Underestimated by Jettie Woodruff Read Free Book Online

around to the side and flipped on the light
    without entering. I shook my head again at how silly I was
    being.
    I lay in my comfortable bed and stared up at the
    ceiling. Would I ever be normal again, wait, have I even
    ever been normal? What exactly defines normal? My mind
    drifted to my childhood, and that too, I was sure was as
    anomalous as imaginable. My Grandma Joyce was
    probably the most usual person from that time of my life.
    There were a few things that she had told me that were
    probably not the healthiest things to be telling a little girl.
    I remembered sitting on the front porch of her one
    room cabin and listening to the stories of her childhood
    and living through the hard times on the mountain. She had
    always told me that no matter how bad I thought that I had
    it, somebody else always had it worse. I am not sure that
    was possible, but then again, I’m sure it is. I could have
    been born a lot worse off than I was, I suppose.
    I thought about little Justin, although I am sure he’s
    not so little anymore. He had been put into foster care
    almost seven years ago. He would be twelve years old
    this summer. I hoped he was adopted and had a good life. I
    hated the thought of him being strung about from foster
    home to foster home. I hated my mother for so long for
    leaving us and forcing him to live that life, then again my
    dad could have kept it from happening if he wanted to. I
    couldn’t imagine choosing my alcohol over my son. My
    mother, I could almost forgive. I said almost. I still hated
    her for not taking us with her, even though I could
    understand her running away from her life of hell.
    I was raised in the Appalachian Mountains, a
    small town in West Virginia where poverty is real, and
    still exists to this day. I was raised to believe that you
    grew up, signed up for welfare, and had lots of babies so
    that you could get more welfare and more food stamps.
    That was normal, and then after moving to Las Vegas and
    living the life of luxury that became my normal. Now,
    well, now this was normal.
    I finally drifted off to sleep, thinking about the two
    bedroom trailer, and my home from the time that I was
    born until my eighteenth birthday. The dream was so real
    this time, not that I didn’t say that every time that I woke in
    a panic, but this one was worse.
    I was huddled up to the only heat source in the
    house. The wood stove was barely throwing off any heat. I
    tried to bring some wood in, but it was frozen, and my
    fingers weren’t strong enough to pull any of the pieces
    apart. It was late, and my dad wasn’t home from the bar
    yet. Justin was no longer there, so I had to be at least
    seventeen. I sat with a blanket leaned against the stove
    with my back. The metal was barely warm, and I knew
    that it would be completely burned out within the hour.
    It was the first time that my dad ever hit me,
    besides being whipped by his belt anyway. The first time
    was the very first time that he had come home in a drunken
    stupor after my mom had left us. I guess it was my
    responsibility to fill her shoes. I heard the old truck pull
    into the drive and I ran to my room, wrapped in my
    blanket. He started yelling as soon as he opened the door
    and realized the fire was almost out.
    “Morgan! Get your stupid ass out here.”
    I didn’t move. I hoped that he would think that I
    was asleep and just leave me alone. He didn’t.
    “If you’re not out here by the time I count to three, I
    am going to beat you to a pulp.”
    Although I knew he was going to do it anyway,
    whether I went then or ten minutes later. I walked out. He
    slapped me across the face, not giving me time to explain
    that I had tried to bring wood in. I could handle the slaps
    in the face. I would have chosen those over the sound of
    his leather belt being pulled from his belt loops any day.
    I could feel the burning stings on the backs of my
    legs and my back when I woke, out of breath and panting
    like an overheated dog. I