Screaming in Silence

I sighed. I was still in the park and stray tears were still falling every now and then from the memories of Zach's departure. I never had gotten over him leaving me. It still hurt to think about my big brother and how sweet and caring he was, until he left. The only thing that kept me from breaking down altogether was the belief that somewhere, he was alive and happy. As long as he was happy and as long as he was alive then I could live on without him.

I'd been sat in the park all day and the sky was turning darker and darker with each second I sat on the ancient swing.I stood up to leave, leaving the creaking swing behind me to swing in the slight wind. The wind rustled the leaves in the bushes behind me and as I walked out of the park I began hearing some heavy footsteps following on behind. It struck me as odd that someone would wander through the park at such a late hour when it had been left empty all day, but for me. I walked on faster. All my confidence had disappeared along with Zach, so I didn't like the thought of being alone with a random stranger in a secluded park. The footsteps became heavier and faster and I could hear the person breathing heavily. I walked even faster until I heard a voice call out.

"Hey!" I didn't know if the man was calling to me, but I assumed he was and walked even faster, not looking back even for a second. "Hey! Where you going gorgeous?" he called out but I still ignored him.

I could hear him getting closer and closer, his footsteps louder. I made the mistake of looking back quickly and saw his beady eyes focused on me intently, a grin on his face resembling Mr Foster's from earlier. I was scared. I broke into a run but it was too late. He caught up with me easily and grabbed a handful of my curly hair, yanking me backwards.

"I was talking to you beautiful," he whispered into my ear. "What? Cat got your tongue?" he chuckled nastily and dragged me back to the park.

I tried to scream, but obviously I couldn't. I didn't know what to do. I began scratching at his hands as he dragged me back into the secluded park, trying to get him to loosen his grip, but he didn't. He threw me to the ground, chuckling evilly to himself. I scrambled to get up and run but I could only crawl about two feet away at most until his huge hands pulled me back down on the muddy ground and straddled me, stopping me from running. He tore at my top, ripping the buttons from my school shirt and baring my chest to the stranger. I instinctively covered myself with my arms and began squirming underneath him to try and free myself from his heavy weight on top of me, but he didn't budge. His filthy hands began grabbing and groping any part of my body he could touch, and then I heard the unmistakeable sound of his zip being unzipped. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. I tried to get him off me, but I couldn't. All I could do was lay there and cry as he violated me. I prepared myself to try one last time to push the perverted oaf off of me by taking a deep breath. He must have thought I was going to scream because he shoved his filthy hand over my mouth, preventing me from being able to breath. I panicked even more until I ran out of air. Then I passed out.

I don't know how long I was out for but when my eyes slowly flickered open, I could start to see the sun peek over the horizon. At the first moment of movement I cringed at the agonizing pain shooting through me. I stared down at myself and found myself completely naked with blood covering the lower half of my bruised and battered body. I knew what had happened even before my eyes were open, but feeling that pain and seeing all that blood broke me even more. If I had been broken before, then I was shattered now. Tears flowed from my eyes once again as pulled on my torn clothes back on and curled into a ball and wept.

I wanted to scream. I was so scared and so angry. I was angry with myself for letting it happen and not being able to scream, or call for help. I was angry with the dirty pervert for stealing my virginity and tainting my purity. But most of all, I was angry at Zach for not being there to protect me. I needed to go home but I was too scared to move, there was no way I would be able to move by myself. I needed help. I pulled out my phone and wrote a text to Ethan.

"Help me. I'm in a park somewhere and I really need your help," I wrote, adding a few kisses on the end. It wasn't long until I got a reply.

"Are you all right?! What happened? What park are you in?" he replied. I didn't know what to reply because I honestly didn't know the name of the park or where it was really, I'd never been to that park before.

"I don't know! I'm in a park somewhere, please help me Ethan!" I replied, crying even more as I realised that there's no way he was going to find me. It was a big town.

"Don't worry babe, I'll find you! Hang on!" he wrote back. I knew he wouldn't, so I just huddled even further into the bush and attempted to calm myself down. Somewhere along the line I must have fallen asleep because the next time I opened my eyes Ethan was staring down at me with a worried look on his face.

"Oh my God, Beth what happened?" he asked, his eyes roaming over my blood, tear and mud stained body. I sniffed and attempted to stand up, my body sore and painful. "Shit, are you ok?" he asked, taking hold of my waist and steadying me. I shook my head and bit back more tears. "What happened? Do you want me to take you to a hospital?" I shook my head quickly, a look of sheer horror crossing my face. No, there was no way I was going to hospital and there was no way anyone else was going to find out about what had happened. I quickly pulled out my phone and wrote out a sentence for him to read.

"Please, just help me get home,"

"Ok," he sighed, saying nothing else but I knew he wanted to. He just put my arm around his shoulder and grabbed my waist, walking me in the direction of my house.

