Thank you. That’s what he used to say after he was done.  He got real cocky about it after the first few times. He knew he’d be able to have me whenever he wanted because no adult was ever around.

Grandma spent the summer with me which meant I could finally sleep a full night without worrying about Henry coming in at any point. Gramma slept with me in my room, so she witnessed the parties and I think those worried her. So before she went back home, she put a lock on my bedroom door.

The lock worked the first couple of times. Whenever there were parties, I’d lock the door and hide in my corner. I think he was both surprised and amused that I had a lock on my door. He’d try knocking and asking me to let him in and when I didn’t give him an answer he just left. I wasn’t so lucky the 3rd time.

Henry’s patience had run out after the first few times. “If you don’t open this door right now I will not be nice to you anymore,” he said. Which scared me because he’d never been nice. He left and I was relieved but that relief was short lived. He came back with a butter knife from the kitchen and jammed it in between the door and unlocked it. He grabbed me out of my hiding spot by my hair and threw me on the bed. “When I tell you to let me in, you let me in!” He had a cigarette in his mouth and used it to burn my thigh. I screamed and he enjoyed that so much he went to do it again but I swiped it and  it flew out of his hand and on to the bed. He turned it off, smiled, and wiped the sweat from his face with his hand. “This will be fun,” he said. Fun? It was the single most traumatic thing I’ve ever lived through. Isn’t it ironic, I “lived” through it but I feel like I died that night. I was never the same after that. The amount of pain this man inflicted on me and what he did to me I am ashamed to even describe. I quit fighting him after that night I just quit everything. I didn’t want to be alive anymore. I’ve got 2 scars from the cigarette burns on my thigh that never let me forget that night.

“Thanks,” he said after he was done with me. And threw a piece of chocolate on the bed.  This would become his M.O.