'I should have listened'

Tears pooled out of her eyes, as she sat on the bed, blood and bruises covering her body. She sat there, not knowing what to do. Her first thought was to call her best friend, but she would not come. Then her mind wondered to her Mother, who would not answer the phone. The girl had nowhere to turn.

And so she sat there, crying and shaking. Nobody would come to help her. Nobody would care enough to save her.

He had warned her, not to come into his basement when they were home alone. She laughed and brushed it off, now wishing she had listened to his warning.

The warm body next to her stirred, and a pair of lips kissed her shoulder. "Not a word of this to anybody." He growled. She nodded, more tears steaming out of her eyes.

No matter how badly she wanted to shower, she couldn't. She wanted to brush her teeth and scrub her lips but she couldn't, for all were critical evidence in the rape charges she was going to press against him. But, he had outsmarted her, and shoved her into the bathroom and watched as she scrubbed every trace of his DNA off her pail, bruised body.

For three weeks she said nothing of what happened that night. She went on with her life, as best she could. But things were beginning to change. She distances herself from her friends, her family. Her dog slept outside her door every night, just wanting to be with her.

For months she went on as nothing happened. She continued to wear a smile and pretend to be alright, but she wasn't and she never will be.

And then it happened again. He did the same thing over and over for all of a year before she finally had enough.

As tears poured out of her eyes, she set up her camera very carefully, as to keep it out of his sight. They were going to know what he did to her.

And so, when he finally did, the camera caught the whole thing. She had proof now. But, when she showed it to the authorities, they laughed and sent her on her way, muttering as she walked away with tears in her eyes about "teenagers and their fantasies". She had never felt more humiliated.

She showed the video to her Mother the next week. A mother vows to protect their child from everything vile and foul and harmful in the world when they are blessed with a baby. Her mother did nothing of the sort. She gasped, put her hand over her heart and prayed to god to fix her daughter.

The following week, the video was shown to the Principle and the Guidence councilor, who took immediate action and had him removed from school. But she did not feel any safer.

And so, she wrote a note and left the password to her phone on her best friends doorstep before she went to the gas station on the corner. There, she was grabbed from behind and beaten and stabbed.

And as she lay dying, she smiled as the sun rose and a bright light appeared before her. She was free from her hell. And the last thing she saw was him being dragged off in handcuffs into the back of a cop car. She left in peace.

That very morning, as her best friend lay dying, the best friend opened her door for school, when she found the note and the phone. And on her way to the bus stop, she read the note and tears poured out of her eyes and she ran. She ran out into the street to the gas station to find the body of her best friend, dead. Her blue eyes stared  into the sky, a ghost of a smile on her lips.

Her death brought forth the guilt of the police, her mother and everybody who laughed at her when she told them she was raped.

A good girl, born into a good family, with good morals, made one mistake by dating a fractured, broken, distraught boy, who raped and beat her, was believed to be lying when she told them the truth.

After all, she was the girl who cried rape.