Stronger: An Excerpt

Stronger

EXTREMELY ROUGH DRAFT

I consider myself a walking poster-child for those poorly-timed clich that people tell you when you're going through a rough time. Things like: "It will all be okay in the end..." and "You will make it through this..." and my personal favorite: "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."





Ever since I was young, I've had to deal with some pretty rough things. There were many problems in my adolescence, and it took me a long time to come to terms with some of the things that I've had thrown my way. I don't believe in the 'Karma Gods', but then, maybe I should.





I could chronologically list off everything that has happened to me, but that wouldn't be much help, because who writes like that anymore? No, I won't list them off, but I will warn you now: this book contains extremely mature subject matter and I advise discretion if you are to continue.





Also, you should all know that everything in this story is 100% true, save for the names. They have been changed for privacy reasons. Everything you read from this point forward has actually happened in my life.





If you can't handle traumatic stories, then I suggest you stop reading. There has been more trauma in my life than I'd care to admit. I sincerely hope that by the end of this book, you will be able to take at least one good thing from your experience reading it. I'm not telling my story to become famous. That will never happen. I'm not telling it for sympathy either. I'm not even telling it to make money, as that probably won't happen either. My story had to come out in some way, and I have decided that this was the most positive outlet I could use. So, without further adieu, I give you: me.













Sometimes, things are just meant to go the way they do. Like meeting your soul mate in a cute little coffee shop in New York City, or being seriously injured by a piece of glass falling from a massive skyscraper. Things just happen. Sometimes, they are wonderful things. Other times, not so much. For me, it was the latter of the two.





I was twelve years old when my childhood ended. My mother Catherine and father Jack had been divorced since I was a baby, and my father had remarried some woman from another country, where he packed up and moved, leaving his four children behind him. We got to visit him sometimes, maybe twice a year, and because it was so far away from us, it was usually for weeks at a time.





One time I visited, he and I were the only ones home. My stepmother Shannon was at work, and my sister and two brothers were out playing with friends in the complex. I don't remember why I stayed home that time, but maybe if I hadn't, things would have turned out differently.





My father was a very loving dad. He did everything for us, when we were with him. That day, though, he became a different man. He took my innocence away from me, and my virginity went with it. I can still see the way his eyes sparkled, the way his smile turned sour, and I can still feel his hands gripping me sometimes. It never goes away.





I was twelve, and it was his word or mine. I couldn't tell anyone about what had happened, and even if I could get the words out, no one would have believed that I was raped. So, like most do, I kept my mouth shut. For two entire years I carried this secret. I was mortified every time I looked in the mirror, and ashamed more than anything. Images of him flashed through my mind every single day, until I found a way to let out all of my pent-up guilt and shame.





I became a cutter. It happened one day while I was at school; I got a nasty paper cut in the gap between my index finger and thumb. I gasped at the pain, but then realized that I enjoyed it.

From that point on, I would go home and experiment on myself with blades from razors, scissors, and kitchen knives. I used my wrists and thighs to let it out, and I hid the marks with long-sleeves and pants.





I had no idea what I was doing, I only knew that cutting myself made me feel like the pain in my head and in my heart were easing. It was almost like the physical pain that I was putting myself in was taking my mind off of the emotional pain.





I got so bad sometimes that I would run away from home. Sometimes for weeks at a time. I put my mother through absolute hell. She never knew where I was, and my older sister Kelly often came with me. If there's anything I regret in my life, this would be it; that I caused my mother so much pain. Eventually, when I was fourteen, my mother couldn't handle the stress anymore, so she got my family together and they decided that I needed to go away for a while. To live with my father.





                   I lost my mind.





I couldn't tell them why I didn't want to go, but I must have freaked them out because eventually they decided that I would instead go and live with my uncle Toby and aunt Samantha. Their home was over an hour away from where my mom lived, but it was far away from my dad, so I agreed, even though it killed me to have to leave my mom like that.





