Scars

This piece requires a content warningfor explicit descriptions of sexual assault, violence, and rape. The complete piece, which details the author’s experience more fully, can be found online at whatthefmagazine. wordpress.com.

WTF believes that these stories need to be told, though we are conscious of the emotional distress it may cause readers. We remind our readers to take care of themselves.

1. Just focus on the lines. Stay in the lines.

5. His laugh becomes a menacing echo in my ears. I try to focus on my breathing. It’s too quiet. Way too quiet. I crank up the radio, barely noticing that all I’m listening to is the empty static between stations.

6. If you make it home, you can forget all about this night. It will just be a regular old work day in the back of your mind and – SHIT.

7. I jerk the wheel to the left and narrowly avoid drifting onto the sidewalk.

9. 5:30 a.m. I’m home. Too bad I have to be up in three hours. What if he’s there tomorrow? I collapse into bed and clutch my pillow to my stomach where my insides are clenched and quivering as if preparing for a gut punch.

12. I should have screamed.

14. But he’s my boss – my forty-something, married boss. What the hell am I supposed to do?

21. I pretend everything is alright. And everyone around me believes it. I plaster on my best smile and keep moving. The few people who know the story check up on me occasionally, and I simply respond, “I’m fine; I mean this stuff just happens I guess.” It shouldn’t be so easy to put up this happy front.

23. I wish I could say that incident was the first and only time I’d ever felt this emptiness and confusion that lingered in the back of my head before. I wish I could, but I can’t.

28. Nothing happened; you’re fine; nothing happened.

33. I distractedly reach for the hand-blown glass bong coated with glimmering colors swirling in psychedelic patterns that sits next to my bed and take a hit. Or five. The smoke clouds my room in the same way it clouds my head. Maybe I appeared easy; maybe it seemed as though I were asking for it – Each puff pushes me further into oblivion, further from that first time. From that second time. I slowly drift to sleep.

34. It’s your fault.

35. My hands are sweating so profusely I can barely hold onto my phone. I glance down at the notes I’ve quickly typed out on the glaring white screen. Fuck it. I put my phone down and step up to the microphone. I clear my throat and start to talk. My voice is shaking but I push through it.

36. I proceed to tell an audience of a hundred strangers about my rape. About the boy who took my innocence and smashed it into a million pieces. About the impossibility of forgetting as I am forced to walk by his house every. single. day. About how every time I see his dingy moped leaning up against the worn-stone porch, my heart beats a little faster and my hands get a little clammier. About how I never even found out his name, but his face is branded in my memory. About the questions that have swirled around and around in my head for the past five months. What did I do wrong? Why do I feel like I have to justify every action of that night when I tell the story to my closest and extremely supportive friends? Why did I just ignore it for so long?

37. Maybe the numbness was all I could handle. Feeling nothing was easier than exposing myself to the depth of my pain.

38. I gaze out into the crowd, suddenly struck by a feeling of awe. So many people showed up to my organization’s “Speak Out” event. So many people came just to listen to and support the ungodly number of sexual assault survivors on campus. The strength of the people that have spoken before me empowers me. I didn’t even expect to speak at this event, but they lit a fire inside me. I couldn’t keep quiet anymore. Suddenly, just as I am about to leave the stage, I realize I need to say something. I take a deep breath.

39. “For the longest time, I thought this was all my fault. And no one should ever have to think that. That burden is not yours to bear; it belongs to the coward who assaulted you. It is never your fault.”

40. I walk to my seat in shock. I’ve never even thought those words, let alone spoke them out loud. Is it easier to tell other people what I’m not yet ready to internalize myself? I make a decision: this moment, five months after the night of my rape, is when I will begin healing.

41. And for a long time, I did heal. For the remainder of my sophomore year and into the early months of the summer following my junior year, I learned the therapeutic power of sharing my experience with others. I became an eager helper for people who simply wanted to tell their story or who wanted advice. I made progress. I confronted the issue and worked on coping with it, rather than just ignoring it.

42. I learned how to better manage my anxiety and gradually got less nervous being alone with men. Instead of withdrawing into myself, I opened up. I was determined to turn my pain to strength. Things were looking up.

43. But then the night of the Adult Party came around.

46. We sat in her room for hours, talking and crying. I felt like I could trust her because she had been through the same horrific experience. It was like we shared some sick bond – a sinister sisterhood. For some reason, being in that sisterhood helped me relax and chipped away at my hard shell of an exterior. It’s why I joined the sexual assault group; it’s why I welcome others to share their stories with me. I reminded myself that it’s okay to feel.

47. I let my body flood with emotion. It floods with pain. It floods with despair. It floods with anger. I can feel the scar on my hand pulsing, as if my insides are reliving the moment that my blood glided across my skin, burning as the chlorine filled the wound.

48. What if he does it to someone else?

51. I’m still tired.

52. The men who raped me have never had to witness the emotional turmoil that wreaked havoc on my social, mental, and physical health following their coldhearted actions. Every time I run my fingers over the smooth heart on my hand, I’m reminded of the two strangers who never faced consequences for their actions, who never had to think about the destruction they caused in my life.

53. I don’t really think I’ll ever be able to forget what has happened to me; I’ll have to learn how to live with it. Instead of letting these men take over my life, I’m determined to turn their destruction into empowerment. Some sniveling coward who resorts to force to get sex is not going to ruin my life.

54. The scars will stay with me, but I will not let them define me.

By Anonymous