Chapter 5
I awoke the next day, and my door was unlocked. It was my first Sunday with my new family. I cleaned myself up and went down to breakfast. Grandfather was there, as well as my father and Zack, already eating eggs benedict with hollandaise sauce. I purposefully didn’t look at father or Grandfather as I sat down. Zachary caught my eye and gave me a look of apology. I smiled softly back at him. It wasn’t his fault I was beaten and then sexually assaulted by my own father.
“What do you say, we go do some shopping today, sport?” my dad asked me, as if nothing had gone on between us last night. I was going to ignore him, but I didn’t want him or Grandfather to know they were getting to me. The only way I was going to survive this screwed-up family was to be strong.
“I don’t really need anything,” was my curt reply.
“Sure you do. You don’t even have a change of clothes. We’ll get you some new shirts, and sweaters…maybe a few pairs of pants. You’ll need plenty of underwear…and some shoes and socks.” I felt a chill go down my back as he mentioned the word underwear. “We also need to get you a computer, for your school work…and probably a desk too.” He was acting like we were one big happy family. I always wished I had all of the things my friend Mikey had, but now that money was no object, I found I wanted nothing from this family. Even so, maybe shopping would take my mind off of everything else. “It’s settled. We’ll meet at the car in one hour!” my father happily concluded.
After breakfast, I returned to my room and started writing my sister. Going out shopping with father would be the perfect time to give the letters to him so he could mail them. I wouldn’t dare mention it in front of Grandfather.
There was a soft knock on my door, and I turned to see Zack peeking his head in. “Can I come in?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“I’m so sorry for what happened…” he started.
“It’s fine. It wasn’t your fault.” It’s true...it wasn’t, and I wanted to let him know that I had no hard feelings towards him.
“I just feel like I should’ve done something. I told them nothing happened,” he continued. “Are you and I good, though?”
“Yes. We’re good,” I offered with a smile.
He ran over and hugged me tightly. I wonder if he’s been beaten by Grandfather or touched inappropriately by his father. “I better get out of here before someone sees me. I’d hate to get you in trouble again. But, we’re going to spend lots of father’s money and hook you up…okay?” he said with a chuckle.
“Okay.” I smiled back, with a slight chuckle.
I returned to my letter to Sarah:
Sarah,
How are you? How is Mom? Where are you? I am living in Georgia now, in a mansion. Can you imagine that? It’s not like you’d imagine though. I’m very lonely. I do have a new brother that is becoming my best friend here. I still miss Connor, you, and Mom so much though. Please write me back when you get this. They’ve changed my name to James Muse. No one will even call me Jimmy, and getting used to having a new last name is hard.
I miss you both, and hope to be back together soon. Give Mom my love.
Love,
Jimmy
I couldn’t tell her or mom about the family and abuse, because I didn’t want to upset them. Father would probably read the letters before he mailed them anyways, so it was better to just leave it vague.
The ride to Atlanta took over an hour. Father sat up front with Mr. Bryant, so Zack and I were in the back alone. I was glad about that, because it’d be really uncomfortable trying to make small talk with father after what he tried to do to me.
Zack made the drive fun, though. He seemed so excited for me. It was starting to rub off on me. I didn’t really care about new things, since all I really wanted was to go back to my old life. But, if I had to be here anyways, I may as well be comfortable, right? I wasn’t used to having the finer things, though. I didn’t even know most brand names, so Zack agreed to be my consultant and help me pick out what was in style or acceptable to our peers.
Our first stop was Phipps Plaza Mall. It was an upper-class mall, with only expensive stores. Since it was right before Christmas, the store was decorated beautifully with a large display for Santa to sit at while taking pictures with the smaller children. We shopped at Saks, and even got some dressier clothes at the Armani store. When you walked into the store, they had bottles of Armani colognes out to sample. I really liked the Acqua Di Gio, so father got me two bottles.
There were signs on one of the upper floors advertising that there were some restaurants like Chik-Fil-A, and Moe’s Southwest Grill coming soon, but otherwise there were no food places in Phipps Plaza. So, we ended up going across the street to Lenox Mall and ate at the food court there. We settled on Chinese food. I forgot how much I loved Chinese food. Maybe all the shopping made me extra hungry. Zack only ate half of his food, and father just had a soda.
After lunch, we tackled some other stores. At the Apple store, father got me an iPad 2, as well as a Macbook Air. They were having a promotion where if you buy a laptop computer, you received a free iPod, so I got that as well. Zack made sure to throw in an iPod alarm clock docking station. I definitely needed that. It’s stupid, but it made me feel connected to Connor, back home, since now we both had the same dock.
While we were in Hollister, father reminded me that I still needed to get underwear. I definitely did not want to pick out underwear with him there. “Do you think you can go to Macy’s while we’re shopping here and get me a new comforter and some pillows…if that’s not too much?” I asked to get rid of him. He agreed after asking a few questions about what kind of colors and what style of comforter I wanted, and then left the credit card with us to get what we needed. Meanwhile, Zack and I grabbed some boxer-briefs and regular boxers too. I threw in a belt and a few hoodies. Our total, just in this one store, came to $457.52! That was more money than I think Mom spent on clothes in a whole year for all three of us!
Father was walking back towards us as we exited the store. We took our last few purchases to the car, and headed back home. It wasn’t as bad as I thought. I managed to get a lot of nice things, and some decent bonding time with Zack. I didn’t want to forget about giving the letters I wrote to Mom and Sarah to my father though. “I wrote letters to my Mom and Sarah,” I told him, “Can you please mail them to my Mom, like you said?” I leaned over the front seat and handed him the letters.
“Of course, James. I’ll see that she gets them,” hearing him reassure me of that made me feel better. Soon I should hear back from them.
God, how I’ve missed them both.