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AUTHOR: The Grimace DATE: 8:52:00 PM ----- BODY:

Well, Christmas Day has come and gone, and the police never came a-knocking on our door- so either Mike was just bluffing or the cops laughed him out of the station. Unfortunately, I still have unhappy news to report. This morning my mother told me that Amanda was moping around yesterday, sad about being away from Mike. Amanda said it wasn't that bad being with him, and that she refused to hate Mike like the rest of us do. On a hunch, I logged on to Mom's computer under Amanda's account and started Outlook Express. There I found several emails she had written to Mike over the past three days which made it clear that not only did she miss him, but she was actively trying to contact him. The most recent email was from 12:30AM today (Sunday, as I write this paragraph) saying she would try to call him this afternoon. I printed these emails and showed them to my Mom. Over the next hour or so we spread the word to my Dad, my brother Chris, and my wife, Charlotte. Mom said she would give Amanda a choice: To leave Cincinnati for South Carolina and begin a new life tomorrow, or move back in with Mike. We waited for Amanda to wake up and confronted her with the emails. The discussion went on for an emotional couple of hours. It basically consisted of arguments like this: Amanda: "Being with Mike wasn't that bad." Everyone else: "He almost killed you a couple of weeks ago. You came home terrified and bruised that morning after he held you hostage." Amanda: [silence] When I arrived at the sad realization that talking to Amanda about Mike was as fruitless as talking to the prick himself, I removed myself from the conversation and disappeared. Amanda said she would take a shower and decide what she would do. Apparently she chose Mike. Due to the circumstances of the afternoon, Amanda ended up driving to Mike's place in my Dad's car and with my Mom's cell phone. My parents made arrangements to trade their car for Amanda's and get the cell phone. But nothing with Mike's ever that simple. He made a number of calls to our house on my mom's phone, for unknown reasons- but when my mom called him from Dad's cell phone he acted like a jackass and pretended he didn't know who was calling. Then when they got to his place, he refused to return the cell phone to them! My mom called the police and he finally gave it back. That's not even the end of it though. I put my son to sleep this evening, and when I came upstairs to see what's going on I saw that Charlotte was on the phone (rolling her eyes) and I knew she was talking to Mike. I asked my mom if it would be ill-advised to get on the line and start cussing the prick out. She couldn't really give me an answer, but I went upstairs to find a phone anyway. I picked up the phone and waited for a point to break in. He asked Charlotte some idiotic question, and I answered, "Because you're a lying white trash sack of shit." This began a lengthy string of colorful epithets that called into question his intelligence, heritage, and sexual orientation. He was surprised, but he thought I was my Dad. (I have a cold and don't sound like myself right now.) When I corrected him, he just started saying that he was recording every word (ooh, scary!) and threatened to press the mute button on his phone (what balls!) and then for some reason he started saying I'd never win a fight with him, even though I never threatened the bastard. He hung up just as I was advising him to try not to hit any women this week. I knew that talking to him wasn't going to mean anything, and it certainly wasn't going to help things, but I still felt compelled to do it. I don't regret what I did (even though I hated to have my family hear those things come out of my mouth), and I only wish I could have yelled at him some more. I did have a legitimate reason for yelling at him, though... see Charlotte had told me that he'd been calling my parents because he wanted to work things out with them now that he and Amanda are 'reconciling.' I just wanted it to go on record that my family has always hated him, from the day he got out of prison for beating his baby (oh, I haven't mentioned the prison stuff yet, have I?), and that attempting to 'patch things up' with my parents would be fruitless because there was nothing there to patch up to begin with. The only difference between now and six years ago is that then we had to put up with the prick because we didn't want to hurt Amanda's feelings- but now that we know he's a cheater, liar, and abuser, we no longer conceal our hatred. And it is true hatred- dark, burning, consuming, seething hatred of him and everything he says, does, and dreams. So, there's the matter of my sister. My poor, sweet, trusting, gullible sister. A few weeks ago, when things started coming out, I was the compassionate voice of the family. I was the one who told everyone, "Cool down- she's an abused woman, and she's simply not thinking clearly," while the others were getting frustrated and furious with her. But today I felt so betrayed by her- all these positive things she's been telling us were just lies. Everyone was going totally out of their way to help her start over and she totally just pissed on all of it. She chose to crawl back to this son of a bitch who hit her, cheated on her, took her hostage, and nearly killed her (at least once) instead of accepting the help of the people who really love her. I know it's common for abused women to do such amazingly nonsensical things, but that knowledge doesn't make it any easier for me to accept it. She's sacrificing any chance she has for a happy, successful, or fulfilling life for this low, vile, pathological cretin. It is sad and disgusting and utterly tragic.

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