(Note: new readers will not know what I am talking about because I've done this in parts. Sorry!)

My long-time friend and I fell in love. Because we'd known each other for so long we didn't have any issues with moving in with one another after a few months of dating. I mean, our kids knew each other....we knew each other....we knew them.

Outside of the whole love thing, we also thought it would be nice, healthy even, to get his little girl around a constant female figure. Her mother still came around, but it got less and less as time went by.

Before I get too far ahead of myself in this entry, I should mention that before we moved in together, I was there many time when the bio mom would come to see her child. Sometimes she'd want to take her out for a meal, or out shopping for shoes or something. Her dad felt like these short trips were OK, though I had my doubts.

Anyway, when the bio mom would come over, there was always a giant fit thrown by the daughter. She would fight to get out of being put in her car. A few times, she got put in and had the seat belt put across her, but as soon as the car moved, the girl would unbuckled and open the door. WITH THE CAR MOVING.

Once she even rolled out, half way, before anyone could have prevented it from happening.

This was VERY dramatic, maybe even over-the-top, but in my mind....the woman had allowed despicable things to happen in the past...so maybe the kid was afraid. Makes sense, right?

Looking back, and knowing what I know NOW, I'm not so sure that it made any sense at all.

To add weirdness to this already weird story, when the girl was brought back home after these outings, she would throw an even bigger fit about having to stay with her dad. Several times she chased her bio mom's car down the road....with us trailing after her, trying to catch up.

OK, back to what I was saying in the beginning of this post. Sorry for the back-tracking.

My friend had become my partner, and as we dated we watched some crazy goings-on between his daughter and her bio mom. About a month before we moved in together, the bio mom had a date set up with the girl; an actual sleep over instead of a day trip. I guess my boyfriend thought it would be OK, though I'll never understand his logic.

At any rate, the day came when the girl was supposed to be picked up. The woman never came.

The next day was the same; no sight of her.

A week later, we got a call from the bio mom. She said she wasn't sure if she could take all the tantrums/fights/emotional storms anymore. She just needed some "time".

None of us saw her or heard from her...for 4 years.

So, we moved in together. We got a nice little house in suburbia. Nothing more than a rental, really, but the neighborhood was nice.

The girl didn't really react very much to her bio mom being out of the picture. She was probably distracted by having other kids around her all the time, having a female with her all the time, and seeing her normally quiet and reserved father acting happy all the time. She was seeing her awesome psychiatrist, etc. It was good. That time, that quiet....it was good.

That's what I thought, anyway, but I was wrong. It was merely the calm before the storm.

This may seen to be an unrelated part of the story, but bear with me, as it has everything to do with the child in question.

The man that raised me for over two decades after my bio father ran off....died suddenly. Congestive heart failure due to complications after an auto accident left him paralyzed from the waist down.

My family had a minor collapse within itself after this. Depression, denial...the phases of grief plastered across the faces of who he'd left behind.

My oldest son took it very badly. Poor little guy. My youngest hadn't gotten a chance to know his "papa" well, and the girl barely knew him at all. But my oldest? Peas in a pod with my old man.

I read somewhere that getting a household pet can do a great amount of good in dealing with such pain and grief, especially with young children. So I set off to get a family pet, not knowing if it would do any good....but hoping it would ease things.

I ended up getting a gorgeous white bunny. I let my oldest name him....somehow he came up with the name "Spud." haha. Anyway, the kids spirits were lifted with their new and adorable little distraction.

My oldest felt better than he had in weeks. I could tell.

Long story short?

The little girl killed the rabbit within two months.

Yes, she killed it. On purpose.

My sons were out playing with my boyfriend and some neighborhood kids at the time. I was inside; had just finished playing a board game with the girl. I sent her upstairs to clean her extremely dirty room when we finished. I was left to be alone, for once, and I kicked back to enjoy the silence.

But then I noticed it was too quiet. I don't know if this will make sense, but, something was missing. I knew where the kids were....all of them...I knew where my man was. But damned if I knew what was bothering me.

I realized a few minutes later that what I was "missing" was the sound of the rabbit in its house/cage that sat at the top of the stairs in a hallway area.

There was usually an almost constant sound of...I don't know, metal...wires....munching food or slurping water. That sound wasn't there.

I got up, went up the stairs, and found the rabbit wasn't there.

Of course I headed right toward the girl's room. I mean, no one else was in the house. Her room was empty, except for the massive piles of toys, clothes, and other crap she always had stored in there.

Then I heard giggling coming from the upstairs bathroom. I tried that door but it was locked.

"Open the door, hon." I said firmly.
Again, I heard giggling.

I knocked and repeated that I wanted to door opened.

The girl opened it, finally, and what I saw was so EFF-ED up that I'll never forget it.

The bunny was on the floor of the bathroom, laying limp and barely breathing. It was covered in SHAVING CREAM.

I lost all good sense. I yelled, "What in the hell happened to Spud?!"

The girl replied, "I was trying to make him better."

Me: "Better from what?!"

Her: "I hurt him real bad."

Me: "How?!"

The girl got up and went past me, into her room. She picked up some damn toy....it was the top of a table for Lego toys. It was sort of cupped, so the blocks would be contained on it, and it was made of a heavy plastic.

Her: "I tried to catch him under this."

Me: "You tried to trap him? You wouldn't have to trap him if you'd left him in his cage!"

Her: "I took him out of there to play with him. Then he ran from me. I didn't like it. So I tried to catch him."

Me: "Did you hit him with that?"

Her: "Kind of. I was gonna trap him under it, but he tried to run, so I pushed down really hard. Then he wasn't moving. So I tried to put medicine on him."

*sigh* Apparently, the shaving cream was medicine?

I went back to the bathroom to take a look at our bunny. He was still breathing, shallowly. Upon further investigation I found that his neck was broken. There was going to be no way to save the poor guy.

Having to tell my oldest that his pet was dead, due to a broken neck, was bad. What was worse was that (basically) my dad died the same way. He'd been paralyzed, remember? BECAUSE OF A BROKEN NECK...the complications that followed took him away from us.

I couldn't even look at the girl. Maybe it was an accident or something, but it didn't matter.

The next day, when I was able to talk to her again, I asked, "Why would you want to trap that bunny?"

She said, "I wanted to control it."

Then she grinned.

Nothing was really ever the same after that. Not because I became "mean" or something, either. The GIRL was never the same.

That's all I have to say for now.