Save Yourself For Someone Worth Dying For

It's been a week and a half since I moved in with the boys. When I'm awake, everything is seemingly perfect. No problems whatsoever. It's when I'm asleep that things start to go wrong. I've been having nightmares lately. I wake up thrashing in the bed, sweaty, and tears pouring down my eyes. I haven't told the boys about them yet, though. I still haven't told them everything about my life. But, after waking up screaming last night, I know they think something is wrong. I see it in their faces every time I look at them; they're full of concern. I called a group meeting and now we're all sitting here in the living room. They're waiting for me to start, I can see that they're worried.

"Sweetheart, is everything okay?" Vic asked me. I didn't know how to respond to that. So I went straight into my story.

"Guys, I know I woke up screaming last night, and for that, I'm sorry. I guess I should have told you that I have PTSD. Normally, I have it under control and I don't let it dictate my life. But after everything that happened with my family, it's starting to get worse. The nightmares are so vivid." I said weakly.

"Why do you have PTSD? What happened to you?" Mikey was the next person to speak up. I started to feel my eyes brim with tears. I continued.

"When I was 14, I met this boy, he was 4 years older than me. I fell head over heels in love with him. I gave him everything, including my virginity. For awhile, he was amazing. The best boyfriend a girl could ever ask for. He even helped me stop cutting for awhile. Then things changed" They all looked at me, and nodded for me to continue. "When he went away to college, he started drinking a lot. I thought nothing of it. Until he came home on the weekends to visit. The drinking brought out the monster in him. He started to become aggressive with me. At first, it was mainly just yelling at me. He yelled at me for everything.

It eventually turned into him hitting me. It was about once every two months though. He'd always apologize and say he'd never do it again. I believed him, so I kept forgiving him. But then it became worse and more frequent. He became careless, he no longer hit me in spots where people wouldn't see the bruises. He'd punch my arms, and legs, and leave these huge bruises." The boys all had tears in their eyes at this point. But I didn't stop. "Two years later, at 16, I decided that I finally had enough. He came home one weekend, and I told him that it was over. But I made the mistake of telling him in person, while he was drunk. He told me that I had no right to leave him after everything he'd done for me. That was the night that he raped me."

I was the one crying now. I just told the boys something that I've never told anyone else before. They all probably thought I was a dirty, worthless, whore now. I couldn't even look at them. After a minute of them processing everything I said, I felt the couch shift. All four boys were surrounding me, and hugging me as tight as they possibly could. I just cried, not saying a word. They cried with me.

Tony was the next to speak, which surprised me. He was usually shy around me, seeing as we never spent a lot of time together. "Abigail, you do not, under any circumstance, deserve that. But please know how unbelievably strong we all think you are. After everything you've been through, you're still here. You're a survivor." All the boys nodded their head in agreement. I smiled through my tears and took my time looking at each one of them.

"Thank you, all of you, so much for being here. It means a lot to me. Can we have a sleep over tonight? We can stay up and watch Harry Potter" Mike's eyes perked up; "and we can watch Star Wars too!" I giggled as Tony's eyes perked up. A chorus of yes's came my way. They all went to get movies, popcorn and other stuff from their rooms.

I sat thinking to myself while waiting for them. I really hope that I'll be able to move past this now that I've told someone. I hope everything will get better. I mean, a girl can hope, right?