I'll Love You Slow

Chapter One

Everything that I have ever done in my entire life has been for my daughter - every sleepless night, every triple shift, every moment that I chose to go hungry so that she would never have to do the same... all of it has been for her.  To protect her, to show her how much I love her, how much she matters to me... And I still managed to miss it.  She still got hurt under my watch by the same man who broke me down for years, and there was nothing that I could possibly do to stop it, because I missed it.

I missed it for so fucking long - probably from the day that I let him move into the house because he 'promised' he was clean, he swore that he was trying to change, trying to get better, trying to fix it all, that he wanted to be involved in his daughter's life and be the father he never had... and I believed him.  I was stupid, and I was foolish, and I actually believed him... Maybe that's my problem, maybe I'm too naive - that was how Luis got me the first time, wasn't it?  He took a child and stripped away her innocence, used my naivety for his own pleasure and then ran away like a pussy to the military the second that he realized that his action had a consequence...

Well, he considered it a consequence, I considered it a blessing... I considered her a blessing.

Esmeralda Valentina Panchek. 19", 7.5 pounds, born August 28, 2001, at 3:28AM... I can still remember hearing her screaming and crying, holding her for the first time and whispering promises of how I would keep her safe, how no one would hurt her as long as I was around to stop it.  I meant them too, I meant every single word of them, and I did my best to keep my promise... To make sure that they never saw the side of him that I was forced to see every night - the pain, the suffering, the abuse... My scars still ache when I touch them, and I have bruises that haven't healed... and all I can think of is killing that goddamn bastard.

Esme did a great job at hiding the scars and bruises... Or more, Luis had been strategic in where he'd put them, knowing that Esme never changed in front of anyone, knowing that it was somewhere I would never see because I would never make them show me anything they were uncomfortable with me seeing - I'm their mother, not a doctor.  If she feels uncomfortable, then I promised I wouldn't make her do it, and so I never saw them.

Not until today - not until ten minutes ago when she'd taken off her overshirt to get into Emma's pool and I saw the deep scars on her shoulders, her back... her stomach... Bruises that weren't healed and wounds that were poorly cared for.  I wasn't even supposed to be here, I was supposed to be working an extra shift at the diner, but I didn't want to miss my kid's fourteenth birthday... not if I didn't have to, so I planned to surprise them.  I crept up to the doors leading out to the pool through the house, and that was where I saw it, that was where I saw her... And then she saw me.  Her eyes had been filled with terror, with desperation, and I'd run as quickly as I could to the nearest bathroom.

As it stands now, I've been throwing up for the better part of ten minutes, feeling wracked with guilt and nausea and pain that only gets worse with each passing moment.  What kind of a mother was I if I couldn't even see that my own child was being abused by her father, by someone who was meant to love her unconditionally?  I felt dirty, responsible for it happening... If it weren't for me giving him another chance, he never would've gotten to her... I should've fought him on it, I should've taken him to court... I should have made him give up his parental rights the second that she was born so that he never could've hurt her, but I didn't.

No one tells a sixteen-year-old how to get away from their abuser... Hell, no one really bothered to check if a thirty-year-old knew how to get away from him either.  I was terrified of him - I am terrified of him.  Granted, at first, I'd thought that I loved him, but the second I got comfortable around him, he hit me for the first time... I'd been terrified that I'd lose the pregnancy when he threw me into a wall, and I'd run away from him and back to my mother's apartment, vowing to never see him again.  God, I wish I'd kept that vow.