12.

Sabrina, my new step sister, was alright. She was polite and courteous to me and we kept things quite civil between us. We didn’t have all that much in common as she was very much a bookworm and I was more social, both in school and after. While I have never thought of myself as an extrovert, I did enjoy having the company of others around as long as the groups weren’t all that big. Even then, I usually stayed quiet while the others talked and I listened, only chiming in when I felt I was needed. Unfortunately, my fairly decent time living with my mom, step dad, and step sister would com to a tumultuous end.

After graduating high school, I stayed in their home for a short time while I figured out my next move. I had strongly thought of going to college, but also wanted to either work or just take some time off to travel some with my friends. The longer I stayed though the more my stepfather seemed to turn on me. We had never been close up to that point, but he was at least decent with me. Not overly nice, but also not an ass. As each day came and went though, I could tell he didn’t want me around. My mother was always kind and welcoming of me, but my stepfather could become domineering when he wanted to and eventually, that was how he was to me.

One day while I was in my room on the computer, my mother came to me and asked about some sort of drafting tool that had gone missing from my stepfather’s drafting table. The table was in a den area where I almost never went because it was a lot of his belonging and also doubled as a workspace for him and my mom. My mother probed me for a couple of minutes, asking me over and over about this tool. With each question, I assured her I never went into their den, choosing to stick mostly to my bedroom and the kitchen when I was feeling hungry. I never even stayed in the living room for any period of time longer than about 15 minutes.

From my bedroom, I could hear my stepfather getting angry about the missing item, saying over and over that he knew it had to be me that took it, claiming that maybe I’d sold it to get a little money since I wasn’t working at the time. With every line that came from his mouth, I could hear my mother talking to him, trying to calm him and reassuring him that there was no way I would have taken it. I was never a thief and had never had a reason to steal from anyone. My mother and I were never rich when it was just me and her living in that old apartment, but we had enough and I was rarely left wanting for something that I needed.

The next day after I’d grown tired of my stepfather’s ranting about his missing item, I was about to leave for my friend’s house to visit her when my mother once again came to my door. There she stood in front of me, holding the missing tool. As I had figured, I had never seen such a thing before. It looked to be some sort of measuring and drawing tool an engineer might use while drawing up plans. Holding it in front of me, my mother apologized to me for my stepfather, saying he wanted me to know he was sorry for accusing me of the alleged theft. I closed the door after she walked away, sat down on my bed, and cried.

This man who I felt I barely knew had it in his head that I had moved into this house with him and my mom and that I could even contemplate stealing from them. It hurt me in a way I’d not felt in some time. Not since my father had made it clear that he never wanted me had I felt such hurt and rejection. What made it even worse is that he didn’t even have the guts to come to me himself and apologize. He made my mother do it for him. It was that day that I knew I wasn’t going to be there much longer.

I lost almost all respect I had for my stepfather that day and even after the “theft” had been cleared up and I was found innocent, he still looked at me with a suspicious eye. Not once had I shown any sort of ill intent in his house, but I could tell I was not wanted there. Through his cold reactions to my words and presence, I knew he wanted me gone. Seeing him react with his daughter Sabrina showed me that he could be a kind and loving man, a real dad, but as with my blood father, he never wanted me.

I was a few months into being 19 when I had made the decision to leave. I told my mother and she understood why I wanted to. I knew I had no real place to go but I couldn’t stay there any longer. My mother came into my room the night I was to leave. She told me she loved me, handed me ten dollars, and left me there. She wasn’t cold or unloving in any way. In fact, she got more emotional than I did, shedding a few tears for me. I knew she didn’t want me to leave, but I knew I couldn’t stay. I didn’t want to risk causing any strain on a marriage I know she deserved. My mother had worked so hard to keep me fed and clothed, virtually raising me on her own so I wanted her marriage to work. I wanted her to be happy. I didn’t want her to have to worry about getting all the bills paid and having to work overtime just to make end’s meet.

I called my friend who came to pick me up and ended up at their place with their folks for the next few nights. Knowing I couldn’t stay, I went to another friend’s place and from there yet another. After 10 days of this and not wanting to put anyone else in an awkward position, I made the decision to not call on one of my friends to provide me with a place to sleep. Unfamiliar with any of the homeless shelters in the city I was in, I ended up sleeping under a highway overpass for the next two nights before I had to visit a Starbucks to get my phone charged. As I was there, my friend called to check on me and I told them where I had been. Shocked, she told her mother what I had resorted to and her mom took the phone from her and spoke to me directly. She asked where I was which I told her and within 20 minutes, I was in the back of their SUV heading back to their place.

It was insisted that I stay with them and not just for a night or two, but to live. While not a proper tongue lashing, my friend’s mother whom I came to know simply as Shannon, got after me for not calling and telling them what I had to resort to. She knew how dangerous it could be in the city for homeless folks, and it was even worse for homeless women.

For the next two months, I stayed there with my friend, her mom slowly becoming a 2nd mother to be, going so far as to buy me necessities such as deodorant, tampons, toothpaste, and even the occasional piece of clothing. Shannon looked at me as she looked at my friend, her own daughter. She wanted me to feel loved and welcomed and I did. Because of this, I felt a strong urge stop my self-loathing and finally head out and find work.

