Let's Not Meet Again

He Tried To Frame Her

My mother was in an abusive relationship for ten years, but that's not the story here. The story involves what happened after she left that relationship, and there is a lot. It takes someone 7 times on average to leave an abusive relationship, and the most dangerous time to be in an abusive relationship is when the person tries to leave, or has left. I know this from first-hand experience.

James was not a nice man. He mentally and sometimes physically abused my mother for ten years. He used mental and verbal abuse on me, I was only a child. My younger sister who was five when we left was safe from abuse, for the time being. When we left I remember being relieved. Going home to a place where you're insulted and walking on eggshells is never fun. When my mom finally decided to leave she had a lot to do. Of course James would make it hard.

The day we left, we ran. My mom woke me up, woke my sister up, and threw us in the car. We fled the house because it was too much for her to handle. We ended up in a nice one bedroom apartment in a small town about an hour away from where we were. James had no idea where we went, my mom wanted to keep it that way.

Unfortunately James still had visitation rights with my sister, and I went along because my sister was too afraid to be with him alone. The first time he came to pick us up he drove right to the apartment we would be moving into. We had been staying with my grandparents for the week until our apartment was ready.

"Is this your new place?" he asked, urgently. I remember being silent and even my sister didn't speak up. James demanded to know again, saying he already knew it was. He then drove away. Later on when we went home my mom was freaking out, the landlord kicked us out of the apartment before we could even move in because he had gotten a threatening phone call.

It was James, he admitted to calling out of concerns for our safety. He said he wanted to lend us money, make sure we were okay. We ended up almost homeless and moving in with a cousin for four months. During these four months James only got worse, he eventually had it so that even I wouldn't go over there, he was demanding to know too much about my mother.

When we finally got a place of our own, thanks to subsidy, it was wonderful. I had my own room again, and I lived near some friends. But James was still lurking around. My mom had met someone new, a nice man named Mike with two kids near my age. I got along with them and all seemed well. Until we started getting the phone calls.

The phone calls were from blocked numbers, the person on the other end would sit in silence, not talking, just breathing. When this started, James started threatening my mother. He would threaten to shoot her. He said he had a gun under his seat, and that he would blow her head off. He started calling and telling her details of her day, or where she had been at night. Unfortunately it was hard for us to get a restraining order, it took a long time. Even then he still for some reason had visitation rights with my sister so he would come get her even though technically he couldn't be near my mother, and there was nothing we could do despite my mother trying. She didn't want my sister with him.

One of the last times we saw him he came over when my mom was out shopping, for groceries. He wasn't supposed to show, he had cancelled for that weekend, with picking my sister up. But he showed up anyway. It was like he knew where my mother was and when she would be leaving. He came storming up the sidewalk of the apartment complex and scooped my sister up. I ran after them screaming, begging him to please wait until my mom came home. But he threw her in the car seat in the back of his truck and then turned to me from the sidewalk after he picked up her bag.

"You know what Becky, you're going to get what you deserve just like you're mother," he said, in this really cold voice, with a smirk that was evil. He then used his hand to make a gun motion and said "pow" to me pointing his hand at me as if shooting me. Then he turned away and walked back to his truck, driving away with my sister in tow screaming for help. I was only 13 so I had no idea what to do.

When my mother got back she panicked. It turns out that James got into a car accident with my sister. She was fine, so was he. It was the last weekend he would get her. But he wasn't done, he had one more trick. Our car at the time was being filled with sand, in the gas tank. We figured it was him but it seemed harmless and my mom would report it only to find there wasn't much she could do. Well James wanted one more night with my sister but my mother decided she would be the one to make the drop off, because she didn't want James near our house.

We drove an hour into his town and met at a local store where suddenly James insisted he had to go into the store to use the pay phone (before cell phones were mainstream) and of course he took a while. He came back out, said a very friendly goodbye and left. Mom and I were happy he hadn't harassed us or something and started to drive back home. We didn't make it ten minutes before a cop pulled us over. They made us both get out of the car, and patted my mom down. When they saw me, 13 and in tears they decided I didn't need to be patted down. Then they went and searched the car. What they pulled out from under the driver's seat surprised us both.

It was a large bag of heroin. Like bigger than a new born baby. My mom at this point was in shock, she just silently stared at this huge bag of drugs with a look of awe, and anger. She looked right at the cop and said, "It was James right, he called it in?" the cop let my mom drive me to a friend's house, in the area. They owned a local small store that didn't receive a lot of business. I remember watching my mom get handcuffed and taken away. I sat there outside the store for hours, refusing to go inside. I just sat and waited for my mom to come back.

She did. They figured out it was pinned on her, and that the drugs weren't hers. It was James, he got slight trouble for it but still almost nothing. It was taken off my mother's records.

That was it, James went away after that for a while. When he did come back he was apologetic of his actions but I could hardly forgive him. He since then has floated in and out of our lives, never once causing harm again. My sister who is now 14 has told him to never contact her again. I myself can't be around bearded men without freaking out. Which is ironic because I am seeing a bearded man right now.
So sorry for the long wall of text.

But James let's not meet. Ever. Again.