The Girl Who Cried Rape

It is almost humorous that it is raining, it’s almost like the sky is crying for me. Today is the day, the first day of school and I am already ready to burst into tears. I sit at my window facing the back of the house and overlooking a golf course behind my backyard, it is six in the morning, in nothing but towel letting the cool wind from the open window hit my skin, it almost feels enjoyable if I could remember how to enjoy anything that is.

The chill morning air sends shivers down my spine but I barely notice, I am too intent on watching, through my now blackened window – from one day of particular self-hatred I had taken some of my dad’s left over tint from when he tinted his car himself and blackened out my window in an attempt to further hide myself from the world – and watch a pair of older men, probably retired swing their golf clubs.

They remind me of my father and grandfather who with me in tow most weekends would play round after round of golf Saturday morning, I no longer join them. I almost feel bad, almost.

Goosebumps break out on my skin and I scratch at them hoping to draw blood, I have never had the guts to actually hurt myself no matter how much I have wanted, it seems almost pathetic that even in my worst moments of self-hatred and self-doubt I am too chicken shit to hurt myself, or maybe that is a good thing. I am no longer sure. I yawn remembering my pitiful night of sleep, I had tossed and turned the reality invading my nightmares.

Or maybe my nightmares are invading my reality.

I take a deep breath and allow the rain scented air to flow through the veins in my small body, I do not move until there is a knock at my door alerting me to the presence of my mother, who even after seventeen years gets up every morning to make me breakfast.

These days though I mostly play with my food rather than eat it but she still makes it nonetheless remarking each morning how thin and fragile I look, I hate her the tiniest bit for caring enough to notice.

“Ryan, Eric is at the door” My mum calls I look away from the dark cloud in the sky and realise the time, I need to be dressed and ready to leave in five minutes. With sluggish speed I pull on a pair of dark jeans and a dark jacket over a dark t-shirt, everything I wear these days is either black or dark there is no sunshine in my life or clothes.

I pull out a tube of concealer and a pen of eyeliner and get to work on my face covering the deep bags under my eyes, hoping to give the illusion to my parents that I am still sleeping.

For the first few weeks after my attack I started suffering nightmares and would wake screaming in my sleep, they have since gone away but the restless and sleepless nights have not. Not that my parents are aware of that. I swipe skilfully the eyeliner over the tops and bottoms of my eyes, going for the ‘fuck you’ look that I have perfected over the summer.

I used to wear a little mascara and bright pink lip gloss but things have changed, now I go for dark intimidating eyes so that even if anyone wanted to talk to me they wouldn’t. It has worked so far.
I walk downstairs pulling on a heavy pair of doc martins with steel cap toes, just in case. Though no one has attacked me since that night I am forever preparing myself, forever on edge and forever falling further into paranoia.

As I make my way down into the kitchen I am assaulted by the strong smell of freshly baked pancakes. I am apprehensive as I enter the kitchen forgetting for a moment what Eric is doing here and then remembering all of a sudden and giving him some credit that my sour disposition didn’t scare him off.

“Oh Ryan,” My mother says with disappointment in her voice as she takes in my outfit, she can’t understand why I changed my entire wardrobe after the end of year party last year.

I used to wear dresses and skirts and floral patterned tops but that all changed when I did and for the life of her my mother can simply not understand that. I look down the kitchen counter I take a seat at and stare at Eric, a plate of untouched pancakes in front of him, practically seething at the mouth that he is here in my kitchen staring at me with a smile of all things, doesn’t he get it? I don’t want or need him in my life, the sooner he leaves the easier it will be for both of us.

“Couldn’t you were something a little more flattering? You look like a boy” I ignore my mother wondering to myself, while staring down at the plate of pancakes she has just given me, if the thought ever occurred to her that I no longer want to look like a girl, that maybe I prefer this look.
Of course it hasn’t.

“You look like a ghost” My father mumbles making his way into the kitchen and kissing my mother and I on the head.

I almost laugh before I remember how miserable I am, because I am a ghost. I am a ghost floating in between everything I currently am and everything I was or could have been. His roaming eyes taking in my outfit and pale make-up remind me of everything I have lost, including myself.
I am lost.

