A war of worlds pt1

When I think back to my childhood, I am always reminded of the constant back and forth battles between me and my stepfather. He was always telling me what he wanted done how he wanted it done and telling me that I was going to be doing it. Never once did he ever ask for my opinion. He never worked to compromise with me. There was no offer of reward for doing what he wanted. There was never a carrot and always the stick. It was always yelling and fighting when I failed to do as he wished.

There were always only two ways to get anything done. His way and the wrong way. It never mattered to him if another way took less time, used less resources or produced a more favorable result.

The fact was that I was a child and he was an adult and therefore he automatically knew better and could tell me what to do and expect it to be done. The sad part is, he was wrong, in nearly every instance. A great deal of the time I did not do what he wanted. And even when I did, it was seldom done to his satisfaction.

It took him a little over ten years to give up. In the end I defeated him. We had gone to war and I had won. He had tried physical punishment, grounding me, taking away everything he thought that mattered to me.

Even from a young age I had a strong sense of right and wrong. I knew that he was an adult and legally one of my guardians and that I should have done what he said. But due to his nasty attitude, I just couldn't make myself give in. But because I knew I should be doing what he said I almost never resisted the punishment he doled out.

When he was nearly at the end of his rope, he attempted to ground me from the one thing I actually did care about. Reading. It was when he told me that I was not allowed to read for the next six months that a switch flipped somewhere inside and I no longer gave a damn what he thought or said.

For an instant I was mad, madder than I had ever been in my life. Then that switch flipped and I instantly became calm. Then I just started laughing. I know he had no idea why I was laughing and why I laughed still when he backhanded me in an attempt to regain control of the situation. Make no mistake it hurt, but still I kept laughing.

When I finally calmed down I told him he could explain to my teachers in a month or so that I was suddenly failing all their classes because I wasn't allowed to read.Then I just laughed some more and told him he could do whatever he wanted to me but unless he killed me, he was not keeping me from reading. He could take away any other privilege and I would put up with it, but removing my right to read was not going to happen.