call me daddy 1

Sally is sick of her stepdad’s attitude, and after a particularly heated row one night she finally gathers the courage to do something that she had been thinking of doing for a long time. She grabs her bags, and her savings, and hits the road. Sally truly believes a life of travelling would be preferable to living with her controlling stepdad, and manages to hitch a ride to a hostel that very night. But what she doesn’t know is that her stepdad has been following her, and during the night he creeps into her room with a mind to hatch a plan to make sure she never runs away again... I struggled to keep my eyes open as we travelled down the freeway. We’d been driving for at least three hours and I was absolutely exhausted. Who would have known that sitting down all day could be so tiring? I clutched my rucksack to my chest and sighed, allowing my head to flop forwards onto it. I desperately wanted to go to sleep, but I just didn’t feel comfortable. The woman behind the wheel was a complete stranger to me, and I just felt too nervous to allow myself to fall asleep next to her. I had never hitch-hiked before, and I was feeling completely out of my depth. But that day, I just felt like I had no choice. I’d had enough of my life at home, and just needed to get away. Me and my stepdad just weren’t getting along, and lately his attitude towards me had worsened. I was eighteen years old, and wanted to live my own life. Hell, I needed to live my own life! Living under my stepdad’s strict rules and regulations was absolutely killing me, and I realised that I simply had to get away. That night was the last straw. I was in the kitchen, making myself some supper, when my stepdad came storming in with a face like thunder. “Where are my beers?” he snapped at me, catching me off guard and making me jump slightly. I stared at him for a moment, unsure what he was talking about. “What beers?” I eventually asked, still not sure what he was talking about. His scowl deepened and he stalked towards me. “Don’t give me that crap” he spat, “I know it was you. You just can’t keep your hands to yourself, can you, Sally? You waltz around this place, taking whatever the hell you want – and expect everybody else to pick up the tab!” I was shocked by his outburst, and stared at him in surprise for a few moments. He’d always been a control freak, and he’d always had a temper too – but this was just out of order! The way he glared at me made me feel uncomfortable, and almost guilty! I hadn’t touched his precious beers, and I literally had no idea what he was talking about. He had that affect on me. He was so aggressive and forceful in his opinions that he would browbeat me down into submission whenever we had an argument. Sometimes I used to think that he did it out of boredom or frustration, but now I wasn’t so sure. Lately I had begun to realise that he did it for sheer amusement. He enjoyed exerting his power over me. He enjoyed manipulating me, and watching me resist against him. He enjoyed making me sweat! When I was a young teenager he would take great delight in disciplining me whenever I was out of line. He would go to great lengths to try and catch me doing something I shouldn’t. I remember he once ‘randomly’ dropped in when I was having a sleepover at a friend’s house when I was sixteen, claiming I had ‘left my toothbrush at home’ so he had brought it over to me. The toothbrush he brought me obviously wasn’t my own – because I already had it with me, but this didn’t seem to matter to him. He was just determined to come and spy on me, and would obviously use any excuse he could think of to interfere. He was so controlling that he would even call up my school to make sure I really had done homework when I said I had. Anyone on the outside, looking in on the situation, would have simply thought that he was an over-protective father. They would have thought that he had my best interests at heart, and that he was only doing what every loving father would do in his situation. But I knew the truth. I knew that his attitude wasn’t normal, and the older I got, the more I resisted against him. That had culminated in the huge row that had erupted earlier that night. As he glared at me across the kitchen table, accusing me of something that we both knew I hadn’t done, I lost control. I hurled my glass of milk at him, and it hit him in the chest with a thud, covering him from head to toe. “I didn’t take your fucking beer!” I screamed, stamping my foot like a child having a tantrum “you’re suck a fucking freak! I can’t live like this anymore!” I stormed past him, averting my eyes from his stone cold gaze. I knew that if I looked at him I would probably lose my nerve, and I was determined not to let that happen. I was determined to follow through with something that I had been planning for months. I was going to leave that house, and my ridiculously dysfunctional family far behind me and spend the next couple of years travelling. I’d been saving up money for a round the world trip with one of my friends, but she had recently backed out of the idea – so I was left with a few hundred dollars saved up. I kept on adding to that surplus of cash, knowing that I would need it if I were to finally break free and leave. And that moment had finally come. I stormed upstairs and took a pre-packed suitcase from my closet, then gathered up some other basic essentials, including my sleeping bag and my notebook, containing details of various hostels and campsites nearby. I didn’t own a tent, but I figured I could find work once I was out on the road and then buy one. I just wanted to get out of the house as quickly as possible, so I threw on my coat and scurried down the stairs, leaving my stepdad still seething in the kitchen, clearly unsure how to handle the situation. I didn’t even tell him I was leaving for good. He probably thought I was stopping at a friend’s house for the night or something, and I thought it best to let him keep thinking that. If he had known I was leaving for good he may have tried to follow me, or at least would have told my mom and worried her sick. I didn’t want that. Me and my mom didn’t really get on, and she was hardly ever around anymore, but I still didn’t want her to worry about me. I just figured that I would write to them to let them know I was safe as soon as I got chance; I was more concerned with hitting the road. So, after nearly an hour of walking down the highway holding my thumb out, I finally managed to hitch a ride.