Dear Diary,

Where was I? Oh yeah.

After the first time he hit me, it was several months later before he did it again. At six years old, I don't really think I understood at the time what exactly was going on. I noticed, though, that he went from a loving and doting father to a father that was barely home. I remember being left to fend for myself in pretty much all aspects of my life: food, school, homework, baths. One night, as I was getting ready to tuck myself into bed, I heard the front door being slammed shut, followed by heavy footsteps heading in my direction. Father didn't usually come home until after I was fast asleep, and I remember being scared at why he was home so early this time.

I crawled into bed and under the blankets as fast as I could. A few seconds later, my bedroom door slammed open.

"Wake up, you little bitch." My father said, his words slurred and almost unrecognizable. I continued to lie still in my bed, hoping and praying that he would think I was asleep and leave me alone. Unfortunately, whatever God was up there didn't hear my prayers. My father ripped the blanket off me and pulled me out of the bed by the upper arm. He tossed me to the ground and stood over me with an angry look etched on his face.

"Daddy, what's wrong? What did I do?" I questioned as tears fell freely from the depths of my eyes.

"You killed your mother, that is what you did." He lifted his foot up and stomped it into the left side of my tiny body.

"You just had to have that stupid little dress. You just had to cry and cry and cry until she went to get it for you." He kept stomping on my side and I cried and begged for him to stop, but he wouldn't. My whole body was on fire and my breathing was off.

"Stop you're fucking crying, girl." He yelled as he grabbed me by the hair and chucked me out the bedroom door. My head hit the wall right by the stairs and it started getting harder to see. Tears kept falling as I continued to beg him to not hurt me and that I was sorry. But it wasn't good enough. The last thing I remember of that night was my head being slammed into the wall.