11,119 miles

When it was over and he let me get up again I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. I wanted to die. The whole time it was happening to me I kept comparing how he looked, what he was saying, to the person he was before. This couldn't be the same guy who was so sweet to me. He couldn't be the same guy I got all dressed up for, was so excited to go to our school dance with. This guy was hurtful. And mean. And didn't care how many tears I shed or how many times I told him no. He just kept on going. At first when he pushed me down onto the front seat of his car I thought he was merely upset I didn't want to go there. But then when he ripped my dress, my new laser blue dress that I had taken a special trip with my mom to buy, I knew that's not where he was going to stop. Even when he was on top of me, his weight pressing down on me so very hard, I was prepared for the worst. Maybe not prepared, but I could see the scenario playing itself out in my mind. I want to say I went numb, but the fear definitely coursed through me. I was going to be raped. And there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing. Then after a few minutes when I realized something was wrong and he wasn't inside, not even close, I was even to scared to relax. He had me out in the middle of nowhere. He could have kept me out there all night if he wanted. Honestly, I was scared that would just cause him to hurt me more. I felt him there, atop me, trying so hard to do what he set out to do. I laid there, waiting. Crying. Too scared to scream any more than I already had. The next thing I knew he was off of me. He was telling me to sit up. He was telling me not to tell anyone what had happened. He had said exactly that if I told anyone he would do this again. He would find me no matter where I was. The only difference the next time would be that he would bring his friends. Even when he told me to get out of his car at my front door, panties clutched in a ball in my hand, hanging onto the strap of my dress with the other, all I could think about was how I was never going to tell anyone. All I could think to myself was if the price of my wholeness was my silence then it was a cheap price to pay. I had been in a nightmare, but somehow I had been allowed to wake up before it had ran its course. I told myself no one was ever going to know to keep it away from my memory, away from me. Even years later a part of me refuses to believe it ever happened.

Suzanne D.