Maybe it was me...

I lay here unable to sleep. It's 2:12 in the morning--I have to be awake at 6:15. I'm not too sure sleep is going to come tonight for me.

I have so much going through my mind. Thoughts... Crazy thoughts... Plaguing thoughts...

Sunday I went up to the mountain to find my wedding ring that Brian threw out the window during one of his episodes. I'm sure I want to tell that story someday, but that's not what's plaguing my mind right now.

I sat there on the rocks, with the fallen branches, crisp colorful leaves of fall nestled about my feet and thought about that day, and everyday after... I can't help but think did I do this? Was I ultimately the result of this? As tears unleash streaming down my face.

Oh there are plenty of regrets I have, such as wishing I had the calm mild manner to ask him to give me the needle, controlling my anger. But, that's not what has my mind reeling hours before my alarm goes off.

No, what is going through my mind right at this moment is that little girl I had fallen in love with and raised as my own... I hear the haunting laughter of her mothers words when I tried telling her that Alexis did love me, the words that ripped through my heart I once had, "she doesn't love you, she's never loved you. She only ever told you she loved you to get you off her back. She told me herself".

Suddenly everything I had believed to be true, all the love declared, promises made, everything began to unravel... In that moment all I could think about were all the times Brian and I would argue and he would tell me she didn't ever love me. She was playing me, using me. I would defend her, stand up for her and deny that she would do that to me.

I think back on the many times Brian would leave me to go on his little "binges" and he would come around and want to fix things but knowing he messed up by dragging her into it. Suddenly he would pass her off for me to "fix this" like I was the one who did it.

There I would sit across from her on the couch as she glared at me, hate seeping from her. Hatred being back in this house. Hatred that her father loved me enough to want to come back here. I sat across from her telling her that it's not okay for her father to do this to her, to drag her into our fights. I would tell her how much her father and I loved each other and one day she would grow up and be on her own and it will come soon, but her father and I deserved to be loved and happy together, because this right here was the rest of our lives. I would tell her "I will not force myself on you, you do not have to call me mom, you don't even have to talk to me if you don't like. But, I'll still love you, love you like you are my own. I'll still pay for dance lessons, I'll still buy birthday gifts, Christmas gifts, and still be on the sidelines for every single game, every single concert, every single recital. Because I love you". This resulted in her broken down facade and she would cry lunginh into my arms and tell me she loved me and that she wanted me as her mother.

So you see how easy it was for me to believe she really loved me?  I guess that was my own hope, my own desires to not see what was really going on. After her mother laughed at me and told me the truth that was in Alexis's heart, I turned to Brian and with heartbreak in my eyes I said "You were right. You were always right. She didn't love me." He then held me and said "I was only trying to protect you".

Now how does this all come around to being my fault and having me lying here until what is now 2:48 in the morning?

If Brian and I had not fallen in love, maybe just maybe he would still be around... If we had let Alexis win and it go back to just being her and her father then maybe there would have been a chance.

When she was 7 and told me she wanted to move in, be a family, and for us to get married, I was so excited! Excited to give Kiki a sister. Excited to fall in love with this little blond haired mouthy brat, that seemed, from my perspective, to fit right in. Caleb looked up to her following her every whim, as the big sister she became. Kiki learned how to bond and not feel alone in a house full of boys. It just was too good to be true.

My children also gaining a father that they desperately needed in their lives, that role model, their protector to make them feel safe against the outside dangers of the world.

I should have saw the signs, signs I chose to ignore because I was convinced I was different. She would talk about his other exes, in such negative manners saying "oh she would always make things up to get me into trouble with my dad" or "she told my dad every little thing I did just to get me into trouble".. So here I was happy that she loved me--ME! I wouldn't do that. No... I made a point to handle as much of anything I could to keep away from her father do there would be no issues. Talking with her at lengths, formulating solutions. If it were serious enough, or something I couldn't keep from her dad, we would discuss it with him together. He did often have an explosive temper, to the point I would step in and say "that's enough".

No I don't think she ever did love me now. Don't think she ever loved any of us. In spite of Brian's insistence that she in fact did love Kiki. You don't abandon people you love.

Which is I guess irony considering. However, I guess it's not abandoning. I'm not abandoning her. She abandoned us, because she never loved us, so I gave up, threw in the towel, because I don't have any more strength or will power left in me to fight for anything anymore. I fought so hard for her for so long, and the day I lost my husband, was the day I lost all my will and strength to fight for anything anymore.

