There was no way for the summer to have ended without one really bad homicide. Everything pointed to an event like that being one of the many climaxes over three long months. As it happened, that particular homicide was the only one I noticed. Even though I was a witness to maybe a couple more. A man I knew killed a woman I didn't know. I knew her type. I had even partied with people like her, although later I learned to avoid White girls on runs as if they were carriers of the most virulent plague. My runs generally hurt me. They also hurt my family. I didn't think about what I was doing. I couldn't. All I could think about was grabbing oblivion, forgetting about a past I didn't own. Forgetting about every slap, kick, punch, abuse, the everything that had come to be the everyday events of my life. My story is the same as any other drunk, or junkie, or addict, or substance abuser. But my story is different, thankfully different because I did everything wrong and every wrong was done to me – yet I lived to tell the story. Unlike the girl my friend beat, choked and stabbed to death, I get to sit here in my nice apartment, go to my nice job, lunch with my nice friends, and hold my children for as long as God decides I am able.
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