The Beginning
- Ashley
- Jan 31
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 2
Part I
This portion does not contain any potential triggers. This is more of the backstory of how we met J & Johnny, my life at that point, who I was before the trauma.
It was the Summer of 2006. My parents had gotten divorced, we were living full time with my Mom and visiting with my Dad on weekends. Summer was always my favorite time – spending the weekdays at my Mama’s house having tea parties and playing GameCube with my brother, playing in the sprinkler, picking wild flowers and putting them in Dixie Cups. Life was good. Even though our parents had separated, we had a loving support system that lived only minutes away, aunties and uncles, my childhood best friend who's mother was my Mom's best friend.
We were surrounded by a lot of love. Big family parties. Dinners at Mama's. Amazing neighbors who's houses we would walk over to, or they would come to ours.
I was a great kid, from what I've heard and what I remember. I did great in school to the point of being above average and being accepted into the local magnet school, I was happy. I always had a love for art and writing. I had a big heart.
At this time, my Dad had been seeing my ex-step mother for a while and my parents had split. My step-mom had two kids, one daughter and one son.
It’s important to know that I won’t be mentioning my ex-stepmom, step-brother and step-sister, as they are all amazing people and I don’t want them having anything to do with this/being attached to it in any way. Everyone at my Dad’s was unaware of what was happening when Austin and I were with my Mom. I definitely took out a lot of my built anger and sadness on my step mom and if she’s somehow reading this, I apologize. I hope that this opens your eyes to what was happening to me every other week when I wasn’t there. They all kept me afloat without even realizing it.
My mom had dated a few guys, one we had met, but nothing stuck.
Until she was introduced to J.
I remember it was a Saturday and our Mom told us we were going to meet up with Auntie K at Chuck E. Cheese. I was obviously PUMPED. I loved Auntie K, she wasn’t blood, but my Mom’s best friend, and I thought she was the best.
My brother and I got into my Mom’s car and we went.
We got to Chuck E. Cheese and saw Auntie K sitting at a booth close to the entrance with a man and a boy who couldn’t be much younger than me. The boy had glasses, bright blue eyes. Freckles across his sharp nose and chubby cheeks. Tousled brown hair that resembled a bowl cut. He was in a t-shirt that looked two sizes too big, cargo shorts and sneakers. He seemed a bit stand-offish, and completely uninterested in the situation.
The man immediately unnerved me. He looked past me and my brother and directly at my Mom. Part of me was defensive right away, and uncomfortable. He looked like a grown up version of the boy. He had the same hair, same nose, and same eyes. Except his gaze wasn't welcoming… they held something that I immediately picked up on and didn’t like.
And that’s when our lives changed forever. That was the moment that I met J and Johnny.
My brother, Johnny and I were all given cups of tokens and sent on our way. I remember visiting the table and getting shooed off quickly as I now realize the point of the day wasn’t us kids… it was for them to meet somewhere that us kids would be distracted.
This was the first of multiple instances of going to “fun kid places” to meet up with J and Johnny. The next time was the Great Escape, similar to Chuck E. Cheese. It was at this meet up that Johnny talked to me for the first time.
Johnny was shy when we met him. He always seemed on guard, defensive… There was an energy about him that was not child-like, and he was only 10 or 11. We were climbing inside one of the slides when he, without looking at me, said, “You know your mom and my Dad are dating right?”
I knew what was going on but didn’t want to admit it to myself. I liked Johnny, and I didn’t have many feelings about J as my interactions with him were very few and short, but I had a horrible feeling about all of it. Maybe it was just the fact that I didn’t want my Mom dating anyone, or maybe it was an intuition.
(Johnny went back to his Mom’s in Florida and won’t be part of the timeline for a little bit.)
There were two other occasions that I can remember, going to see Flushed Away in theaters with him, and him showing up at our house on a Saturday unannounced.
J didn’t have much interest in getting to know me or Austin. It was very clear that his intentions were only to woo my Mom and nothing else was relevant to him. He was friendly enough, but nothing to significantly note.
About 4 months from the first time we met J, my Mom sat us down and told us that her and J got engaged, and that we would be moving 45 minutes away. I immediately lost it. I distinctly remember crying, running to the bathroom, locking myself inside and refusing to come out. I was overwhelmed with emotion, I’d be moving away from my friends, my family, everyone and into a home with a stranger I had only known for a few months. I barely knew him. And now we’re leaving the house we’ve grown up in our entire lives, into some random man’s?
A few things are important to note in this:
Johnny lived primarily with his Mom in Florida, and only came up to Connecticut in the summer.
Johnny’s mother had taken J and left while J was at work one day when he was a baby. She struggled immensely with mental illness, assuming due to whatever she herself endured with J. Out of respect for her, I will not be getting too much into it, but Johnny was exposed to a lot as a kid that he shouldn't have been.
And then we moved from East Hartford to Lebanon, and the story truly begins.
Comments