A few minutes later I walk outside, with Eric at my heels, a single bite of pancakes churning in my stomach at the thought of having to walk into school in seven and a half minutes, the exact amount of time it takes to drive to school.

I pause when I stand barely missing Eric colliding with me, I stand under the heavy rain not worrying for once, how my doc martins have a hole in the bottom and how my socks are getting wet, or that my face is covered in water and my perfectly applied eyeliner is running. I do not care about any of it, nothing but how magical the water feels as it drips off me creating additional smaller puddle around my feet.

I want to splash in the puddles like I did as a child but it feels different now, forced somehow and I suddenly want nothing more than to stand in the rain and feel insignificant all day but Eric is talking, yelling over the rain and the moments is gone, my thoughts of how truly insignificant I am in this great big world are gone and I am left tumbling back to reality, and the fall hurts.

“Ryan,” Eric walks beside me and offers me some shelter under his muscular arm and jacket sleeve, I wipe at my eyes my finger coming away black and stare at him with suddenly earnest eyes,

“You don’t have to ride with me”

“What?”

“My mother” I say moving away from his protection even if it is just from the rain, “I know she can be a little intense, you don’t have to ride with me to school”

“I don’t mind, she seems nice enough even if you two don’t get a long, she’s too suburban housewife for you.” It’s not that we don’t get a long I want to say but the words get swallowed in my annoyance, I frown at Eric not sure why he is implying but knowing I don’t appreciate it either way.
“You don’t even know me,” I remind him annoyed my mother pushed for this union between Eric and me, he is just like the people at school close minded and completely ignorant.

“You are right, I’m sorry. I’d really appreciate a ride to school, my car is still in Jersey” And there is that infuriating smile again, the one with nothing but good intention behind it, it irks me more than I can explain.

“I keep forgetting you are new.” I say with an almost mocking smile as I lead the way out of the rain and to the garage where my small silver car sits. “You really don’t know”

“Know what?”

“Don’t worry you’ll find out soon enough” I reply with a sardonic smile, putting my keys in the engine the roar drowning out anything else he could say.

When we arrive at school I lose Eric in the crowd on purpose. I know it is mean to leave him alone on his first day but I really don’t need him following me around trying to get to know me.

So as soon as I had parked my car I had walked off and purposefully taken the back way to my locker loosing even myself amongst the hordes of people making their way to their individual lockers.
When I reach my locker I see her, the epitome of everything I used to be. She is standing with her gaggle of stupid friends, girls I had once thought of as sisters. There is three of them in total including her, Tamara, and she has her head thrown back in laughter I can’t help but feel self-conscious that she is laughing at me even though she has yet to spot me.

She really is beautiful, and I know from personal experience that underneath it all she is kind and sweet and really not how people paint her to be, some evil bitch at the top of our school’s social scene.

I know the real Tamara and it is the thought of that girl that sends me over to her to talk, to hash out everything we left in silence over the summer. I think maybe in the new year my sins will have been absolved, forgiven even, so with that hope in my blackened heart I walk over to her, pausing for a minute to remember her, over the summer the crispness of the details of her face were lost and I have started forgetting the sound of her voice which terrifies me because she was and is still the best friend I have ever had.

Tamara Jones has light orange hair she dyes every two weeks with over the counter hair dye from the pharmacy, today it is extra bright and I bet she spent all last night dying her hair to look her best for today, typical Tamara.

I remember before I see her eyes that they are green, beautifully green and they offset her bright hair, I remember the small barely there lines that sit at the corners of her eyes from too much time spent outside squinting in the sun. I want to reach out and touch her but I know better than that, she would never accept that but my words. Maybe she will accept my words.

“Hi… Can we, um talk?” My former best friend turns to me with a smile and for a second my heart rises in my chest fluttering with the wings of hope that maybe, just maybe I have been forgiven. A second later her smile falters and she stares right through me her green eyes squinted into slits, I gulp.

“I’m sorry Ryan, but I don’t know where the clinic is” I close my eyes and let the sting of her words hit my already bruised and battered heart. She laughs and walks away before I can even respond or react to her words laughing about me with her cronies the whole way. She leaves me standing at my locker which unfortunately, is next to hers.

