「故事·听力」I Stole My Stepmother From My Cruel Dad

I Stole My Stepmother From My Cruel Dad

Hello, I’m Elliot and my entire life has been turned upside down since my Father found a new girlfriend.

My Father is a very successful businessman, but I can’t say that he was ever a good person. My Mother was a young immigrant, around 20 years old when she started to date my Father, who was much older. She was always a good, hard-working woman. She and my Father separated when I was around 8 years old. When this happened my Mom had to go back to her own country and I’ve rarely seen her since then.

I wanted to go with her, but my Father decided that I should stay with him so he wouldn’t need to pay child support. I don’t know why it was important for him, because he had so much money. I guess it was pride. I very rarely saw my Mom, but we kept in contact through the years.

Recently, I turned 18, and my Father found a new girlfriend. Her name was Victoria. He'd had a lot of them throughout my childhood. All of them were very young and he always treated them horribly. Victoria was also 18 or 19 and she came from a very poor family. I hated her at first because I thought she was a gold digger.

After a few months she moved into our house and talks about marriage started. By this point, I had started to get to know her better, and I realized that she was a very sweet and smart girl. Sometimes I would talk with her for hours. She wanted to break out of her poverty-stricken life and her toxic family, and my Father was the best chance for her. She was very grateful to him for giving her this new life."

But I knew my Father, and I saw how he was treating her. He would never let her go anywhere, and if we had guests, he would always talk over her. I wanted to save her because I knew how it would end - my Father would leave her as soon as she stopped being “convenient” for him. And honestly, that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to help... I had started to feel like I liked her. I was seeing how unhappy she was locked up in this big house, so when my Father was busy working, I would try to make her happier. I would take her to the movies or to cafes, or even on a simple walk through the park, and she was always smiling and laughing during our time together. However, as soon as we came home and my Father would return, she would be unhappy again - never smiling or laughing.

Once. we returned from the movies and for some reason my Father was home early. He was angry and asked what was happening. I tried to explain to him that I was just trying to make Victoria more comfortable, after all, she was a part of our family and technically my stepmother.

He warned us that if something like this ever happened again, everyone would face repercussions, and I would have to leave his house because I was already 18. Victoria was scared and I was angry. He was acting like she was his property!

Over the next few weeks Victoria barely spoke to me and I felt terrible because I had feelings for her. At the same time, I realized that I simply couldn’t live with this horrible man anymore, who never cared for me, my Mom, or anyone else except himself. 

I decided that it was time for me to leave the house for good and to start my own life. But I didn’t want to leave Victoria. I told her that we could run away together since she wasn’t married to him. He would just play with her and then leave her with nothing, just like he did with every other woman in his life.

I started to pack my things slowly and to plan where I would go next. I tried to slowly work on it for several days, because I hoped that Victoria would finally agree to come with me. And one day, she came into my room and shyly asked if I had a plan. I told her all about it - I had friends and contacts everywhere, and some money saved. We could start working, then try to get an education, and slowly build the life that we wanted. She finally agreed to leave with me.

She collected her stuff very quickly - she didn’t have a lot of it, to be honest. All this time she was looking around, scared that father would return any minute. We finally finished up packing the rest of our things and left for the bus station to catch a bus to another city where one of my friends had offered to take us in for a while.

I was so happy on the way there, I knew that our life wouldn’t be easy, but it was so much better than living with a man like my Father. I actually felt guilty that I didn’t do this sooner and lived with him for so many years while knowing how bad he was.

Victoria was completely silent the whole time. I tried to cheer her up and she tried to smile, but she was definitely frightened. When we arrived at the bus station, I kept trying to calm her down and tell her that she wasn’t alone...

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