That night, the final night we spoke--after finding out she had been speaking to a boy in high school about suicide pacts, and love, and discovering she had slipped off to the park to make out with this boy, while staying with a friend, when she was clearly not allowed to date. It wasn't her fathers explosive temper that set her off on the web of lies. It was me. It was me telling her I lost all trust in her and I couldn't do it anymore. That I could not trust her and had no idea what to do with her at this point. It seemed every time I began to trust her she would do something else, chasing boys--boys older, boys she wasn't allowed to date until high school. I told her from that point on I was no longer the "cool mom" that would always have her back, but trust in Brian's judgement, because every time I backed her I got burned. I told her "I don't care if you hate me, my job is to get you through high school graduated and not pregnant." We talked until 3 in the morning as she professed this great love for this boy, and how she should be allowed to date. I adamantly told her no. The answer was no. We came to no resolutions for punishments or where to go from here I just sent her to bed totally lost on what to do at this point. I had reached my point of exhaustion. Here she was 14 and in 8th grade and we had been going these rounds since 6th grade and 12 years old.

The next day I took her phone and kept it. Through out the morning message after message kept popping up on Kik app, Snap Chat, and another secret messenger. All from boys quite older. She was 14 these boys were 17. One boy, completely different from the previous boy she professed such love for, I discovered they too were talking about love and marriage. Another boy, the boy that resulted in the argument from the very first boy, stated he was her boyfriend. I then dug deeper and to my greatest fear saw a message from that weekend that we were out of town, plans to go hang out in a truck with this boy who was 17 for a couple hours, clearly stating we were out of town and she would sneak out around 10:00. They never did follow though but it terrified me. The only thing I could think of was had she gone, she could have been raped. We were not home, she could have gone off and been alone with this boy.

Out of pure anger, pure disgust, I got on her Facebook and posted a status "This is Alexis's mother, she is 14 years old. You boys that are 17 years old hitting on my daughter know that it is illegal! I will not hesitate to press charges, if her father does not get to you first. I suggest you get your nose back into your books and focus on your future while you still have one. This girl is OFF limits". At first I felt quite proud of myself. I knew she would've seen it through her friends. I didn't care. I was making a point. Until 20 minutes later, she then decided to make HER point, and went down to the office, and file a complaint that her father had abused her. Through examination there was not a single mark on her, even though she bruises easily. She claimed a concussion and without the presence of a cat scan they could only go off her symptoms, headache, tired, nausea. Couldn't possibly have been, the lack of sleep, facing consequences she didn't want to face... No this all got way too out of control.

I kept telling everyone they were making it worse. They had her backed in a corner she couldn't get out of. She couldn't back track her story now. There was only one way to go. Her mother. Which Brian has claimed for years it was all she ever really truly wanted anyway. I didn't want to believe it. I had thought over the years she had finally seen the mother she was and realized the great father she had, as well as the life we provided for her.

Suddenly, I sit back and hear those words from her mother. Her mother telling me I always acted too much like her "mother" and I needed to step aside. I guess I didn't know where my boundaries lied. Was I still to continue paying for everything and yet not speak to Alexis. Did I let her mom be her "mom" and let her provide the expense for dances, and soccer? If I did that then she never would have got to play. She already never sent birthday gifts, Christmas gifts, or a dime of child support. Did I separate out the children? My kids vs. his kid? I just wanted a family... One unit, not two.

I was even more devastated as more lies started pouring in from reports from DFS, and from her mother stating my "role" as "step-mother", and how horrible I was. That I separated her father and Alexis's relationship. That I would lie to get her into trouble and twist the truth. Where had I heard that same exact statement before? That I would try and force her to call me mother and she refused, never seeing me as a mother figure. I was nothing...truly nothing...

So now going on 3:32--less than three hours before my alarm sounds. I can't shake the horrifying feeling that this was me. Because I tried too hard to be a mother to her. Because Brian and I had fallen deeply in love. I think Alexis always liked the idea of having a female figure around, but only really to spoil her and go away. Never truly to stick around. I don't think she wanted him to love anyone else but her. I mean I guess it makes sense. She's young, wants her freedom. Her fathers undivided attention. The last thing she needed or wanted a was me. Meddling around in her business, pretending to be something I'm not. To her I was nothing... Just some one she hated, proof from screen shots from her mother, of their conversations to torture me more, that everyone hated me... And how she wished I were dead and not her father. Well child that is the one thing we both can agree on. I too wish it were me that had died. Then your father would be alive, and my kids...well I'm not sure where they would be, because I know they mean nothing to you and would have posed a burden...

I am sorry your father fell in love with me, but I will never be sorry for a single moment that I fell in love with him. He gave me life, he gave me hope, and for 8 years of our lives entwined together it was the most beautiful moments I will cherish always. He was and is my heart and soul now and forever.

It is now 3:46 and my this little girl lying next to me, my only daughter, sat up in bed looked at me snuggled closer and muffles "I love you" I whisper back "I love you" and she barely lets out the words "I love you more" seemingly in her sleep. "Not possible." I say as I pull her closer and finally feel at peace enough to put my phone down. She's my strength now, my realization of how much pain and loss she has endured in her life, losing the only father she ever knew, and the sister she had trusted and loved--yes, she needs me, just as much as I need her right now.

Good night... finally goodnight...