Emma Chase Read Online Free PDF Page A

think that when she died, a piece of him had died, and along with that, she’d taken his will to live as a productive member of society.
    He hadn’t raised me.  I’d raised myself the best I could.  There had been times when I would go hungry because Joe would forget to buy food.  He would come home with a bottle of Jack and nothing else.  I would find out later that he’d also been a small-time coke and heroin dealer on the side. 
I was home alone a lot.  Growing up, I don’t ever remember a time feeling safe.  He didn’t protect me from anything. 
    When I became a teenager, no longer a girl, boys started to take notice.  One of our neighbors tried to act on it one night when I was coming home from a shift at the Bi-Lo, one of the local supermarkets.
    My father heard my screams in the hallway.  He didn’t even try to help me. 
    He flung the door wide and stumbled up the steps.  The boy ran off without a second look.
    Joe was drunk and slurring his words.  He shouted at me and called me a slut and the neighborhood dick tease.
    So I saved my money, busted my ass over the summers to put extra money away, and built a nice little nest egg, which I kept hidden from Joe. 
    I should’ve cut my ties with that shit bag as soon as I graduated and moved out.
    This man never did anything right by me.  He was a cancer.  He dirtied everything he touched.  That is why I kept my distance.  I didn’t want him to turn everything I’d worked so hard for to shit like he had with everything else in my life. 
    That is why I gave him money whenever I could when he needed it, which was often.  He would take the money with promises of distance, which was always temporary.  He came around at least once a month.  It was so bad that I set up an account called “Shit Bag Payoff Money.”  Yes, I set up an account specifically for Joe “Shit Bag” Chase.  Back then, I felt sorry for him.  When a man who is reduced to rubble walks aimlessly though life right before your eyes, it’s hard not to feel sorry for him, especially when that man is your father.
    I moved out when I graduated high school.  I couldn’t let him drown me in his own despair.
    I got two job s— one as a waitress at the Hare and the Hound and one as a receptionist, which gave me enough income to get an apartment in the outskirts of Tryon.  Not a very good place for a single female to live on her own, but it was temporary.  I moved up and slid right into management at The Hare and the Hound.  I became the general manager, moved across town to the nicer part of Tryon, which was much safer, and worked there for the next six years.  Until now.  I also bartended three times a week, which had been approved by the owner, so that I could make tips.  I pulled at least $800 in cash a week—I’m a damn good bartender—and all of that money went to the Shit Bag account.  Money that I could have used to better my life. 
    I was so damn stupid.
    He shit on everything.  Like I said—a goddamn disease.
    So not only is the Shit Bag account empty, but now I am also a rape victim—all because of him. 
    And now, here I am, sitting on the lap of the man I love with all of my heart while he gapes at me with pain and determination in his eyes.
    So for the next two and a half months , I do everything in my power to stay away from him.

Chapter Four
     
    The man who raped me was caught two weeks after the visit to my apartment thanks to my descriptive memory and a good ol’ rape kit.
    Jose Delgado was caught outside of the bar I used to work at getting his dick sucked by a Tryon hooker.  Yes, even in this little town, we have our fair share of hookers, drugs, and drama.
    The man is disgusting.  He is still sitting in a cell awaiting trial.  I hope he gets butt raped in the shower.
    A girl can dream.
    I called work after three weeks of being off and told them that they could go ahead and look for a new manager. 
    The Hare and the Hound is a small sports