Moving to our own apartment would finally allow mom and I to have an opportunity to build a relationship. Mom couldn’t hide behind Tina anymore, she had to be a parent.

The last person I saw before I left was Alan. I was happy about that. Not because I was happy to see him, but because I knew it would be the last time I’d ever have to see him again. We drove our uhaul for 3 hours in the middle of the night. It felt like we were escaping prison or something. I guess we were in a way.

Our apartment wouldn’t be ready for a couple  of months so mom left me with my aunt and uncle who lived close by, I needed to stay for the new school year and she had to go back home to tie up loose ends.

My aunt is such a kind lady. Her husband though.. that guy was an alcoholic just like Freddy. So essentially, I ended up moving to another dysfunctional home except my aunt Alicia was never mean to me. They had two kids. A boy and a girl. Alicia had a nice office job and her husband, Joe, was an architect. He had a beautiful grand piano and a guitar that he’d play on occasion . He also had an awesome collection of vinyls and CD’s. I spent hours looking through them. It was my YouTube before YouTube. I found a cd that had only one song on it, “happy together” by The turtles. I was in love! I’d never heard anything like it back at Freddy’s. I played that thing all day everyday. It’s still one of my favorite songs.

Nice Joe, introduced me to the piano and guitar. Drunk Joe, abused Alicia. This abuse was so much worse than what Tina went through with Freddy. Alicia was a different kind of broken. I felt sorry for her.