Shattered Snow Globe - Part 2

I remember Barnyard Bill taking me somewhere that April.

That was my new name for him. I was a little snotty brat back then and took every opportunity I could to remind him just how not right for my mother he was. His name for me as a result, was Priss. Looking back, these nicknames pretty much summed us up at the time. And even though he still calls me Priss to this day, I dropped the Barnyard Bill nickname over two decades ago.

See, I wasn't quite old enough to drive yet, and Bill would occasionally run me around to various places because my mother worked in an office and he had his own business. On this particular day he said he had something important to tell me. Even now when I look back at this situation, he never should have been the one to tell me this stuff.

He announced that he and my mom were getting married in June. As if I wasn't already livid enough with my mother and him dating, the sleepovers and whatnot. Now they were to be married, and all within 6 months of my father leaving? I remember getting out of his car and walking away. I can't recall if I actually did walk home or not in the end. The one thing I do remember is how furious I was at this particular moment in time.

I hated that man with the passion of a thousand suns and then some. It was his fault my world was shattered. It was his fault my dad left a few years early. And it was his fault that I now hated my mother.

While telling me of the upcoming nuptials, he inadvertently told me that she cheated on my father with him while she was still married. I now knew why my parents divorced and why my dad left at Christmas. They had never really told me the why at the time.

In a nutshell, Barnyard Bill single handedly ruined my life.

All I could think about was why hadn't my mom told me about the upcoming wedding. What right did he have to dump that kind of crap on me! It wasn't his place to do so. I wasn't planning on ever forgiving either of them. Incidentally, I managed to hold that torch for a better part of 7 years too.

I turned sixteen the following month and had my own car. I immersed myself in my friends and the things teens tend to do. I spent many nights out and about, doing things to make me forget just how angry I was with my life. I do remember having a heck of a lot of fun forgetting too.

About a month after my sixteenth birthday, they were indeed married. It was June of 1985. For the wedding, I had my hair cut shorter and painted some of it blue. It was my own little protest. I also refused to move into Barnyard Bill's home and ended up living alone in the house I grew up in much of the time that summer.

When the school year began, I was anything but tuned in. I never was gung-ho about school to begin with, but this was definitely a step down from my norm. I cut a lot of classes and acted up quite a bit during the times I was present and accounted for. As a result, I ended up being sent off to boarding school for the rest of my junior year.

Well, almost the rest of my junior year.

To be continued...