The Girl Who Cried Rape

I know I have said this before but this time I think is different, I know the depression has won. It has a choke hold on my life and I am no longer able to breath. I thought I knew what sadness was but this is something different, something else.

It is made so much worse because I feel the absence from Eric no longer being around, my heart beats for no reason, my soul is hollow and my life is riddled with distant memories and nightmares.

I am not sure what I am still doing here, I don’t just mean at school but also at life. I should have ended it by now. I am so sure my heart will give out from the pressure in my chest that I almost stop being and just… feel it. Feel it all. Every crushing thought, ever soul numbing excuse and every memory turned nightmare.

“Rape girl” Someone says from beside me, I turn my tired head to stare at a pretty blonde girl sitting next to me in my History class, who points to our teacher who is staring at me expectantly.
“Ryan, have you heard a word I’ve said?”

I open my mouth to answer but a sugary sweet voice answers instead, and it is decidedly not mine. “She’s too busy feeling sorry for herself,”

“Tamara!” Our teacher snaps.

I turn to the back of the room where my former best friend sits, she stares at me with a look of contempt. My heart beats dully in my chest, she is begging me to fight with her but I can’t, I am not strong enough.

I just don’t have the energy to fight anymore.

“Sorry Miss,” Tamara says staring right through me. I turn back to the front of the class and stare down at my desk. Tears do not well in my eyes because crying simply takes too much effort and I am just so very tired.

“I am pairing you two together, maybe you can learn how to get alone again” I stare blankly at my teacher and listen to Tamara’s spirited objections.

Half way through our session, all of the pairs are sent to the library to do some research. I stand now, next to a silent Tamara typing away on her phone probably about me, in front of the shelf of history text books scanning them for one about Russia’s involvement in the second world war.
“I guess I am on my own for this,” I mutter wanting to say something more, something snarky and mean but the words just don’t come. I no longer care.

Tamara turns to stare at me with a glare that stops my heart beating for a full two seconds, I count. It hurts when it starts beating normally again, “Why should I help you?” She spits with venom and a little spittle, both of which I probably deserve.

“Because it’s your grade as well, when did you stop caring about school?” I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, any of it, because it is a reminder she doesn’t want. Tamara does not want to be reminded of what happened between us, that I used to know her better than anyone else in the world.

Tamara’s face darkens, “When you fucked my boyfriend” I stare at her, she looks exactly the same as that night, I can’t help but notice how different I look, it is startling and terrifying. I want to look away from her but I am so confused and well… angry.

I am pissed that she is treating me like garbage for something that happened to me not because of me. I am so mad, yet there is still a part of me, small as it may be, that wants Tamara’s forgiveness, even if it means admitting to a lie.

I close my eyes and fight back tears of frustration, “I don’t feel sorry for you, just so you know” She says suddenly, I open my eyes and stare at her. Really stare at her. She doesn’t look so mean anymore, she looks like she did when she was six and fell off her bike and broke her finger, full of pain and confusion. She looks how I feel.

“I don’t want you to” I mutter,

“Good because I don’t,” She says too quickly, and for a second, a single solitary second, I see through her lie, she grabs a text book and places it on top of the stack in my arms. “Here hold this,”’
“Why?” I ask gently, wondering if all this anger and hostility is a mask for her pain, and her true feelings towards me are confusing her and that is why she hates me, because maybe she knows something other than what Seth is telling her happened that fateful night.
“Because it is heavy” I bite my lip.

I know she is mad, but I am sick of her treating me like dirt. I was there for her when William Cary didn’t call her in the seventh grade and when she didn’t get on the cheerleading squad. Hell I was there for her when Seth dumped her for the first time. I was there for every stupid little thing and she can’t even pretend to tolerate me for fifty minutes?

“What happened to you” I ask with pure hate, because I do. I do hate her. Before the words leave my mouth, however, I know they are a mistake. I want to take them back but it is too late they are spewing out.

“What happened to you? You walk around like a freaking ghost! Get over yourself Ryan, no one believes your little sad girl act,” She says walking away and like that I am put back into my place as a liar and not a victim. My anger is replaced with regret for a lot of things, mostly though not getting to Tamara before Seth did, and sorrow. I just want to lay down and sleep forever.

I slide down the bookshelf and drop the heavy textbooks next to me, they make a loud bang, Tamara is already walking away, away from me and this scene we created. My arms ache and my head hurts, I feel a migraine coming on, but mostly, mostly my heart hurts.

I close my eyes and take slow calming breaths trying to get my staggering heartbeat and anxiety under control. I do not notice the person in front of me it only registers that I am not alone when the person sits next to me sighing heavily. I open my eyes and stare at Eric, I feel a million emotions but the biggest one is something akin to happiness, happiness that after everything I still haven’t quite pushed him away.

“Ryan” I flutter my eyes open, Eric has a sad look on his face and it hurts me physically to see that, and I do not understand why I can’t just walk away from him, why I can’t push him away like I so want to. I want this fish out of water feeling to disappear when I lay my eyes on Eric. I want to feel like I did at the start of the year.

I want to feel nothing.

“Eric?” I ask sure I am dreaming; he looks too perfect to be real.

“Are you okay?”

“Perfect” I mumble; he takes me as being sarcastic but I promise I am not. I am not lying I do feel perfect because he is here and he is beautiful.

I want to reach out and touch him so badly but I don’t. I quickly silence my needs and thoughts blaming them on the less than two hour sleep I got last night. It is make me feel loopy, that is all this is.

“I’m not giving up Ryan,”

I want to go back. I want to go back and do everything again. Only I would change only one thing, my suicide attempt. I would not take those damn pills, I would take my daddy’s antique revolver and make sure I don’t wake up this time.

“You will” I mutter quietly, closing my eyes because I don’t think I can stand him walking away again. It hurt too much the first time, and I am so much weaker than before. “Everyone always does.”