My friend Brae stopped a few track pants.
“I have this for you today,” he smiled.
They were too Baggy, like everything he bought me, but it was cute that he had made the trouble.
I was 16. Brae Taylor Lewis was the same age and we had just started dating after we had been friends for years.
He was fun, caring and always seemed to know the right one to say – I thought the absolute world of him.
But it didn't take long before I saw a new side of Brae. One day I added a smiley face to a message that I was sending a male friend and he was absolutely crazy.
“You like him, right?” He snarled.
“You are cheating on me?”
In the beginning, Kyesha thought the absolute world of Brae, but things started to unravel quickly
Then he hit my phone in pieces. He bought a new one for me, but he held it, so I had to ask permission every time I wanted to send an SMS or call.
I tried to prevent him from getting angry again, I agreed, but soon Brae found other things to become furious.
“You look like a slut,” he told me when I turned on make -up to go outside. So I stopped wearing.
Suddenly all the flodige outfits he had bought me were logical. He tried to cover my body so that no one else would look at me.
Soon the anger escalated from Brae to violence. Once I met him in a local park with a friend and her boyfriend, and Brae flew in an anger.
“Who is he?” He raced and then brought me to the face.
I should have called the police. Instead, I ran after him and said to my friend: “I have to calm him down.”
Eventually he hit me so badly that he bruised my ribs and I could hardly breathe.
After Brae's violent attack I was in an induced coma for 24 hours. When I woke up, I was related to my hands, arms, face, neck, chest and thighs
I told my mother Mel and she was devastated.
“He won't change, love,” she sighed.
“It gets worse and ends badly. Please go out of that relationship. '
But I was young and naive and thought I could change Brae.
We had been together for about seven months when he asked me to go to his mother with him.
“If you don't do that, we might as well split,” he told me.
Now he let me isolated from friends and family, and escalated his violence. After one argument he threw a screwdriver at me, which lay in my hip, creating a wound of 2 cm.
Together we had been together for about 18 months when Brae decided to strip the paint from his car so that he could spray it again.
After Brae's attack, a fifth of Kyesha's body was covered with burns and some were full thickness.
We were at his Nan's in Marsden, South Brisbane.
“Can I have my phone?” I asked Brae while he was working on the car. He refused to give it to me and we got a big argument.
I pushed him frustration. He pushed me back.
“If you don't leave, I throw gasoline on you and set you on fire,” he threatened.
He had a beer bottle full of gas in his hand that he had used to strip paint.
“Just give me my phone,” I asked and refused to withdraw.
Suddenly his hand shot out and he threw the fuel at me. I put my arms up and the liquid touched them before I splashed over my chest.
Then he produced a lighter. I took a step back in fear, but it was too late. He caused it on fire and the flame ignited me in a 'Whoosh'.
Kyesha is pregnant with her second child with her new partner, but still lives for fear that Brae will hurt someone else
My arms, hands and chest broke in flames. I was on fire.
Screaming, I fell on the floor and knocked on the flames to try to turn them off.
The pain was unbearable; I thought I would die. Somehow I managed to tear out my flaming shirt. Ribbons of the charred skin pelt away from my arms and there was blood everywhere.
The next minute Brae's friend came on his motorcycle and Brae stepped on the back and fled.
I sobbed and shouted with pain when a neighbor walked. He led me into the house and put me in the shower.
While I was in the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. I looked like something from a horror film.
Fortunately my neighbor had called an ambulance and paramedics hurried to the stage and gave me pain relief.
The next thing I remember is waking up in the Royal Brisbane Hospital.
I sobbed and shouted with pain when a neighbor walked. He led me into the house and put me in the shower
My mother, grandma Julie and little sister Tayla were in tears next to my bed.
I had been an induced coma for 24 hours and I was related to my hands, arms, face, neck, chest and thighs.
Burns covered more than a fifth of my body and some were full thickness. I couldn't believe what Brae had done.
When the police popped up, I told them everything, and they started to arrest Brae and accused him of serious physical injury.
In the meantime I needed three skin transplants. I was fired in the hospital after a month.
Some mornings I could not see the world and stayed in, but when I went outside, I felt that everyone was staring at me, so I started to avoid clothing that revealed my burns.
Brae would have gotten his way when it came to me and yet my body covered.
When I walked into the process of Brae for the process of Brae, I was vibrating. Mama and other family members came to support me.
He sat down with his head and didn't look at me, but his friends in court stared at me and tried to intimidate me, So I stopped going after I had given proof.
Brae said it had all been an accident.
The jury took only two hours to guilty of the intention of causing serious physical injury and he was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
I was not surprised when he appealed a year later against his sentence and conviction, and claimed that the jury was wrongly focused and his remorse had not been taken into account.
By that time I lived in Alice Springs with my mother. I also met someone new.
In the beginning I was not in the head room for a relationship, but Jay was like a big teddy bear and was patient and friendly.
Brae won his profession and received a new penalty of nine and a half years in January 2021 after he admitted that the injury to the intention of causing serious physical injury as an infringement of domestic violence.
I was devastated, especially because I believed that he was only promised to get a sentence reduction.
I just found out that Brae was released when my father saw him on a motorcycle in August 2021.
I knew it was only a matter of time before he was back in trouble and in March last year I heard by a friend who was accused of Brae of driving behavior.
He had driven Uninsured, not -permit and the motorcycle was not registered, not to mention that it was 40 km/h above the speed limit.
He argued guilty of these violations and dangerous effect of a vehicle, he was sentenced to 12 months in prison that was suspended for 12 months.
He also received a fine of $ 650 and disqualified to drive for six months.
“You have to make better choices,” Magistrate Patina Clohessy told Brae.
I don't think Brae is capable of.
To this day, I still can't fill my own car with gasoline and I bear the scars of his actions.
What he did could have destroyed me, but I built a great life with Jay. We have a nice little two -year -old and a baby girl en route at the end of May.
To be honest, I think the next time I hear about him, it will be because he is dead or in prison.
Anyway, I just pray that no one else is injured in the process.
