Page 4 of The Secret's Out

My mum had been ecstatic when I sent her a picture of my hair. She’d gushed over it and told me how beautiful I was.

God, I missed her.

People were right. Home was where the heart is, because mine had never left Ballarat. My heart stayed with my family, only making an appearance sometimes when Simone brought it out in me. Any other day I was lifeless, a shell.

Maybe I was being overly dramatic, maybe I could go home and not think I was a failure.

Honestly, I didn’t know what to do.

I didn’t know because I stopped thinking a while ago.

I stopped feeling.

All that mattered were the grades I needed.

At least there was still that tiny, minute spark inside of me that wanted the future career I longed for so long ago.

Currently, that was the only thing that kept me there, that kept me from running back to my family.

I often wondered if I had someone to care for me back then, maybe I would have noticed David’s attention was more than fatherly. Perhaps I would have seen that he was nothing more than a dirty old man lusting for a minor. If someone had been there for me, I wouldn’t have been beaten, broken or raped.

I wasn’t stupid. I knew I couldn’t help all children being abused or taken advantage of by becoming a social worker. But I could help some and I would fight with everything I had to make sure those children knew they were worth something. Those children needed to know life could get better and I would do anything in my power to make that happen for them.

So for now, I would hold onto that little spark inside of me for those children.

I would get the grades I needed and continue each day as it came.

I would do all that and then, finally, before I took any job with children, I would take the time to sort myself out. No past, no hurt, no pain of my own would reflect on any case I took on.

For now, I would continue to pray and hope that each day may be better than the last.

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