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mood, and the living room with the threadbare rug

where Daddy sat and watched television alone so

many nights. Why would I cry over and long for a

return to the life I used to hate? Why would I want to

be back in that two-by-four room of mine where I

could hear pipes groaning at night like someone with

a bellyache, and people in other apartments yelling at

each other and clawing the walls the way prisoners

going mad might?

I wasn't in a good place to grow up. Even as a

little girl. I knew bad things happened in our building.

Someone I only knew as Mr. Ratter died of a drug

overdose in the apartment directly below ours. It was the first time I saw a dead person. I stood on the stairway and watched them taking him out an a stretcher, the sheet over his whole body. The police said the apartment stank. He had been dead for nearly a week, but he had no relatives in Atlanta. Only in his

mid-thirties, he was already dead.

That was when I first understood what Daddy

meant when he said we were living in a cemetery. The

doors of the apartments should look more like

tombstones and read their names and born in 19__,

died 20__. Rest its peace because that's the only

peace you'll have.

No wonder I didn't want to come home nights

or stay there on weekends. No wonder I took

advantage of Mama being at work and staying out to

all hours and Daddy being on the road, away from

home. I shouldn't have been blamed for that. Anyone

living like I was living, seeing the things I saw, would

have done the same thing.

The only excitement and happiness I had were

what I had with my friends. So we smoked and

shoplifted and drank at parties. So what? We didn't


Tags: V.C. Andrews Broken Wings Horror