The Sunset Strip Diaries Read Online Free Page A

to kill the man who dared touch her child. I pictured her in a prairie dress, cocking a rifle and wiping back tears. I pictured her putting the rifle to my father’s crotch with a fierce, unwavering look in her eye and telling him: “ Nobody touches my child and gets away with it. Now you have me to deal with,” and pulling the trigger.
    But that’s not what happened.
    What did happen was this:
    I received a letter in return, containing exactly one paragraph. In the paragraph, she wrote that she believed me. Oh…Okay, good. That is good , I thought. Then I read on. It said that she had suspected it. That took a minute to absorb.
    Wait…wait…she… suspected it? She…was aware? What the fuck?
    I picked up the phone and called her, pressing her for more details. She admitted that once, before they had us kids, he looked at an album cover of a shirtless child and said it was “hot.”  Then she told me about another time when she caught him in the nude while my sister and I were in the next room playing, and he purposely didn’t cover himself.  There was another time when he called out one of our names during a romantic moment with her. There was the time that he watched a bunch of older boys have their way with a ten-year-old girl on his street. I didn’t know how old he was when it happened- was he the same age as the girl? Was he older? My mom then mentioned that there was a time that he bragged to his friends about having sex with a twelve-year-old (cue the sound of tires screeching to a halt) WHAT?! I was taken aback with the information my mother gave me. Who was that twelve-year-old?  Was it me?  Did it happen when he was twelve?  When he was younger? Did my father still crave twelve-year-olds? Is that why I woke up the way I did just before my twelfth birthday? Is that why I felt danger around him? It was so disturbing, I couldn’t process it. But there was something that I could process. My mother thought something horrible could have happened to me, her child, and she never once asked me if I were in danger, if I needed help or if I were okay. Not one peep. She would have taken it to the grave had I not brought it up myself.
    I sat down. I was furious; dizzy with rage. I didn’t know who I was more angry with, my perverted father or the fact that my mother could have helped me and didn’t. Not only did she turn a blind eye to her child being in danger, but she purposely avoided me! How could she have turned on me? Why was I not worth helping, saving, rescuing? Was she told that I had some part in it? That it was my idea? I will never know. And she will never tell.
    So if that right there didn’t drive me to become completely nuts, I don’t know what could have done it. Needless to say, I hated both of my parents with fervor. But that was later. At this point in my story, I hadn’t put it all together in my head yet. I felt confused, disgusted, scared, and angry. I didn’t say much. I came off as moody and pissed off at home and shy and isolated at school. As much as I hated Middleton at first, I was beginning to prefer being it to being at home.
    Okay, let’s get off this deep dark subject because I am getti ng depressed just writing it. (Sighs.) So while that all sucked majorly, something even worse happened that June. Something that made me think the world was ending. (Takes deep breath…)
    Wham! broke up.
    Yes, Wham. I literally wept at the thought of losing two bronzed, highlighted ass-shakers from my TV screen. How could they do that to me? To the world ? It was probably more important to me at the time than my lame parents.
    In all seriousness though, I somehow trudged through the school year, making the best of my situation. I had fun with my friend Karen on the weekends. I loved watching MTV and making up dances. I still read a lot of books. I accepted that I was not popular at school and I was okay with it. I would never be one of the girls that the boys liked.
    But then one day, one