I stand there clutching the strap of my back pack remembering the girl I once called my best friend who can now barely look at me, remembering how she decided I was a liar and a slut simply because he got to her first.

By the time I showed up it was too late I could already see the writing on the walls, she was pissed and she hated me, it was simple to her, I fucked her boyfriend and the entire football team, the photos proved that but what she didn’t understand was the truth, my truth of that entire night. I remember trying to explain it to her.

“I’m Sorry” I say as Tamara opens the door tears and mascara running down her cheeks, I know instantly that he has just been here, her hair is all ruffled and her clothes are hanging off her on weird angles as if she hastily put them back on, how could she touch him after everything he did to me.

Maybe she was saying goodbye, that I could live with.

“For what Ryan? Ditching me or fucking my boyfriend?” She asks with pure venom in her voice and for the first time, but certainly not the last I see the girl everyone is afraid of, I don’t see my kind best friend I see the bitch everyone fears. But I refuse to give up, I refuse to give in that easily without a real fight.

“I didn’t fuck him” I promise feeling the sting of her words for also the first time,

“Ryan the photos are everywhere!” She says leaning in closer to my face her eyes evil little slits labelling me a liar and a slut all at once, reminding me that I am nothing more than dirt on her shoe.

I realise the same second that she does that I am shaking with fear, that I am terrified of her and her words, she smiles a Cheshire cat worthy grin and lets out a snort of laughter and derision at how pathetic I am. I can barely remember last night and the one person I thought would always be on my side has suddenly stopped fighting for me, it hurts beyond words.

“You don’t understand” I say in a shaking voice garnering another snort from Tamara, tears falling from my eyes and landing on my cheeks in wet blobs of sorrow and heartbreaking pain. “I didn’t… I don’t…”

“What? You don’t remember? Well her let me fill in the blanks for you Ryan, after you ditched me you found my boyfriend and fucked him, then as if that wasn’t enough you went and fucked the entire football team” The crass way she puts it sends daggers through my churning stomach, I can’t breathe, images of the night before assault my brain and I want to scream the truth but the words and my voice will not come, the truth will not come and I am left listening to Tamara condemn me for the slut that I am.

“Just… Go away Ryan,” There is no longer menace in her voice but sorrow, she is hugging herself as she shuts the door in my face softly punctuating the end of a life-long friendship I thought would never die but suddenly has and at the hands of a monster.

I walk slowly and with purpose to my car trembling from the fight and the memories that are still assaulting my mind, remembering the pieces of a blank night, of waking up with dried blood on my bruised thighs in the athletics football field with my panties missing.

I run pushed to the present by a slut cough from a passer-by to the closest girl’s bathroom falling into a stall closing the door behind me and then to my knees ralphing up the little I had eaten this morning.

I flush the toilet and wipe my mouth spitting out the taste and the sting of Tamara’s words from my memory and the present. I hear the door open and sit down on the lid of the toilet waiting for the new arrivals to leave.

“Can you believe she had the nerve to show up today?” The first girl says with a laugh of shock,
“I know, gotta admit she has balls!” The second girl admits, I chew on my lip wondering who they are talking about, a sinking sensation tells me the answer hits close to home.

“Yeah she was knee deep in them that night” They both cackle out laughter and my hope quickly vanishes, leaving me distraught and shaking, they leave shortly after but I don’t.

Not until final warning bell rings bringing my bag with me to my first session class not caring if I get a tardy I cannot face one more person on my way. I am fighting back tears but I refuse to let them fall, I have managed so far to escape all contact with my attackers but I know it is just a matter of time.

My first class is English and I am greeted with scowls and one smile, belonging of course to Eric, I suppose he is yet to hear. There are two empty seats one next to Eric and one in the back row behind him, it is not hard to pick considering Eric is sitting next to him. Seth Anders, Tamara’s boyfriend and the one I suspect drugged my drink the night of the end of year bash.

In the days following my attack I had googled what happened to me and during my search had come across popular date rape drugs, the side effects all sounded so similar and I put another piece of the puzzle together.
I don’t know for sure he did it but I feel it deep in my bones that it was him, no one else is a cold and calculating as Seth Anders. So I dodge Eric’s warm smile and slink to the back not missing the sly wink that Seth shoots in my direction, unfortunately. I push in my earphones and pretend I am preoccupied getting all my pens and work books organised for the class.

