My Life Unplanned

I screamed and screamed, but nobody listened

The only thing I could feel anymore was unreasonable panic. I was completely alone. There were no friends to help me; no one knew where I was or what I was doing. No one knew I went with Cody to be alone.

I looked out of the corner of my eye to where the cops were patrolling beside the entrance. We were behind a portable by the lunch tables. They would never see us, they were too far away. I could just make out the red and blue lights. My salvation was so close and yet I couldn’t reach it. Tears welled in my eyes at the bitter irony.

I tried to calm myself. They would walk over here, they had to, and they were supposed to patrol around the campus. They must have seen these guys, all these older men hanging outside the dance. They must know they are here right? They have to. They have to be watching them because they are dangerous. Right?

“I’m not going to do it…” Cody hissed and Manuel shoved me abruptly pushed me toward him. I made a small squeaking sound, trying to escape from his arms. Manuel grabbed the strap to my dress angrily, trying to pull me back and it snapped, slipping down my arm revealing my pink and green bra.

I screamed, tugging up the strap once more and Manuel grabbed me again, pulling me backwards by my hips into a throng of almost ten men. I could hardly hear myself think over the pounding of my heart in my ears and rapidly my thoughts were vividly clear.

“Take a drink babe; you won’t feel a thing…” Another man from behind me urged and I felt fingers hook in my mouth, forcing it open like a fish. I tried to scream again as a liquid was poured down my throat and my head was tugged back by my hair.

I screamed and the liquid gargled and burned in my mouth, making bubbles and Manuel closed my lips and nose so I was forced to swallow. I did as he demanded and my eyes blurred over with tears as I struggled from the many arms grasping at me.

As soon as they let me go I let out a gut-wrenching scream, for someone to help me. But I heard no one coming to my defense because no one heard me.

“Shut up, little freshman, don’t you wanna have some fun?” Another man asked from behind me and I felt my legs tremble beneath me, my bony knees knocking together. All of them were men; all of them were older than me by several years except Cody who was now at the back of the crowd. I was lost in a sea of dark and scary faces. Faces that looked like they had hurt innocent girls like me before.

I had to escape, somehow I had to.

“Cody, help me…” I moaned and Manuel pressed his hand over my mouth. I flicked my tongue out, licking it, and I only tasted dirt. I cringed and tried to bite his hand desperately as my tears rolled down his fingers.

He grabbed the strap of my dress and tore it down, exposing the left cup of my bra and half of my waist. I screeched violently kicking and Manuel put his legs over mine, tearing the dress downwards.

It made a slow ripping sound and I heard the sweet, sweet song of hope. “What’s going on?” A new innocent voice asked and I looked past Manuel to see a group of five freshman boys approaching. Manuel didn’t stop and he tore the rest of my dress down on the left side.
I tried screaming for the boys to help me, from this man looking at my bare body but they did nothing but freeze, watching helplessly.

I met the middle one’s eyes, Mark Davis. He was in three of my classes. I kicked, trying to throw myself toward him, trying to get him to see it was me, innocent Rosalind Turkonowi, the girl who gave him pencils to borrow every Thursday. I waited for him to tell Manuel to stop, to take him off of me but he did nothing. He just stared in my eyes and watched what Manuel did to me after that.

All five of them just stared and watched…some wore smirks and I could not help but feel my hope sore away like a popped balloon, I deflated instantly and resorted to just fighting my attacker.

Manuel shoved me backwards, arching me on the bony picnic table with plastic holes. I screeched and he thrust his hips into mine, grinding me into the table to hold me still as he ripped the other part of the dress off.

I heard more commotion as the dance started to end and people started swarming out. It was ten o clocks already. Maybe someone would see me, anyone, someone would help me. I felt optimism rise inside me again.

I screeched past Manuel’s hand that held my lips and he continued to rip at the dress, tearing the beautiful plum silk that used to look so pretty on me before he slashed it to ribbons.

I felt my eyes steam from the burning smell of beer on all of them and I kicked about, throwing my body back and forth to get the attention of the crowd of people.
Seven boys had gathered around…and two girls. I closed my eyes from the total humiliation, pounding my hands against the table. Two of the original men held my hands but I still clenched my fists, clenching and unclenching. It was the only silent defiance I had.

