“So how are you today?” Mrs. Spencer asked.
“Ok,” I responded
I know there was fear in my eyes. And I was pretty sure she could see right past the mask I put on every morning.  I was never honestly ok. What girl really is? And today I definitely was not ok She looked over at me with Sandra Bullocks don’t-you-dare-lie-to-me look and so I proceeded to say “h…he’s….my uncle is in town.”
We were walking, fairly fast from the intermediate school to the high school. Her being a teacher and all, walking fast was normal. But as I said those words…my steps wavered. It had finally hit me. He was back. He had found me again. She looked at me with a look of care and anger.
“Which uncle?” she asked me angrily.
The fire breathing dragon appeared in her eyes. Honestly, Mrs. Spencer’s anger took me back, but I knew she would help me. I would trust her with my life. If she couldn’t help me get past this fear no one could. And she matched her pace to mine, which is saying something.
“Which uncle do you think” I responded.
She knew I shouldn’t be alone. She knew my…sanity…for lack of better words was at risk. “So you don’t ever need to be alone?” she asked me. But it wasn’t really a question it was more of a statement.
“Why isn’t he in jail?” she asked me.
“No idea. We pressed charges and had a restraining order put on him, “ I responded, “but it was only for a year and my mom refused to renew it.”
“Ohh” she responded.
By then we were almost to the doors of the high school.
She asked me “Does the school know?”
“No, not yet.”
Originally she wanted me to start out with Mr. Johnson, the assistant principal, but he wasn’t in his office. And so she dragged me to the counselor’s office telling me to be precise and very upfront. It wasn’t the kind of she grabbed my arm and forced me dragging. It was more of a verbal and body language thing. I knew the fear was not just in my heart. It was also in my eyes and how I was acting. I knew if I hadn’t told her she would have figured it out. 
The councilor’s secretary Mrs. Scrivner asked “do you need to talk to Mrs. Bellis?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Spencer responded.
“Are you going in with her?’ Mrs. Scrivner asked Mrs. Spencer.
“No,” she responded, “I am just getting her here. Then she needs to get to point B.”
“Ok,” Mrs. Scrivner responded.
So Mrs. Spencer left. And I talked to Mrs. Bellis. She asked me what he looked like.
“Hazel eyes, heavy set, beer gut, always a cap, brown hair,”
“And what kind of car does he drive.”
“Old truck, grey with a green strip down the middle.”
“What brand?”
“Ford.”
She then took me to Mr. Johnson office, and he asked me a few questions. And then he sent me to my second hour class.
The glass crashes against the bowls and plates. “You are going to listen to me and your mom, young lady,” he screeched at me. I run to my room and throw myself on my bed. The liquid sadness runs down my rosy cheeks, saturating the flowers that cover me. He storms into my room. I scream “Go away.”  “No young lady you are going to learn to listen.” “But I didn’t do anything. I was just putting away the dishes.” But yet he hits me again and again. Front handed, back handed, and with his fists. He tries to hold me down on the bed as I try to get away. He can’t hold me. Maybe I can get away. I think. But no! He grabs me and flips me over onto my back and continues to beat me.  I scream “Mommy, help me. Mommy” My mom rushes in the room trying to get him off of me. She has him distracted so I readjusted my legs and get ready to hit him in the groin. But my mom notices and says “No Savanna don’t.” He then focus on me and starts again.
The flashback ends as I walk into Creative Writing. The sub looks at me weirdly so I know my face was contorted with fear as I walk in. But years of practice have made me good at making my face unreadable. So it is only a glance and then he focuses back on the instructions that Mrs. Hannaford has given him for the day.
This is something that I had to face, and I got through it. And it honestly has made me so much tougher. I can handle most everything that is thrown at me, except for him. He scares me beyond me everything. There is nothing I fear more. Not spiders. Or snakes. Or tigers. Or even death. I had to face a complete reconstructive surgery from the back of my ears, to the tip of my nose into two inches in my hairline….a six hour surgery. But yet even when I survive that I still fear him. He is never truly gone. But yet I keep fighting. No way will he ever have that much control in my life again.
So for the next few days, I was always edgy. Every time I was near a window, if I saw a vehicle pass I was checking to make sure it wasn’t him. And by the time I got to her class I was gone. Not just mentally but in every way.  And something I know helped me quite a bit was how she coordinated herself around me.  You see being a choir teacher and all she always is looking out at the choir. Checking on how each section is sounding. But she kept checking on my group, the altos, a lot more than usual. And she naturally checks on us a lot. And I know from asking other members of my group and from the other girls group, the sopranos, that she was watching our group a lot of more than usual. But the thing was she just wasn’t just watching the group as a group. She was watching me. Personally I think she was gauging how I was doing. I was ok. She had made me feel safe from the first moment I met her. So she didn’t need to worry. I was fine as long as she was near. You may think it seems silly but to me it wasn’t, but just watching her write on the whiteboard was soothing.  Just her presence was reassuring.
As the days continue to go forward, I am still watching for him. He’s always on my mind. But because of her I can focus on other things, on the things that matter to me. He can’t have control of me.  I still am fearful. Most of the time, I am most fearful in the night, because that is when the damage he caused in my life happened. But the moment I enter the school my fears go away for the next eight hours, part of it is because of her and part of because her and her fellow coworkers make me feel safe.
I don’t open up to many, and for her to know what she does. For me to willingly and openly tell her the things I have told her, takes a lot for me. Shows how much she clicked with me. Yes it gives me a higher chance of getting hurt. But I don’t feel that getting hurt by her will happen. She is my stronghold. She is one of the people I rely on.