The Day I Skipped School

 

When friends asked me to skip half a day of school with them I knew I shouldn’t but I wanted so much to feel like any other 15 year old girl. After much discussion I finally allowed myself to be talked into it. So off we go, myself, 2 other girls and 2 boys. Our first stop was at a little convenience store in East Jena. Everyone starts bailing out of the truck and I say I’ll wait there. They all poked fun when I said I was afraid someone would recognize me but I knew it was best not to take the chance of being seen out. I sat in the truck waiting for them to return when another truck pulled up to the store. I tried to keep my head down but couldn’t resist looking up to see who it might be. Well, it turned out to be a man that  worked with Bobby.  He had seen me too.  I knew right then I was in big trouble. All I could do was pray that he wouldn’t tell.

By the time I got home that afternoon I was sick to my stomach with fear. Bobby comes home from work and says he wants to work with me on my driving. Nothing appeared unusual there because he had been teaching me but I was still scared he knew. We drove for a little bit and then he directed me to go out onto Hwy 84. I was scared because I wasn’t use to driving on a highway and this was different. Couldn’t mean anything good! A short way down Hwy 84 he had me pull off onto a small dirt road and drive back into the woods. I knew for sure this wasn’t good!

He asks how my day had been. Right then I was sure he knew but for whatever reason I didn’t want to believe it. He then asked if I had been at school all day. Still not wanting to believe he knew I lied but he knew. I finally admitted to skipping after he threatened to kill me if I lied again. But of course, after I admitted it he promised to kill me for skipping! As soon as I admitted it, he hit me in the face.  He went on hitting me and pulling my hair for a few minutes before he pulled out a knife and held it to my throat. Told me how he was going to slit my throat and leave me lying there in the woods to bleed to death. After several minutes of begging forgiveness he finally took the knife away from my throat.

He lectured me for a while and then pulled out a gun and bullets. He asked if I knew what Russian Roulette was. I did. I was certain I was never going to leave that dirt road alive. He put one bullet into the gun. Spun the cylinder and slapped it into place. Tries to hand me the gun but I refused to take it. So he points the gun to my head all the while telling me how he will leave there and tell everyone how I had killed myself. I was scared but part of me thought it might not be a bad thing. If he killed me maybe, just maybe people might take a closer look at our family and the others would be saved. But in reality I didn’t want to die, not then, not like that. He pulled the trigger and nothing happened. I’m hysterical by this point, he just laughs but doesn’t take the gun away from my head.  He went on to pull the trigger two more times, laughing the entire time.  After the third time he slams the butt of the gun against the side of my head.

I do wonder today what he would have done had the gun gone off. Or did he know it wasn’t going to go off?  After a bit we finally left there and returned home. Unfortunately the beating didn’t stop there. It continued through the evening.  Part of which included a sickle blade being swung at my head.