The first few days at my fast food job were hectic and the training was terrible. Because I was “pretty” and “men liked looking” at me, I was made to work that counter taking orders where my trainer was about as helpful as a pocket full of unpaid bills. After fumbling my way through a few strange weeks in the job, I had finally managed to get used to just how busy it was all the time, my shift starting at 6am and lasting until about 2pm. I hated coming home smelling of French fries and hamburgers, but it was a job and it brought in some much needed money. I always made sure to give some to Shannon when I could and she was grateful for it.

Before long, I grew tired of the hectic schedule and wanted out of the fast food business completely. I was sick of the insanely busy hours I was asked to work and I was tired of the men staring at me while I was trying to take their order. One day after an exceptionally busy day at work, I sat down and began complaining to my friend about how much I hated my job. As luck would have it, she’d spoken to a girl that she and I went to high school with, but I was not personally friends with. She’d managed to find a solid job making really good money while only working 2 to 4 days a week. Piquing my interest, I asked more about the job and even called the girl to ask more about it. That job…was exotic dancing.

Within 2 days I had quit my “McJob” and started serving drinks as a waiter in a place called The Scarlett Rose, a local strip club. While I was not asked to dress as skimpy as some of the dancers, I was encouraged to play up my looks so I could earn tips from the patrons. While I’d asked about dancing, one of the club owners said it was best that I start as a simple server since I was so young and new to the business. He wanted to give me time to learn more about how everything worked and to feel comfortable with it. The money I made as a server was fine, about as much as I made taking orders and smelling like someone’s lunch, but I worked fewer hours which was a welcome change. I did still have men staring at me in this new line of work but, if I played my cards right, I could make some respectable money from it.

After 4 months of serving, I asked if I could start working the floor of the club, offering dances to the men there and since we’d recently lost a couple of girls. I was allowed to come in on Mondays so I could get more accustomed to my new role as a dancer. The first few dances were nerve wracking, but before I knew it I was comfortable with approaching men and talking to them as if they were the most important person in the world. With my first earnings from serving drinks, I’d invested in buying myself new clothes to accentuate my figure and give the patrons something more to look at, and it paid off. While I had been making more money than I did serving working only Monday through Wednesday, I then asked to be put own the schedule for Fridays and Saturdays - the money days.

Once I was allowed to work on the weekends and on paydays for a lot of the local roughneck oil workers, I was making more money than I knew what to do with. My confidence had grown to the point where I felt I could walk up to anyone in the club and get them to give me $20 for a quick private dance. I was never the star attraction, but I knew that I still had something to offer and offer it I did. Shannon had been aware of my new line of work and only asked that I be careful and make sure that I was never too far from one of the bouncers in the club or from other girls in case a patron got too aggressive with me. In my time there, only 2 men had ever gotten too handsy with me and the bouncers made sure to let them know to keep their hands off because if they didn’t they’d be shown the door.

Eventually I moved out on my own and moved into an apartment with a roommate that I knew from my time working my fast food job. Rent was always paid as were the rest of my bills and I still had plenty of money to spare. I’d finally bought a car and had more shoes and clothes than I knew what to do with which led to my roommate often asking me to lend some of them to her so they could go clubbing.

I was still dancing when I met Will, the man I would eventually marry. As a precaution, I didn’t tell him what I did for a living for the first 3 weeks that I knew him, knowing that while most guys say they can handle having someone who sits on other men’s laps for a living, the jealousy does eventually come out. Once I felt comfortable enough with him, I told him about my work and why I liked doing it. He seemed to take it all really well and was supportive of me doing it. Little did I know that support he showed did eventually give way to jealousy, almost to the point of murder.

I sat up and turned my body, leaning my back against the bench and thought more about what I could do. I wasn’t sure what if anything could be done to stop any of this, but I still felt that need to look further into it all. I’d heard murmurs of people talking about things like computer hacking in certain rooms, especially in the ones where all the trolls and real life “incels” would hang out. Unfortunately for them, a lot of those incel tendencies and behaviors would carry over into their in game personalities which caused them to have the same problems in Aurora that they had in the real world. People often rejected them because of how passive aggressive they could be and eventually they’d have nowhere else to go except to the only people that would have them - other incels.

Within these in game incel groups, people from various backgrounds would gather and talk about all the things they hated about others. From former military to unemployed losers, conspiracy theorists to some computer nerds with little to no social skills, they all liked to gather in certain rooms in the game and they’d discuss a lot of the other players, especially women up to and including myself and Cris. Some of their discussions would eventually reach me and I was often disgusted by the things they’d say about me or things they would want to do to me.

They knew all about who I was in Aurora and they’d gotten the idea in their head that I was hiding something, some deep dark secret and they had made it their goal to uncover it. I usually paid this kind of talk no mind. I had tried speaking to some of them before, extending an olive branch, but it was quickly swatted away. Instead of them sitting and talking with me, I was ridiculed, called a sellout and a fake, and often threatened with anything from physical violence to sexual assault. I knew in game they couldn’t really hurt me if they tried anything such as that, but the fact that they even considered it bothered me and made me wonder about their state of mind. Why did they feel the need to try and tear me down, even after I had gone out of my way to be kind to them? I’d always treated everyone with decency and respect, but they didn’t care about all that. I’d figured that they saw me as something or someone that never should have risen to the level I was at and all they wanted was to see me fall. It was this thought that stuck in my mind and it was then I realized that it was probably one of them that had crossed the line and possibly hacked into database and stolen everyone’s personal information.

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