“There’s absolutely nothing good that can go on after midnight, there’s no movies, no restaurants, no school dances. Only one thing happens and you don’t want any part of it if you want a normal life.”

If anyone knows about not having a normal life, it sure as hell is going to be me. My piece of shit father was a man of few words and never the right ones. I never once in my life heard an “I love you”, gotten a hug or even a smile from the rotten bastard. He preferred to let his belt do his talking for him.

The woman that I called mother just hid away in the bedroom, sniveling like a child herself, with never a word or lifting a hand to try to stop him. One day, in a drug induced moment of courage, she pointed the sleek, cold steel of my dad’s .45 at the wrinkle just above her nose and pulled the trigger. As far as I was concerned, it was just another coward’s move from a weak minded piece of shit. The powder and lead might have driven away her pain but a lot of good it did for me.

So I fled into the night and let the darkness seduce me. Where I could feel the coolness of the shadows against my naked skin dance with the heat from whoever was willing to pay for my passion.

My dear daughter Leanna, you were born on my seventeenth birthday. That day, I vowed to make a better life for you, my precious baby girl. I was going to give you all the things I had never gotten from life; a home, love, compassion, support and honesty.

I just forgot that all those things came with a price. That all the money in the world couldn’t give you those things, only time shared with each other can do that.

Now, all I can do is bring flowers to your grave.

“I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there for you while you were being seduced by the night.”