Touch

Every time you think about it, you feel guilty. Partly because you know it could have been so much worse -- that you have no right to wallow in it, and partly because maybe if you tried harder you could have stopped it.

You still remember his large hands playfully touching your small body. It looked like innocent tickling, and at first that's what you thought it was too. You even liked it -- a man showing you affection, something you hadn't felt before. You would giggle as his fingers roamed over you, giggle until you were laughing so hard you could barely breathe. You couldn't stop laughing no matter how hard you tried.

And after a while when he began to reach lower and lower you finally started to feel a bit uncomfortable. But you were laughing too hard to manage to speak. Laughing too hard to say that one simple word: Stop. So you would curl up, try to protect yourself, but that just made his fingers dig deeper, and still you couldn't stop laughing.

You remember one day he lied down next to you in your bed, the covers up to your chin. He just put his arm around you and stared deep into your eyes. You felt loved, you felt close to someone. You liked it, you didn't want him to leave. But he did. And when he came back later he resumed his tickling. And once again you enjoyed the attention but you were also frustrated at how utterly helpless you felt.

As hard as you tried, you could never stop laughing long enough to catch your breath and tell him to stop. Sometimes you tried but it was lost in all your little giggles. He didn't hear you, or if he did, he still didn't stop.

Finally, you went to your mother and told her how you felt about what he was doing. When she confronted him, he just brushed it off. "That's just how I show my affection," he said. She told him to apologize and not to do it again. "But that's just how I show my affection," he said again. "I won't apologize but I'll stop if it makes you uncomfortable."

But he doesn't stop.

So you go to your mother again. You know now how lucky you were that you had a mother that listened to you. A mother that didn't side with her boyfriend, a mother that cared about what was best for her daughter. She broke up with him and you never saw him again.

You're thankful that it never went any further than it did. Thankful that your mother pushed him out of your lives. Still, you can't help but wonder if the damage is done. No, not wonder, you know it's been done.

You startle at the slightest sound. Anytime a friend or even your mother goes to tickle you or playfully poke your side you recoil, yell at them. Once when you were spending time with two of your friends, one of them started messing around; tickling you. And you were laughing so hard you couldn't tell her to stop. You couldn't even really move. It was like your were six years old again. You finally managed to kick her away, harder than you meant to. You began to cry. And you were so mortified that you were breaking down in front of your friends but you couldn't help yourself. The tears just kept falling hard and fast.

They sat down on the floor next to you, tried to comfort you, ask you what was wrong. You couldn't speak through your sobs. You just sat there and cried. You finally managed to calm down long enough to tell them what was wrong.

It was the first time you really admitted what happened and how deeply it had affected you. It was the first time you actually realized how deeply it had affected you. You had never broken down in tears like that before. It scared you. It scared you because it made you realize that you hadn't gotten past it. You had always thought of it as a small unpleasant chapter in your life that was over. But that night you realized that it wasn't.

Ever since you broke down in tears last year you think about him more than you have for a long time. And you still feel so guilty that it rattled you so much. It's not like you had been raped.

It's not like the man that had hurt you like that was your father. You don't know your father, and sometimes you're okay with that. You know if he was in your life it would hurt more, seeing him drunk all the time. No, your mother spared you from that, she left him before you were even born.

You know how brave and strong she is, even standing at just over five feet tall. You love her so much. She's your hero. And yet, that wasn't enough. She isn't enough.

And there are times when you wish you could just crawl into her arms and sob and tell her what's wrong. But you know you never will. You'll never tell her because you know how much it would hurt her to know that she couldn't really protect you. How much it would hurt her to know how damaged you feel.

And even though you told two of your closest friends the gist of what happened, it's still like a secret stuck in your throat. It wants to come out, wants to scream and cry but you can't let it.

Now you're writing this all down. A part of you feels like a weight is lifted from your shoulders. For the first time you're just laying it all out. You feel happy being able to let it out and to cry as you write this. But you know that's as far as it will ever go.

You'll never speak these words out loud.