After posting the final chapter of the book I have written Finally Free it got me thinking...
I have always been told that I cannot publish, firstly due to the subject nature and secondly, I may find myself in a legal battle with the people involved.
Because of that, the book has been kept in its rawest form... and even though, a part of me would like to keep it that way, if I ever did decide to publish, I want it to be readable. Basically, the content in it - needs to be written in a way that people still know what is happening, without it being so "in your face".
The questions I find myself asking and now searching for answers are:
- How do I find an editor with a strong enough stomach to be able to help me with this?
- Is there a way that I can publish without getting into legal battles? Or...
- Do I just keep the book to myself until the people involved are no longer here?
And then I start to ask:
- Why have we created a world which stops us from being able to have a voice?
One thing I won't do... publish anonymously!
Here is the opening of my book... this is the only other part I know I can safely post.
Imagine being told that you only existed because your dad had raped your mum. You were unwanted. That is what just happened to me.
I was fourteen years old, and it was a big day. We were off to court. Finally, someone had listened to me and I was about to get some kind of recognition for what was happening to me. It wasn’t enough, but it was something. I had learnt a long time ago that the world wasn’t fair or just. I learnt you didn’t win against the bad guys like you did in storybooks. Good does not always prevail; in fact, being a good and honest person often makes you a target. So, when someone believed you or even more rarely, when someone wanted to help, you would cling onto that and be thankful, be grateful.
I was sat in the car with my mum as she was driving, and I remember thinking that it was a weirdly deceiving day. You know the ones where it’s chilly outside, but from your house or the car it looks like a hot sunny day? I was wearing a golden coloured blouse I had borrowed from her that morning. I wanted to look smart in front of the judge. I wanted the world to see that I was not being destroyed, and that I was all grown up and could look after myself.
I sat quietly. I knew it was best not to say anything right now. I was in a good mood; I felt peaceful, and I didn’t want that to go away. I closed my eyes and I let the sun wash over my face so that I could feel the rays. The warmth of them felt calming, as though they were giving me a big hug.
Suddenly, the car came to a halt. We had stopped. We had hit traffic and my mum was not happy about it. She got flustered and her face morphed into what I called, her evil twin. She was a beautiful woman with the loveliest smile and her hair always looked good; but when her mood changed, her face would morph and turn her almost witch-like. She had a grey coloured front tooth from an accident she had been in when she was a child and it seemed to be more noticeable when she changed. Her eyes would go dark; as though death itself ran through her and she looked possessed. It didn’t help either that she had a mole on her nose, which looked like it was twitching whenever she spoke.
I had become accustomed to these changes over the years, so I just sat there waiting to see what would happen. There was no point in me saying or doing anything. I just had to ride the wave until it had passed.
The sun went in and there was no more warming hug on my face. The air seemed to go cold even inside the car where minutes earlier it had been so warm.
“Typical!” she said in a high pitched flustered tone. “Just what I need today.”
I wanted to ask her what the matter was, but I just sat there, waiting. I knew we were stuck in traffic, but we had set off in good time, so there was no real chance of us being late. But I stayed quiet, waiting for what I knew was coming.
“Do you not think that I have better things to be doing with my time than driving you up here? And now look, we are stuck in traffic! It’s like wherever you go you bring bad luck. You’ve always been the same. With him, and even before that with your real dad, you just have a way of bringing trouble. I can’t wait for this to be over with and then I can just get on with my life. Promise me, that there won’t be anymore trouble from now on.”
I still stayed silent. How could I answer that? I was used to these kinds of comments, but I picked up on something different here; it was as though she was hiding something from me. So after a while, I plucked up the nerve to start a conversation.
“What do you mean, even with my real dad?”
At the time, I knew little about my real dad. Mainly what my mum had told me, as he had all but disappeared from my life when I was three years old.
I knew he had a temper, as my first memory of him was him throwing a table across the room at me because I had spilled a cup of tea over, but other than that, I was pretty clueless. I didn’t realise that I was clueless, though. I would listen to every bad word that my mum had to say about him and over the years, my hatred for him grew. How could he live five minutes away from me and not come and rescue me? Was I really that bad? Was I really that unlovable? What did my mum mean?
I asked her again, as she had ignored me the first time.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. What did you mean?”
She looked really flustered now and just blurted out in a rather angry tone, “He raped me, you know?”
Well, no, I didn’t know.
"You aren’t the only one who has gone through things, but you don’t see me complaining, do you?”
Well, yes actually. All the bloody time. All she ever did was complain, but this was not the time to say that. I didn’t know what to say. I never really knew what to say to her. In fact, that’s a lie. I knew exactly what I wanted to say; it was just all in my head. Often I would evaluate my day and have arguments with her when I was lying in my bed at night, unable to sleep. I could do anything in my own thoughts; I could be who I wanted to be, say what I wanted to say, and there were no repercussions. But in reality, that was not the case and staying silent was a tactic I had found worked to stop me getting into trouble, and to stop me feeling the pain of her vicious words.
Eventually, she carried on.
“Yeah, that’s why you are here...