CHAPTER 1

I WAS TWELVE WHEN I HAD MY FIRST BITTER TASTE OF LIFE.

I was from a middle class family. My mother struggled to make ends meet. While my father on the other hand struggled to make our life's more unbearable each day. If his family weren't the problem, his women were. He was my father but I hated him.

The situation at home made me grow up faster in mind, but it was not until the sixteenth of April that I knew what it meant to live in the world as a poor and struggling child_In a world were the poor had so little say and could only afford to have little dignity.

As a catholic I attended the stations of the cross all twelve years of my life and apart from the usual responses the crowd was meant to give, some other words stuck in my head.

The one I loved the most and could possibly never forget was that of Christ when the priest would in his bass voice say, 'your will is yours and no force on earth and none in hell can take away your will'.

I loved to hear that part a lot while I was younger but it soon got to a time where it hurt me to hear because I no longer wanted my will to be mine I wanted someone to take it from me. I wanted someone to lead me while I followed, because my thoughts seemed to be always wrong and my will though mine felt like it wasn't.

Maybe, I didn't grow up fast like I wanted to believe; I think what happened was that the situation at home broke me. It made me feel hollow, small, helpless_ feelings which were attributed more to grown ups.

I had to continue living. I lived by dreaming, and imagining fairy tales and beautiful princes who were selfless and handsome.

I watched my mom everyday while she left the house to do all kinds of business. She would leave before we went to school and by the time we were back, she would be there waiting for us. She worked really hard. Too hard. So I tried to do all that she asked of me even though they were not all pleasing to me.

I did them because I appreciated the effort she continued to make so that we could live a comfortable life even though my dad did little to nothing.

My mum soon became close friends with someone from the upper class, Lisa was her name. She was about 5'5 ft tall, plump and very fair, she was also pregnant for her second child when they met.

She soon became a friend that my mom trusted and wanted us to please, so that she would like my family and help us. 'We don't have money, we need all the help from people like her'. My mum would tell me. I didn't blame her, I never did. She was just a mother who wanted her children to live a good life.

If only she knew what the friendship was going to cost her in the nearest future maybe she would never have been friends with Lisa in the first place.

But none of us have the ability to see the future and that remains one of mans various inadequacies.