Status: Active Once More
The Girl Who Cried Rape
I Ditched The Car and Left You To
Each time we study Eric brings me a bag of pink jellybeans, I think he just wants an excuse to buy a kilo of jellybeans, but either way it is nice even if it does make me feel a little uncomfortable. We study between his house and the library, his house may offer more privacy but it makes me feel uncomfortable being alone in a bedroom so like the one I was attacked and left broken in.
Today we are in the library. I place a pink jellybean in my mouth, “My mother would kill me if she knew I was eating sugar,” Eric rolls his eyes, popping a green jellybean in his mouth.
He always eats the green ones first. I think they might be his favourite, and I cannot understand why this seems so important to me. We sit scrunched together in a small corner of the local library next to a precariously stacked pile of newspapers that are starting to smell of something other than ink. Eric begins explaining an equation to find out what a gradient is.
My last math test sits in my bag urging me to show Eric how well I have done. But I enjoy spending my afternoons, doing something other than feeling sad, with Eric. So I keep the test in my bag, I don’t want Eric to cancel our sessions to spend more time with Jenna. Eric and Jenna have been spending more and more time together, I don’t know when it happened by seemingly overnight Jenna and Eric have developed a relationship that is certainly more than just friendly.
I don’t mind, really I don’t. It’s not like either of them throw it in my face or ignore me, it’s just the thought of the two of them together makes me feel sick, which makes me feel even worse that I care enough to feel anything about what is happening between the two of them.
“How’s Jenna?” I ask desperate to give my brain a pause from the rise over the run.
“She’s good,” Eric mumbles checking his phone, no doubt for a text from Jenna. If I were a different girl, more like I was before, I may ask them what is going on between them. But I am me so I sit on my hands to stop fidgeting and nod and listen as Eric explains the boring equation.
When our study session is over I wait outside for my father to pick me up, Eric is going out with Jenna and can’t drop me home, I feel almost as if Jenna is stealing Eric from me, I don’t want to feel jealous but I kind of do and it annoys me more than I care to admit. I think my mother is trying to get me to spend more time with him, my father that is, to see my improvements. Little though they are they are still there.
His is nearly fifteen minutes late but I kind of expected that, he works at a local law firm and wins arguments for ridiculous amounts of money. It is a family run business and my father assumes one day I will take his place as partner but I am not sure I know how to argue anymore, how to get my point across. The whole idea scares me, terrifies me to my core.
I am reminded of before my attack when I was fifteen and my dad decided I was old enough to learn how to drive. He would jokingly hold the dashboard and jerk with every bunny hop I made, my lessons stopped the day after the party. My dad is on the phone and looks stressed, he nods in my direction with a small smile. I stare back.
“Thank you for getting me,” I tell him once he is off the phone, he looks at me for a moment as if he doesn’t recognise me and it scares me.
“That’s alright Ryan, how’s studying going?”
“Good, I think I am starting to understand,” Understand math or my feelings for Eric I am not sure, but understand I am starting to, no matter how much it hurts.
“That’s wonderful,” I pull my test from my bag and show my dad as we are paused at a red light, “Oh Ryan, I’m so proud” My father gushes and for once I don’t feel so awkward, I feel okay. And that is more than I have wished for in a while. When we get home my dad hangs my test on the fridge like he would do my work as a child, it makes me feel happy and uncomfortable at the same time, but I wouldn’t change making my dad proud for anything else in the whole wide world.
And I truly mean that.
Today we are in the library. I place a pink jellybean in my mouth, “My mother would kill me if she knew I was eating sugar,” Eric rolls his eyes, popping a green jellybean in his mouth.
He always eats the green ones first. I think they might be his favourite, and I cannot understand why this seems so important to me. We sit scrunched together in a small corner of the local library next to a precariously stacked pile of newspapers that are starting to smell of something other than ink. Eric begins explaining an equation to find out what a gradient is.
My last math test sits in my bag urging me to show Eric how well I have done. But I enjoy spending my afternoons, doing something other than feeling sad, with Eric. So I keep the test in my bag, I don’t want Eric to cancel our sessions to spend more time with Jenna. Eric and Jenna have been spending more and more time together, I don’t know when it happened by seemingly overnight Jenna and Eric have developed a relationship that is certainly more than just friendly.
I don’t mind, really I don’t. It’s not like either of them throw it in my face or ignore me, it’s just the thought of the two of them together makes me feel sick, which makes me feel even worse that I care enough to feel anything about what is happening between the two of them.
“How’s Jenna?” I ask desperate to give my brain a pause from the rise over the run.
“She’s good,” Eric mumbles checking his phone, no doubt for a text from Jenna. If I were a different girl, more like I was before, I may ask them what is going on between them. But I am me so I sit on my hands to stop fidgeting and nod and listen as Eric explains the boring equation.
When our study session is over I wait outside for my father to pick me up, Eric is going out with Jenna and can’t drop me home, I feel almost as if Jenna is stealing Eric from me, I don’t want to feel jealous but I kind of do and it annoys me more than I care to admit. I think my mother is trying to get me to spend more time with him, my father that is, to see my improvements. Little though they are they are still there.
His is nearly fifteen minutes late but I kind of expected that, he works at a local law firm and wins arguments for ridiculous amounts of money. It is a family run business and my father assumes one day I will take his place as partner but I am not sure I know how to argue anymore, how to get my point across. The whole idea scares me, terrifies me to my core.
I am reminded of before my attack when I was fifteen and my dad decided I was old enough to learn how to drive. He would jokingly hold the dashboard and jerk with every bunny hop I made, my lessons stopped the day after the party. My dad is on the phone and looks stressed, he nods in my direction with a small smile. I stare back.
“Thank you for getting me,” I tell him once he is off the phone, he looks at me for a moment as if he doesn’t recognise me and it scares me.
“That’s alright Ryan, how’s studying going?”
“Good, I think I am starting to understand,” Understand math or my feelings for Eric I am not sure, but understand I am starting to, no matter how much it hurts.
“That’s wonderful,” I pull my test from my bag and show my dad as we are paused at a red light, “Oh Ryan, I’m so proud” My father gushes and for once I don’t feel so awkward, I feel okay. And that is more than I have wished for in a while. When we get home my dad hangs my test on the fridge like he would do my work as a child, it makes me feel happy and uncomfortable at the same time, but I wouldn’t change making my dad proud for anything else in the whole wide world.
And I truly mean that.