I don’t actually play music through my headphones I could never allow myself to be that distracted around Seth, I am on edge a predator about to pounce and I watch him out of the corner of my eyes.

I watch how Eric leans over with a quick glance in my direction, I look away hastily, before asking Seth, “What is the deal with Ryan? … She’s cute”

“Whoa” Seth say putting up his hands in a stopping motion Eric pauses and stares at Seth in silent confusion, “You so don’t want to go there man,” Seth says with a long look in my direction, I force myself to stare back daring him to do something here in front of witnesses he just smirks and turns away. I hope he doesn’t notice how my body shakes and my knees knock together in response to only his stare.

“Why not?” Eric asks him and here it comes, here comes their lies and Eric will no longer smile at me as I walk into English, he will glare at me and label me a slut like the rest of these assholes. I don’t know why it hurts so much to think of.
“She’s a one trick pony and everybody’s had a ride” Seth says with a booming laugh a few people snicker and I flush red, I try not to react to his words but it is impossible. I visibly flinch because before he and his meathead friends touched me I was a virgin.
“Hey shut up man,” Eric says a frown on his face my head snaps up to stare at him in shock, why the hell is he defending me? Why the hell doesn’t he believe them, he doesn’t even know me.
“Whatever dude I hear she has VD so wear a rubber” Seth says smiling and turning away from Eric to talk to the guy on his other side, a no named loser who coughs slut whenever he sees me, like that is original.
I look down at my iPod pretending to choose a song as Eric stares at me hard willing me to make eye contact but I refuse. I only look up when the teach enters and Eric looks away dejectedly like a scolded puppy dog.
I can’t help but stare at him wondering what his motives are, or if he has any. I wonder if he is really a nice guy or an asshole like the rest of us. I don’t have time to ponder long as the teacher starts the lesson but the thoughts linger in my head all day.

I sit by myself at lunch poking at the greasy piece of pizza in front of me, I am not hungry. I am never hungry I simply eat at home to please my parents when they really start to nag me. Today I am alone and do not have to force myself to chow down on food that really makes me want to ralph.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath trying to calm my senses and nerves, I am still on edge every person who walks past makes me flinch and every accidental and the few purposeful touches I have received today make me want to cower but I refuse, I refuse to be a victim. Especially when no one will accept me as one. Still I hate that my body reacts to every little thing.

“Not a lot of black kids here” A newly familiar voice says startling my eyes open, I stare at Eric as he sits down opposite me at the rounded metal picnic table with attached seats.

“What?” It has been a long and lonely summer I am still getting used to the idea of someone wanting to talk to me,

“You have a very white school” Eric says slowly taking a sip from his water bottle, like me he has pizza on his tray, only he has two pieces and is picking on up to eat from it never taking his eyes from me.

I try to keep eye contact but it is still too difficult so I look away picking at a piece of non-existent thread on my jacket glancing behind Eric to the group of people sitting at one table talking and staring at me and Eric, my former friends, who are no doubt wondering like I am just what the hell Eric is doing, they are as Eric remarked white.

“You don’t want to sit here” I begin pushing away my only chance of friend, it is Eric’s turn to be confused,
“What? Why?”
“You don’t want to sit here” I say slowly because he is not getting it, “Having your first day here is hard enough, but there is no need to make it worse by being seen with me” I say returning to stare at my pizza, I poke at the grease congealing on the side and refrain from gagging.

“What’s so wrong with you” Eric asks glancing behind him when he notices I am not staring at him but rather over his shoulder, a look of understand falls upon his features, I frown. “I heard what happened, and it seriously isn’t a big deal. Back where I live sleeping around is practically the school sport”

“Is that what they told you?” I whisper in pure terror and shock, of course they would lie I don’t know why it affects me so badly. Eric nods and smiles at me that sweet smile and it makes me sick to my stomach, I focus very intently on not throwing up.

“Ryan there is no need to be ashamed” He says with such sincerity it makes me even more sick.
“I am not ashamed” I say standing up abruptly, I turn on my heel and leave the courtyard area, I don’t know who I am trying to protect more, him or me.