Dear Diary

It's now been one year since mother passed away. I still miss her terribly and think of her each day. I also feel ashamed at times when I just wish she were still here to protect me from father and to intervene. His hate for me seems to grow each day and he told me the day I turn eighteen I will be out of the house no matter what. It was never easy for me but now it will be unbearable. I was so stupid to let him catch me. Another month off from school so the bruises would heal.

I have to pass this year and advance a grade. As it is I will be twenty before I graduate and can escape from Redneck High. I now own the school record for being suspended for fighting. What a sad joke and injustice that is. Suspended for being a punching bag is more like it. It's always the same. One jock or another corners me and beats me half to death and then Mr. James let's them go and accuses me of causing it. No football hero will be punished but I get a weeklong suspension just for taking the beatings. Why did I have to be born in Texas?

I have the pills here but I want to live and to just go where I can have my dream. I have to go soon and it may be the end today anyway. He caught me last night again. He almost never comes home until after midnight but of all nights to not feel like drinking until late he chose last night. I saved up for a year for that corset and dress! I thought he would just beat me again but this is so much worse. They will probably kill me today. He is making me go to school in it. I have to go now. Why couldn't my mother have lived! He should have died.

12/10/2000

I was able to drag my broken body to the computer today for the first time. It didn't last long but this time they broke ribs. I am suspended until January now and they got away with it again. No Neanderthal jock can commit any sin. I am in so much pain but they ordered counseling and I have to go starting today. I wish it were a real shrink with an education but no, not in this dirt water town in the Texas Panhandle! Pastor Bubba is waiting.