The Story of the Girl Who...

I like to think that I was normal... I mean, before the incident. I was just like any other 15-year old girl; annoying parent, fake friends (though in my naivety they’d seemed like genuine life-long sisters), a budding social life. Things were normal, which I guess by extension, made me normal.

I was never normal though. Something about me, something yet undiscovered by the great neurologists and behavioural therapists of the world, was just a little bit off. But as I said, I like to think that I was fine. I like to pretend. Pretence, you see, has a way of making people feel all right, in a way our natural makeup never could. It was one of my few comforts.

Anyway, that was before the incident. There was no pretending afterward, because try as I might, I just could not erase the memory of that night from my mind. It taught me something most people only learn much later in life. It taught me that life was imperfect, unfair, a biased game of chance out to get the layman. I could no longer let myself believe in my mother’s fantasy of a perfect family, because it was all truly absurd to me now.

The incident in itself wasn’t all that extraordinary. In fact, it was so common (happening about once every two minutes) that I would’ve been just another one of a statistic, had anyone known. But no one did, because of course, who wants to spread that kind of news? I harboured it selfishly to myself like a precious sweet, not sharing with even my ‘besties’. I thought it would be easy to hide, and it was, for a few months at least.

That night I returned home late (or early rather) but of course no one noticed because my mother was locked up in her room with another of her ‘sugar daddies’. I crept in, which was unnecessary, cleaned myself up, and went to bed, completely normal, as though the most traumatic event of my life had not just occurred. I knew the blood on my clothing (I was a virgin after all) would not be noted by my mother because she hardly deemed it necessary to do laundry. She just tossed our clothes after each use because she was confident that her expertise in the bedroom would buy us new ones.

The next day I even went to school as normal, because it didn’t seem as though the incident was enough to change my routine. That was why it was so easy to keep a secret (well that and the fact that no one really cared). It hardly seemed real even to me, though it had happened a mere 8 hours before. Perhaps it was just a dream, a figment of my unconscious imagination. Perhaps my remnant soreness was just a phantom pain, left over from my dream. Who knows?

My doubts were diminished about a week after, however, when a violent bout of nausea drove me out of my bed early in the morning and kept me hurling over the toilet for what felt like hours. I wasn’t much of a drinker (not that I had consumed alcohol recently anyway), I knew better than to eat anything in the fridge that smelled off, and I had never before in my life thrown up, not even when I was sick with the flu. This could only be one thing. I went to the corner store, surprising myself with my calmness, picked out a melange of pregnancy tests (ignoring the judgemental look from the woman behind the counter) and returned home.

I was right. Already growing inside me was a tiny being that was half me, half that mysterious man who’d cornered me last Thursday night. I thought it was a bit of an overreaction on my body’s part; I mean, it was a kind of overly climactic plot twist that followed the uncomfortable, albeit not painful, five minutes in which my virginity was robbed from me. Here I was, still a bit unsure that this was happening to me, and wherever he was, the father of my unborn child probably didn’t even remember raping me. I knew he was drunk at the time because of the sickening stench of his alcohol-laden breath, and his incoherence when he tried to order me to be quiet, though I wasn’t making any noise. The liquid drug in his system had no effect on either his motor control or his sex drive though, as he was successfully restraining me (not that I was resisting very much) and quite enjoying having his way with me.

Now that I knew that I was indeed going to be a mother, I was uncertain what to tell my own. What would she think? Would it ruin appearances? Probably. I opted to keep it from her. Should I tell my friends? It hardly seemed worth it.

I would probably get an abortion anyway. There wouldn’t be much point in telling anyone then. In a couple weeks, this will seem like a dream to me. What rape? What pregnancy? I could continue with my ‘perfect’ little life, and pretend, as I loved to, that I was normal.