A Bad Choice Can Feel Like Time Travel In the End…my cousin and I were raised like orphan sisters; we lived with our grandma until she became too ill to care for us. So, me, my cousin and grandmother moved in with my mother and her boyfriend. At first, I was excited and happy to finally live with my mother. I felt fulfilled, I felt loved because I had only wished and dreamed for that reality. Well, my mother’s boyfriend was a p******** who loved to give us “special attention” and request we “return the favor”. I didn’t want to lose my mother and also thought he was only doing it to me. one summer my cousin’s mother came to pick her up for what was supposed to be a two week visit. When my cousin got to her moms, she told her everything. She and her mother did the right thing and reported it to the proper authorities. When she did they contacted my mother and her boyfriend to follow up on an investigation. My mother and her boyfriend both approached me together to prepare me for the interview with the investigators and told me that if I said anything happened then I would have to live in foster care and that they both would live in prison and I could never see anyone in my family again. My mother was pretty aggressive and also told me I had to call her boyfriend dad around the interviewer and that I couldn’t tell them that I still slept in the bed with them or anything that could get either of them in trouble. I had just finished 3rd grade; so, I was young and wanted to believe that my mother had some sort of deep love for me and that she had my best interest at heart. So, I did as they said. I didn’t realize what would happen when I protected my mother’s boyfriend in this interview. After words, when the case had closed my mother and her boyfriend rewarded me with a trip to the Bahama’s and Disney World. I didn’t know that at that same time my entire family was being mean af to my cousin and her mother and basically disowned them. Saying that my cousin and her mom made the whole thing up to destroy my family and had negative intentions by making up such a crude story. My cousin went to a family members house to visit a couple years later and I saw her and I had buried things so deep that my mother and her boyfriend feared that my seeing my cousin was going to revive some memories, so they took me on a trip to San Diego to go to Sea World and then to Hawaii. I had repressed everything…to the point I honestly could not even remember any thing about the touching or the incident or interviews or anything. My mother’s boyfriend’s brother and his son both raped me later. In a quite violent way and that really messed me up inside and out. My mother’s boyfriend seemed apologetic and genuinely concerned that his brother and son did such a horrific thing and that he couldn’t stop them. So much so that he called the cops and encouraged me to testify and imprison his own brother…My brother beat up the son and the son was kicked out of our home. I felt so close to him at that time that I stopped calling him by his first name an started calling him “pop”. We were quite the family unit. Fast forward to a few years later. I had moved out of my parent’s home and across the country to live with my brother, get a job and be a grown up. I got pregnant by my brother’s classmate. The classmate stated I was not about to make him another statistic and he was going to finish college; that I was on my own. So, my brother also wanting to focus on college; kicked me out and I was sent back to my home state. Not knowing how to deal, I called my mom and pop and asked them to please help me. So, they took me in and I had my baby and they both strongly encouraged me to go to the military. So, I did. I signed a parental agreement for my mom to care for my child and I left to basic training. When I got back home, after about a year or so, my kid tells me my mom’s boyfriend touched her. I immediately called my brother who begged me to take her and stay at my cousin’s house until he could get to me and we would figure out what to do.

When my brother got there he beat me up and told me if I took my kid that I would be charged with kidnapping because of the paper I had signed for my mom to care for my kid while I was in the military. My brother and I still haven’t spoken in 12 years. They convinced me that I was mistaken as to what my child had said and she never said anything since. when she said that she was only 2. Well, now I’m in my 30s and my life somehow led me to stay at my cousin’s house with her and her mother. They were the only people who would help me after my mother stranded me in a random city far from home and then stole everything I own. Since being here, my cousin brought up what had all those years ago and all the repressed memories have came flooding back with a vengeance. I remember everything. I feel so horrible, like the worst person on earth. I want to die for not standing up for myself or for her. Being exposed to her now, I look at her life and can see that what he did to her is affecting every aspect of her life still today and I know it is my fault. It is my cross to bear. Why is she helping me? Why doesn’t she hate me? If I could use a time machine for one thing, I would tell! I would tell everyone! I would scream at him and fight for my cousin! We were all each other had and I let her down and what I did is still ruining her life to this very day! How do you make such a terrible thing right again? I can’t and knowing the pain and devastation my weakness has caused her, my kid, and every one involved, how could I ever think I deserve one bit of happiness? How could I even accept her kindness when she never received it from me? I want my life to be over but I know that will only cause more devastation. If I had one wish I’d use it for a time machine and make this right.