Ian, was the sweet and kind boy in class. The boy that came from the good Catholic home. At school, we would shyly talk and exchange smitten little smiles and coy lingering glances. For the first time in a very long time, I wanted to be near to another human being. The joy of that, had been sadly extinguished from my life. Yet there Ian was, reigniting all of those feelings.

The loud and scary sex that my mum had often enjoyed, made me want to pull away from boys. The memories of Ivan having his hand down my knickers, and of Maria and Mario's sickening games of Mummy and Daddy, made me not want to be touched by anyone.

But with Ian, he had awoken something. He was just a sweet and kind soul—maybe a living angel?

He made me see that people could be nice, without the need to fondle or rub themselves up against me. They could also be kind, without having to play stomach-churning games or the need for sweets to sugarcoat their perversions. Ian, became my hope in humanity.

For so long, my emotions had been switched off.

For even longer, my belief in people had been erased.

But the sweet-natured Ian, he had shown to me a glimmer of what another human being could be capable of. It was freeing in one sense, but also terrifying in another. For I knew that caring in some big or small way, meant that I had to feel.

The very idea of that, scared me.

Ian had awoken something within me, that now had the power to hurt me.

See, if you switch your feelings back on, your defences are off.

That scared me so much.

But feeling numb, that also scared me.

I had to learn to have confidence in my emotions.

Learn how to use them to my advantage.

It was around this awakening and very scary time, that my mum had yet another new boyfriend. He lived in a street near to ours, with his older sister, his nephew and his three kids from his previous relationship. We began spending more and more time at the hectic home of the Quinn's. Billy Quinn, was actually quite a nice man, who kept ferrets. I once stuck my fingers in their hutch, and got painfully bitten, that would be the one and only time when I would get anywhere near any of his feral ferrets. But as mum's boyfriends went, Billy Quinn was alright. He was a friendly family man, who had fallen on tough times since the break-up of his relationship, so had to go and temporarily live with his sister in an upper floor two-bedroomed maisonette. It was a tight squeeze without us there, ridiculously a tight squeeze when we were.

Billy and his kids were bursting at the seams in the one bedroom, while his sister and her fifteen year old son slept in the other. This was to be the first boyfriend mum would have, who also had children. They were quite nice, too, so I didn't mind the lack of space and the chaos.

I also didn't mind the presence of Billy's nephew, Adrian.

He would become my second crush.

He was fifteen, handsome, cockily confident and the apple of his mum's eye. I had always tried so hard to not get noticed, but for the first time, I wanted him to notice me.

I was eight.

I was a little girl who had seen, heard and felt too much, and now felt older than her eight young years.

Adrian, became yet another one of my fascinations.

I would watch him.

Swoon over him.

Get shy over him.

To the confident teen, I was this tiny, gawking little girl, who just got in his way like his uncles three kids did.

I wanted Adrian to notice me, only he didn't.

Nor should he had—he was fifteen and I was only eight.

But I wasn't like a normal eight year old. My thoughts, my feelings, sometimes even my actions, weren't like that of a normal eight year old little girl. I had been forced to think things that I shouldn't, to know things that I shouldn't, and ultimately, to feel things that I shouldn't.

I didn't know it then, but I had been sexualised. Maybe Adrian had sensed that, because one night after ignoring me for weeks and weeks; he didn't.

The maisonettes were always so cold. The only form of heating would usually be from a coal fire, a calor gas or an electric fire. On this particular night, I was told that I was to sleep in Billy's sisters bedroom. Doing as I was told, I went to bed. I just remember it being so, so cold. For ages, I had just laid there, unable to drift off to sleep because every bone in my body was frozen. I could hear Delia, Billy's sister, talking in her living room to her friend and then to Adrian when he had finally decided to return back home. I also remember hearing muffled sex noises, coming from my mum and Billy in the other bedroom. Those noises always unsettled me. They always made me feel sick. I just wanted to be able to feel warm and to be able to fall asleep, then I wouldn't have to hear the horrible noises coming through the wall.

When Adrian eventually got into the bed, I become preoccupied with only him being in the bed that I was in. I wasn't even aware of the sex sounds that were coming from Billy and my mum, I was only aware of myself and Adrian. At first, I didn't even want to breathe. I didn't want to annoy him. But I was cold and I was shivering, so breathing simply became a must. After some awkward time, Adrian finally spoke to me. "Are you okay?"

"No, I'm cold." Was my shaky-voiced reply.

Without saying another word to me, he shuffled his back closer to where I was shivering in the bed. Thankful for the warmth of his body, I cuddled him. When he let me, I snuggled in even closer and rested my hand around by his stomach. In the chilled silence, we just stayed like that. The two of us could hear his mum still chatting to her friend in the living room and my mum and Billy still having sex in the bedroom next door. I just remember thinking 'thank God I'm in here, rather than in there'. And it was then that Adrian gently took my hand, placing it inside of his underwear, wanting me to explore all that was down there.

Nothing was said between us.

Nothing whatsoever.

He wasn't rough and forceful like the others. Adrian was gently enquiring with his own hand, whether mine would like to venture where it had now found itself to be.

I remember his developing manhood being silky soft; a strange kind of silky soft. Never, did he touch me. He only wanted me to explore him. So my innocent little hands did. They did, because for the first time, I felt like I was involved in something that I actually wanted to be involved in.

I wanted to touch Adrian.

I wanted to be a part of what we were doing.

For once, it was my choice.

My decision.

It was to be the first time that I was willingly being intimate with someone—right or wrong, that was the very sad truth.

It may have been inappropriate.

I may have been far too young and he was far too old.

It may have been just plain old wrong...but it was still always my choice.

You have to understand that my life then, it was just full of so many wrongs. The wrongs became blurred with the rights and the rights became blurred with the wrongs.

Nothing like that happened ever again with Adrian, and it wasn't long before my mum had moved onto the next new boyfriend, but I had taken something very important away from that experience—that I could enjoy human contact.