Page 8 of Empower

Oh, I got revenge though, let me tell you.

My mom came home and let me loose, then she was about to head out to talk with my sister, but I asked her to let me handle it.

I walked up to her while she was still laughing and gave her an upper right cut. I slammed my fist so hard up into her jaw that I broke my fingers but guess what, I knocked out some of her teeth.

She didn’t try anything else with me for a while, now I see this is what she has been waiting on.

Shaking my head from those thoughts, I locked my eyes with hers and simply said, “Congrats. You did beat me at something. But when you're nothing but a whore, you’re not beating me at a thing.”

Then I looked at the Ken doll look-alike who was now dubbed as an asshole and said, “I hope you double-wrapped it. She had Chris Palmer in the house two days ago.”

And no, that wasn’t a dig at her, it was the absolute truth.

I ignored the growl, “What?” From Byron.

Then without another word, I didn’t let them see the tears fall; I didn’t make another sound after that. I turned around and walked down the stairs and out the door.

And thankfully, my stepfather was still snoring in his recliner.

That night as I curled into the quilt that my mother had sewn for me before she died that was made up of all our t-shirts, that was when I had a revelation of sorts.

I always thought I was special.

Years ago, he had even stopped only letting me play with him when Karly was there.

I didn’t know he was only doing things with me while trying to impress my half-sister Karly who was three years older than me.

Byron was the boy that promised everything under the moon, that whole best friend forever line. Well, guess what, his words didn’t mean shit.

He said he needed a ride-or-die chick. He said he wanted to be mine forever. He told me he’d have my back.

Well, you know what; he must have been dropped on his head when he was a baby.

But that wasn’t it at all, far from it.

I hadn’t realized until just then, that when he told me that stuff, he was looking at my half-sister.

Byron Adams is a lying, cheating, dirtbag that could make a nun curse.

He was my first crush, my first kiss, and my first date as I called it.

And he would be the last person I would ever allow to hurt me.

That was when I looked up and into my closet, straight at the light pink box that sat there.

Recalling what I had walked in on, and thinking that maybe, just maybe, my stepfather’s words weren’t just from the alcohol, I tossed the quit off my body and scrambled out of bed.

Then I walked to my closet and pulled the light pink box down from the shelf, took it to my bed, and sat down.

After I moved through things that I treasured, and some of them were from things I had done with Byron, I tossed them all in the trash.

After I did that, that was when my eyes landed on an old receipt.

Then, I flipped it over and stared at the number that was scrawled there.

And the name that was written on it.

When the doctors gave my mom only a few weeks left to live, she had made it to where my stepfather and Karly were at the store, and that was when she handed me this receipt and told me a story.