The Girl Who Cried Rape

I stare up and at the night sky, the cool breeze from the wind cooling my warm bare legs. I stare up at the stars and wait to feel tired, I wait for what feels like forever. I am so exhausted, it has been two weeks since I have talked to Eric, and with every day that passes I sleep less and less, and cry more and more.

I miss a boy I hardly know, and it hurts, god does it hurt.

The tiles are cold against my legs but I don’t dare move, the cold is a nice reminder of life, that I am alive. I am both in love and terrified of the idea of death. I am not sure how two such extremes can exist within me but they do, and it is oh so confusing.

I flutter my eyes closed hoping if I go through the motions of falling asleep I actually will. But yet again sleep does not come. The rustles of the bushes that trail against the trellis puts me on high alert. I am terrified my parents have found me, and that I will no longer be able to sleep with my door closed. I am not trying to kill myself, I promise, I am just trying to sleep.

I doubt they will understand the difference.

“Ryan,” I sit up and open my eyes, to the most wonderful view, at Eric. He stands on the trellis and only his upper body is visible from my view. I stare at him cautiously worried he is a figment of my imagination. I shuffle backwards hoping he understands what I am doing, that I am giving him room to sit next to me.

“Eric?” I ask as Eric pulls himself up onto the roof sitting down next to me. I am so worried he is not real that I reach out and touch him softly, removing hair from his eyes in a move that scream intimacy and scares me. He pulls his knees to his chest and sighs deeply and I ask, “What are you doing?”

“I see you come out here every night,”

“I can’t sleep” I reply missing the conversations we had shared during our tenuous friendship, the conversations that help more truth and meaning to me that the past year of my life.

“I figured,” I let out a stilted laugh and gasp at the absurdity of me actually laughing.

I laugh because it is strange how a boy I have known less than four months knows me well enough to understand my sleeping habits. It is almost a reassuring thought that if I disappear tomorrow someone will notice and someone might actually care.

“What are you doing here?”

“I missed you,” Eric says softly staring at me intently, he is not wearing his glasses and I never realised what beautiful green and hazel eyes his has, they are magnetising.

He turns away from me and lays his head back on the hard tiles, and stares at the stars. The scene feels achingly familiar and the feeling in my chest is both horrible and wonderful. I lay back on the tiles following Eric’s suit and sigh lightly.

“I missed you too,” I whisper, the night is so quiet but I can hear my words louder than if I had screamed. They sit in the air and I want to take them back so feverishly and yet I also want to repeat them. My opposite feelings are quite confusing; hell Eric makes everything confusing.

Eric reaches out and with the smallest of touches and moves my hand to grasp his. The warmth of his palm makes me shiver. I don’t know if I shiver because of the cool temperature or because of the raggedy beat of my heart. I am suddenly very tired and I want nothing more than to wake in the morning still holding Eric’s hand.

“Eric,” I murmur quietly,

“Yeah?” He asks his voice heavy with sleep as well,

“I’m trying… I really am. I just need… time” I do not know why I feel the need to explain myself to Eric but I just need him to understand it is not my fault, to understand me.

“I know Ryan, I know” Eric’s voice is soft and sweet and brings a small almost imperceptible smile to my lips, I grasp his hand tighter.

For the first night in two weeks I am not left with disappointment in my heart at the thought of another night alone. Instead I find comfort in the warmth of Eric’s hand and the sweet almost rhythmic beating of my heart.