I moved to my aunt and uncle's house, and started school there. Aunt Samantha was a gym buff, so we did plenty of things together after school, including visiting her sister and her three kids. I knew the kids pretty well, I had grown up around them, and so I was cool with hanging out whenever we were over.





Stacey, the daughter, and her two older brothers Ben and Charlie, were around my age, if a little older, so we got along great. They had a hot tub at their house that we would frequently use, and it was really fun. I liked spending time with Ben the most. He seemed to see right through me, and he would always talk to me like an adult. I really liked him. I guess I also had a small crush on him, but I never told anyone because our families were so close.

We aren't related, as my aunt Samantha is my uncle's wife, so it was okay for me to feel the way I did, as long as I didn't tell anyone.





I did tell someone though. I told Ben.





What fourteen-year-old girl possesses enough courage to tell her first crush she likes him, I'll never know but apparently I did. He took it well, smiling mischievously and telling me that it was the same for him, but that it was probably because we understood each other so well and that it was best to keep it a secret. I knew then, that he was the first person in my life that I felt I could ever trust. That night, Ben and I went into the hot tub alone together, and I trusted him.





I told him about my dad. I told him the one thing that I couldn't even admit to myself. He didn't take it well. He got really angry, and then he cried. He told me he was sorry. He held me while I cried. He told me over and over again how I shouldn't have had to go through that, and that he would protect me. Nothing bad would ever happen to me again.





I wish he could see me now, I really do.





My aunt picked me up the next day, and on our long drive home, she asked, "Is there anything you would like to talk to me about?" To which I didn't reply. I didn't know what she was getting at. But then it hit me. I whipped my head around to look at her, stone-faced and gripping the steering wheel hard enough to turn her knuckles white. I shook my head and said "No."





Eventually it all came out. Everything. Every detail that I could remember was tumbling out of my mouth. The one thing I didn't tell her about was Ben and I. I wanted to protect him, even after he had done what he did. I didn't understand. I had trusted him. Samantha must have read my mind because she handed me the phone and sent me into the kitchen to phone Ben.





Sitting on the counter, hugging my knees and wishing he were there, I told Ben about my talk with my aunt. After a very teary apology, he was silent for a while. We both were. He wanted to know that I wasn't angry with him - that I wasn't going to hate him. I could never hate him, and I told him as much. I couldn't forgive him though.





Looking back, I know that Ben was only trying to do the right thing. He didn't want my dad to get away with what he did to me. I understood that, but I had lived with it for two years already, and I was tired. I was tired of carrying that secret like it was a bomb; tired of walking around thinking I had something stamped on my forehead telling people what had happened. I was just tired of having to pretend.





There were countless statements to the police. The phone call with my mother when she found out. When I eventually moved home again, four months after leaving in the first place, I had to sit at the top of my mom's stairs and listen to them while they told my sister. That's the worst part. She didn't believe me. I knew she wouldn't. It still broke my heart. My own sister, calling me a liar, about something so serious.





I wish that this part of my story ended well. I wish it ended at all. But, like I said before, things just happen.





The case against my 'father' was dropped. There wasn't enough evidence. He walked away from this whole thing. I was fifteen when it was 'over'. My sister still doesn't believe me. Neither does anyone on his side of my family. I haven't spoken to those people in over six years. My sister and I still talk, but there's always that elephant in the room. Always.









These chapters in my life overlap sometimes, but I am doing my best to keep them in order.





For the purposes of moving on, though, I will tell you that when I was sixteen, my father was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Cancer. After everything he had done to me, he got sick.





I sent him a letter in March, when my sister went to visit him in the hospital. The letter said that even though he took something from me that I could never get back, he was still my father, and that I hoped he'd get better, that maybe we could figure things out eventually.





I don't think she ever gave it to him, but maybe my stepmother took it before he could get it. I waited everyday thinking that he might call, that I might get some response. I even tried to find his number. No one would tell me what hospital he was at. I'll never know. He died in the first week of May.