We walked in pretty much silence, he didn't know what to say and I couldn't say anything. He kept shooting me worried glances and I kept ignoring them. I felt so bad about getting him out so early to help me out. If I wasn't so scared and wimpy then I would be able to take care of myself without anyone else's help. But I was scared and the one person I needed was never going to be around to protect me, I just needed to get over that and learn to accept that he's not coming back for me. Maybe then I could get on with my life and have the guts to protect myself because no one else will.

"Almost there," Ethan assured me, shooting a sympathetic smile my way. "So are we going to talk about what happened?" Well, he could but I couldn't. I just shrugged, trying to make it look like it wasn't that much of a big deal even though what had happened had shaken me to my very core. My broken and beaten appearance didn't help my case either. "I think we need to, you need to tell me what happened,"

We hobbled up the path leading to my house and I sighed in relief when I noticed that Tony's car wasn't there. It was weird because it was so early, not even morning yet, but I didn't care. Maybe my mum was finished with him at last? I pushed on the door, releasing the broken lock and stumbled inside. The house was a mess. There were dirty cups and plates lining the floors, broken bottles lying haphazardly in random places where Tony had aimed at me and missed. The place reeked of weed and alcohol and the place was absolutely filthy. I was embarrassed to bring Ethan in there, but I needed to. I needed someone.

"Where's your room?" he asked and I hobbled in the direction of the only clean and sanitary room in the house. After he peered into my room and wandered in, perching on my neatly made bed, I slammed the door shut and locked all three loose locks. "What're they for?" he asked awkwardly. I shrugged. That was all I could do really, despite whether I had things to say all I would ever do was shrug my shoulders and let everyone move the conversation on. "Beth," he said my name softly, placing his hands lovingly on mine as I sat next to him. "You were raped, weren't you?" he asked, softly. I looked away from him, not wanting him to see even more of my tears which balanced precariously on the edge of my eyelids. "Beth you have to tell the police, you have to report this," I looked back at him and shook my head quickly, eyes wide with fear. "What? Why not? Beth look at yourself! You're a mess, that jerk really messed you up! You've already got bruises and there are gashes covering most of what I can see," I could feel myself burning up with embarrassment. It was times like those when I was glad that I couldn't talk, because then I don't have to lie. Most of what he could see was Tony's handy work, the bruises caused by the pervert weren't even starting to show yet. The only visible trace of the previous night's events was the blood on my lower stomach and thighs. "I'll come with you if you need me to, I'll hold your hand, but you have to call the police," I stood up and grabbed my pad of paper from my bedside table, scribbling on it fast.

"I'm not calling the police. No one needs to know about this Ethan. No one." I threw the piece of paper at him and gave him time to read it.

"Why not?" he asked, confusion evident in his voice.

"It doesn't matter. I don't want to call the police, ok? And I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone," I wrote on another piece of paper. After he read it, he looked at me with a strange look on his face.

"Beth, what's going on? Why won't you tell anyone? Are you protecting them? Do you know who it was? Because if you do, then that bastard needs to go down for what he did and you shouldn't be protecting him," Ethan told me adamantly.

"I just don't want anyone to know, that's it," I wrote, "Can't you just respect my wishes? Thank you for helping me, I'm really grateful and I love you to bits for it, but please don't tell anyone,"

"But I don't understand Beth! Why? The sick fuck should fry for what he did for you!" he shouted at me angrily, but I knew it was only because he cared about me. Still, being yelled at was the last thing I needed at that point, so I pointed to the door to try and tell him to get out. "No, Bethany Louise Baker I'm not leaving until you agree to call the god damn police!"

"No! I don't have to explain myself to you! I'm not telling anyone and that's that!" I wrote throwing the pad of paper in Ethan's face and pointing to the door again, hoping that this time he'd give up and leave. He did.

"Fine! But next time you're in trouble, don't come crying to me because I try to help and you just won't listen," he growled angrily as he unlocked my locks and stormed out the door, slamming it behind him. I stumbled to the door and quickly re-locked all three locks before hobbling back to my bed and breaking down in yet another flood of silent tears.

Secretly I hoped that Ethan would come back and just hug me, not saying a word. I just needed someone's arms wrapped around me, but I would never let anyone get that close. Zach really had broken me when he left. Ever since he left me I've never been able to let anyone get close to me. I'm too scared that they'll leave me, just like Zach did. Whenever I could feel people becoming too attached, or if I was beginning to feel happy and loved, I would push them away. I suppose, deep down, all I wanted was for those people to refuse to be pushed away and see past my mask and realise that all I needed was a hug and a little love, but no one ever did. That was Zach's fault. It had been 8 and a half years, but the pain never did get better and I was still as lonely as the day he left me, a sobbing seven year old, outside our house.