Closure

Imagine your life being led in a room. All your freedoms are revoked and the world outside turns without input from you. Imagine your own Mother locking the door to make sure you can’t leave the house. Your friends ask you to go out with them but you know that you can never say yes. How would you feel?

I lived through that. There was nothing for me. I knew the rest of my life would be empty. Then I met a girl and suddenly I fought to prove myself. My very existence suddenly mattered more than anything else in the world.

It was a Saturday morning. Lori had been staying at my home for a week and things had been tough. Early morning wake ups, screams through the night from my parent, being stalked from the car every time we left the house. I had taken enough and after a lot of debate we had decided to find a hotel. I had never left my house, my prison other than to attend school. I had never seen the outside world in any meaningful way. The nearest city was a mystery to me. We got on a bus, and we left the small village I had grown up in.

“What’s the city like?” I asked Lori with all my curiosity burning away to know what lay ahead.
“Heady, busy and exciting,” she replied, smiling at me like no one had smiled at me before.
I looked out from the slowly rolling bus and saw the hedgerows and trees of the country turn into the busy sidewalks of the city. I knew that my time had come to shine.

That is how I escaped! I became my own man and with love I saw how the world worked. In the end, I saw many cities all over the world. My favourite is Dallas/ Ft Worth in Texas, with London close behind. Don’t be afraid of the unknown.. It’s exciting! In my first book I tried to detail all of the horror I endured and mingle it with the wonder and beauty of my escape.

My first time on a plane was pretty funny, I remember taking off over London and staring down at a white van driven by an ant-sized man. That man had probably been given more freedom than I had ever known, yet I was on a plane to the United States. The adventure still excites me to this day. I was 22 and I was being promised the world by a man who had given me a dream. The dream fell through, the man was a liar… However, the excitement remained. I was free and I never wanted to return to the hell I came from.

The tale is detailed in my first book, but I wanted to share some of my wanderlust with you! I hope if you are trapped in any way that you find your way out. Survival is what really matters.

1 comment

  1. Nick–I am just your FB friend, but I do truly feel we are friends. I want you to know that I thoroughly enjoyed reading the excerpt from your book, “Rose Amongst Thorns”, and ironically, I feel that it is YOU who is the rose amongst the thorns, you who have somehow managed to bloom, despite growing up in a garden of neglect & abuse. Perhaps all your terrible experiences combined with something else inside you that would not allow itself to be trampled, but instead climbed up & out of the prison walls, looking for a way to express all that had been kept inside for so long.
    I wish for you & Lori that you find the happiness you so deserve, and that your book(s) will be a success. All the best to you both!