The boys were now all on me it seemed, shoving me downward like dogs, tearing and ripping at the clothing I wore until finally I was lying out on the table in only my bra and underwear. I was completely vulnerable to the wishes of these cruel men and these worthless spectators.

Manuel let go of my mouth with his hand and he smacked his lips over mine instead, eating my face rather than kissing it. I howled inside his mouth and he bit my tongue harshly drawing blood as his hands knotted in my hair. I kicked out at him and got him between the legs and he groaned, tearing off my bra.

There were now ten people surrounded me, silent and numb faced they watched. A few smiled…and I saw…a camera phone aimed at me, the little red button staring at me from a distance. I sobbed aloud, the fight inside me dying slowly. I could hardly breathe.

The wind smacked my body harshly, blowing away any remains of the tattered dress. I could barely feel anything over the weight of Manuel’s body.

Manuel’s hands cupped my breasts and I closed my eyes, pretending it was anything but him. A pillow, my bra…anything holding them but I couldn’t erase that touch of fingers…five solid fingers that knew exactly what they were doing.

Guys started laughing…some cheered…others were dazed and didn’t know what to do. No one called the police, no one got a teacher, no one helped me. No one.

I closed my eyes and Manuel, eager now, moved his hands down my stomach eating at my bare skin until he reached the belt to my underwear. He then lowered his mouth to my breast and I screamed out, kneeing him again between the legs and he tore off my underwear.

I kept on screaming, trying to close my legs and he thrust them open like I was some kind of animal. Another man put a stick under my chin, a branch from the tree above us to hold my chin up so I couldn’t look down. My eyes were forced to state into the wide open sky.

God was above me. God was seeing everything these men were doing to one of his most devoted followers, one of the people who loved him most. “Please God, help me.” I whispered aloud and I felt something smack me on the side of the head.

I screeched out from the pain and I felt blood instantly pool on my cheek. I tried to lift my hand but it was uselessly pinned down. The blood started to soak into my hair and I listened to Manuel laughing.

He was talking…but I could barely understand what he was saying until Cody was in front of me, leaning over me. My face lit up with a slight wish that he was going to save me until I mournfully noticed what he was doing.

His eyes flared with anger, his hands were at his zipper and he tore it down, slowly lowering his underwear. I closed my eyes, sobbing, the noise barely emitting from my throat.

I was laid naked on the school lunch table. There was only one thing he planned to do with me and it wasn’t just dancing this time. “YOU WOULDN’T EVEN DANCE WITH ME, YOU TEASING LITTLE BITCH!” Cody screamed with more anger than I had ever heard and his face turned bright cherry red from the strain.

He came closer to me and I felt another wave of terror flood through me. I knew what he was doing. I knew exactly what he was doing and I couldn’t stop him. No one seemed to be able to. The guys around me were cheering, being rowdy; some were passing around those putrid red cups. They were having more fun watching me than they had at the actual dance.

“YOU THINK YOU’RE SO SPECIAL, ROSIE TURKONOWI BUT YOUR NOT. YOUR JUST LIKE US, YOUR JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW HUH, ROSIE? WHERE IS HE? I DON’T SEE HIM. I AM YOUR GOD TONIGHT!” Cody screamed and I then I felt something thrust inside me, something foreign and painful.

I felt like I was being torn apart. I screamed again and another wave of hoots spread through the crowd. Tears freely fled down my face and the blood from my head wound trickled into my mouth.

I spit it out and someone struck me again on the chest as punishment. I yelled and I felt the stinging agony all along my rib cage, tearing through me like cruel fire.

The tearing stopped for a moment in my lower region and then I was shoved against the table again and again, repeatedly. I felt like I being cut in half and it definitely wasn’t pleasurable. I couldn’t look at his face but I knew it was him. Cody.

“I AM…YOUR…GOD.” He grunted with each thrust and I shook my head frantically, sobbing. I could barely understand myself from the pain. I sounded like a moaning zombie. I hurt everywhere.

“No, Cody. You go to church…you should know better than this! Cody listen to me. God loves you…he can…” I paused and felt the pain rip through my stomach again. I shrieked. “Forgive you.” I finished. “Just stop…please…STOP I’M BEGGING YOU STOP STOP STOP!”I bellowed, finally unable to control myself and someone struck me again lower down on my stomach.

