Change My Mind
This all happened around 10 years ago and takes place over the course of the absolute worst months of my life. I had just turned 18 at the time, and thanks to my mom’s gambling addiction we lost the house that I had lived in my entire life. Almost right after we lost the house, a family friend offered to let us stay at her house with her family, since she and her husband had a few extra rooms.
We move into their very large house, and at first, things were great. The family consisted of the parents and their kid, who was the same age as me. All of them were understanding and nice at first, offering to let me and my mom stay for as long as it would take for us to get back on our feet. The mom even got me my first job working as a volunteer at a bingo hall.
It was all under the table kind of money, but I didn’t care since it was money in my pocket that my mom couldn’t/wouldn’t provide me. The parents had been family friends for a very long time and were absolutely enamored with the idea of me and their son getting together, and have been ever since we were little. They constantly made comments like “look at the beautiful couple,” “you two look so great together,” or “we’ll give you lovebirds some privacy” whenever we were in the same place together.
Despite me stating several times that I didn’t like him in that way, they were determined to try to get us to work, like some kind of arranged marriage. I think that really fed into the boy’s ego, because about a month into my stay there is when the first incident happened. We were walking down the hall when he smacks my butt from out of nowhere.
I really freaked out and went off on him, yelling, cursing, and giving him a few shoves. Our parents came upstairs to see what all the yelling was about and we end up getting separated. I tell my mom what happened, and she responds by telling me “it wasn’t a big deal” and to “not rock the boat” while we were living there. The boy eventually gives some half-baked apology to me at dinner.
His dad made some joke about how he’s relieved that he’s finally taking an interest in girls since they were starting to think he was gay. Things escalate from there. Any chance he got, he would make lewd comments or find some way to grope me. Every time I went to his parents it was always hand-waved away as “boys will be boys” or “he probably didn’t mean it that way”.
They said that he was a really sweet guy deep down and I should get to know him better. On one occasion, the dad told me that I “should be flattered”. My mom was content to not do anything, enjoying the freeloading that got to feed her addiction too much, and telling me to “stop playing hard to get”. One day, he puts a hand down my shirt as I’m sitting on the couch.
I started yelling at him about how I’m sick of him doing stuff like this and to never do it again. His reaction was chilling. He gave me the most terrifying glare and told me “Shut up! You live in MY house”. After that, I was so terrified of being alone with him that I would stay after school for as long as I could until l was asked to leave, and if I ever had to go back to the house for any reason, I would just hide in my room with the door locked and wouldn’t come out until I knew other people were around.
I just didn’t know if one day he was just going to force himself on me. Fast forward a few months and I’m told, not asked, that I’m going with him as his date to his senior prom, which is in a week. The parents are super excited and tell me that we’ll have the whole house to ourselves that night after we come back from the dance. I very quickly shut that down.
I tell them that I’m not going because of how he treats me, and they spend the rest of the day doing everything they can to compel me. First, they try telling me money isn’t an issue, how they’ll pay for my dress and ticket. When that doesn’t work, they try to guilt-trip me, telling me how they ask me for so little, and how this is the least I can do, and how much he would love it.
Finally, my mom eventually hears about it after she comes home from the casino, and she’s angry. She tells me how I need to go, how it’s such a big opportunity for the both of us, and how I need to tell them that I changed my mind. I refuse, and the day after the prom is over, the parents sit me and my mom down for a talk. They start implementing new rules.
They are all about how they now expect us to pitch in for all the amenities, how we’re expected to buy our own food, and how they’re going to start charging us for rent. Before all this, they were very adamant about us not paying for anything, wanting us to save money to get back on our feet. Even without my mom spending half or all of her checks at the casino, there was no way for us to afford what they were asking. It all went downhill from there.
They subsequently gave us a month to find our own place and move out. We ended up moving out to live in a sketchy neighborhood with some guy my mom was dating, who she’d met at the casino. My mom blamed me for the entire thing, saying I “blew a golden opportunity for both of us”. How I basically threw away a great future that was all laid out for me because I “wouldn’t dance and put out”.
That cut me pretty deeply, and I still get angry thinking about it to this day. A few months later I graduated, but my mom didn’t show up to the ceremony. I come back to the house and I make a horrifying discovery. All my stuff is sitting on the curb next to the trash and had been thoroughly picked through. I found out my key doesn’t work anymore, and nobody is picking up their phone.
I end up waiting till about 3 in the morning for them to come back from the casino, and my mom tells me in so many words that I’m on my own now. Nothing I say changes her mind, and I eventually pack what little of my stuff is left into my car. I spent the next month or two couch-surfing or sleeping in my car, while trying to pick up as many days as I could at work.
Eventually, I managed to save up enough to move into my first apartment with a roommate. I haven’t spoken to my mom or those parents since then, but recently my mom left me a voicemail asking if we could talk, since she didn’t like the way we left things. Since then, she’s been blowing up my phone every day. I don’t plan on ever taking her call.