I bawled as blood trickled out of a cut on my stomach and I received another blow to the head, a foot this time and I yelped in pain. Finally my womanly region was evacuated and I pulled my legs together until I heard a laugh.

“Who’s next?” Manuel’s angry voice rang out over me and nearly a second after he spoke someone else had pushed inside me. Back and forth my body was plunged against the table. I cried with each push until I felt nothing anymore and my mind and body went numb.
After what seemed like an eternity I finally laid there, being pounded into by the seventh person as I stared at the familiar faces gathered around me. They were all very deadened, but not as scared as me.

These were the people I had known since kindergarten staring and taking pictures as my makeup and blood smeared down my nearly unrecognizable face. These were the people who I called friends once. No one had called the cops yet and nearly twenty people surrounded me. Twenty of my friends and no one tried to help me, not once.

My tears were by now an unstoppable river, flooding down my face and mingled in the blood. I had no emotions left to feel. I had screamed all I could stand and every once in a while I would still scream out of anger or pain. But mostly I felt nothing but deadness and disbelief. I was a nonentity, powerless, inhuman.

I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. I had prayed a thousand times for every time someone entered me, begging God to help me. For someone, anyone to come to my rescue and yet no one came.

How could my God let this happen to me? How could he?

Was it to teach sinners to sin? Or was it to teach them punishment when they realize what they have done to me? Is this going to make the world a better place? Am I just a tool for the greater good?

I felt used, taken advantage of. I felt nothing like I was nothing more than garbage, a toy being used over and over again. I didn’t care if this helped the world, my innocence wasn’t worth risking.

Even the noise around me was now subdued in my mind as I tried to think of somewhere better to be. As I wished that I had listened to my father and not gone to this dance.
I wish I could start over.

I wish this never happened.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity I could no longer even keep my eyes open from all the pain surrounding me. I swore everything on my body was broken after hours of abuse and rape.

The thrusting had stopped and it seemed no one was touching me anymore. There were no longer hands on my wrists or my body holding me down. No one held my mouth. Yet I did not move and I did not speak. I just stared off into the distance, the tears unstoppable. I couldn’t even close my legs.

The clamor was now reduced to quiet murmuring and an occasional cheer, the crowd along with my assaulters slowly drifted away, and I was left alone in my unmoving solitude.
When it seemed they had all gone, I finally managed to lift myself up, but I kept my eyes closed to all the damage they had inflicted on my body.

I slid under the table and curled into a ball on the concrete below it, as if the table could save me from anything else that would harm me. My hazy eyes watched the pool of white liquid at the bottom of the table mixed with red like a Queen Anne candy and I slowly drifted into unconsciousness.

I was awoken by the sound of whispering. My eyes peeled open and I looked into a pair of soft brown eyes. It was a man. I began to scream. He tried yelling over me and I pulled myself backwards, screaming as loud as I could. My lungs were strengthened from church choir and all the screaming of this night.

I could scream for hours and I would if anyone touched me again.

But no, this man wasn’t touching me. He was yelling at me, over me, trying to get me to listen. “I WON’T HURT YOU!” He insisted, averting his eyes from my naked body as I clenched my knees to my chest in modesty, my tears dribbling down. My bottom lip began to shake and my throat constricted as I started to cry again.

The boy took off his shirt and laid it over my body. I didn’t move to put it on, I couldn’t, and it hurt too much. I just nodded, shivering as he stared at me sadly. There was nothing but pity in his eyes.

“The police are coming…I’ll call 911…you’re going to be ok…” HE told me, rubbing my ankle and I tore my leg away from him, clenching my eyes shut.

“Don’t touch me.” I whispered my voice coarse and he nodded, getting out his cell phone. I could only manage to open my eyes to slits, staring at him and slowly his talking turned to mumbling and then to hazy fuzzy noises as I slipped into unconsciousness once more.

The violent beat of helicopter wings and police sirens made a cacophony of disaster surround Richmond High School. I felt my body being touched and lifted and carefully moved and all the while I couldn’t move a muscle, it hurt too much. I couldn’t even defend myself. If I died at that moment I don’t think I would have minded, just to end the pain would have been enough.

The last thing I saw was my school disappearing below me and the hundreds of police cars surrounding it as the helicopter flew up up, and away from my Homecoming Nightmare.

I never believed in vengeance until that night.