Author: Cheryl McIntyre

I feel him move. Feel his hand brush against my skin. I jump, startled. He pauses for a moment, and then I hear the metallic sound as he loosens his belt. Then the drag of his zipper.

I whimper.

No no no no no no no no.

Every lesson we learned in grade school about stranger danger runs through my mind. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t take candy from strangers. Never accept rides from strangers. Don’t open the door for strangers. Never tell strangers you’re home alone. On and on and on.

Not once did my mom or my teachers tell me what to do about someone I knew.

Nobody taught me how to stop someone from raping me. They only explained what I should do after the fact.

Garrett touches me. His long fingers push inside, stroking and pumping as if he’s trying to make me feel good now. As if he could. As if this is normal. Wanted.

My hands press flat into the wall, nails clawing at the mortar. I wait for him to take his disgusting fingers out of me. I wait for him to let me go. Tears of fear, of shame, of absolute agony burn my eyes.

This isn’t happening.

This isn’t happening to me.

It can’t be.

Garrett removes his fingers and I propel myself backward, hoping to catch him off guard, but he still has my neck in his hold. He squeezes, his fingertips digging into my muscles. It hurts so badly I nearly drop to my knees. He easily maneuvers me back into place. He positions me how he wants me. Stomach to the wall, arms raised. He kicks at my feet until my legs are spread to his liking.

I think I ask him to stop again. I think I tell him no. I’m crying too hard to know for sure. I know I’m screaming it inside of my head. I’m screaming for my dad. For my brother. My mother. For anyone, anywhere to help me. Save me.

His stomach is pushing into my back. He breathes into my hair. I can smell his cologne. I feel him rub his erection against me. I gag.

He thrusts hard once, burying himself to the hilt. My muscles clench in reaction. Garrett groans as if it feels good. I think I’m going to throw up. He moves against me, pulling out and pushing in again. Each time is torture. It feels like he’s ripping my insides apart as he continues to drive into me, harder and harder. He makes no attempt to be gentle.

I wish I were dead.

He sighs with gratification. I want to die and he’s moaning with delight.

My mind shuts off.

I stop fighting him. I stop crying. I just stand in the same spot, allowing him to do what he wants to me. I don’t know how much time passes. It feels endless.

His harsh movements stop. He says my name tenderly. His hand caresses my hair. His other hand massages my neck sympathetically.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he croons. “This is our little secret.”

Our little secret.

I nod. I’d agree to just about anything right now.

He steps back and I turn slowly, adjusting my skirt to cover myself. I still feel bare.

I don’t want to look at him, but I need to see what he’s doing. I need to see him leave. I watch him tuck his now flaccid dick into his jeans and button up. He bends, scooping up my discarded shorts and holds them out to me. I don’t move to take them. I can’t. He shakes his hand, annoyed. When he takes a step in my direction, I finally move, pushing myself forward. I snatch them from him and back away quickly.

He waits, watching me as I slip them on, and pull them up my legs. His hooded eyes roam over my body. I’m terrified of the thoughts running through his head. He looks like he wants to do it all over again. To hurt me again.

I frantically try to think of some way to deter him. Something I can say or do to sicken him or scare him or…

The happy call of cheering students grows louder for just a moment as if someone has opened the gym door. Garrett blinks, stirring from whatever sick thoughts he was mulling over. He runs his fingers through his hair, and then he walks out the door as if nothing happened.

I collapse to the floor in relief. My knees throb in pain, but it’s mild compared to the ache inside. I only stay this way for a few seconds. I’m scared he’ll come back. I’m scared he’ll do it again. I grab the wooden bench and pull myself up gingerly.

I’m halfway to the door when I catch my reflection in the mirror. My mascara is smeared in black streaks under my eyes. My hair is hanging in chunks, half in and half out of my ponytail. My sweater is askew, the collar stretched out of place.

I stare at the spot of blue. I stare so hard it blurs.

I can’t walk through the halls like this.

Everybody will know what happened. They’ll know what he did to me.

I yank the band from my hair and finger brush it as quickly as I can before splashing water on my face.

As I wipe at the smudges under my eyes, I come to terms with the fact that I’ve just been raped.

I’ve been raped.

I’ve been raped.

I’ve been raped.

The hallway is empty. Deserted. My shoes squeak against the shiny linoleum as I hurry toward the muffled voices of two hundred of my fellow students.

Wait.

No.

This isn’t right.

I look down at myself. At my uniform. Why am I wearing my old cheer uniform? My head shifts to the locker room door, and then to the doors leading into the gym.

No. No.

It’s not real. I’m not here.

Hands slide around my waist, tugging me back against a solid chest.

This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This. Isn’t. Real.

I wake with a start, my heart pounding in my chest. I can feel the salty streaks my tears have left behind. Taste the bile in my throat.

He’s always there. Every time I close my eyes.

I’ll never be free of him.

Three

Link

How far is too far?

What is that point you can’t come back from?

What line do you have to cross before you’re so far gone you can’t even recognize yourself anymore?

Aaron has continued to live his life as if he didn’t rape and murder a young woman. As if he wasn’t a part of destroying so many lives. As if he didn’t make Livie’s final moments absolute torture. All those men have just gone on. Gotten married. Had kids.

They go to parties. Movies. They have fun. They smile and laugh. They don’t allow that night to affect them.

So how far is too far?

No matter how many times I ask myself this question I can’t seem to find the answer.

I always come back to one important fact.

Livie is dead because of them.

I haven’t recognized myself since she left me. She was so much a part of my life—a vital piece of who I was—that without her, I’m just missing.

Does it matter if I cross that invisible line? If I go too far? If I can never come back?

I don’t think so. Because what’s left for me here?

Nothing.

I’ve been told over and over how time heals all wounds. Time will make it easier. People say whatever they can think of in an attempt to make you feel better.

But here’s the truth: It’s been years and she is still all I think about. All I miss. All that is missing from me. Time has not healed that loss or filled that hole. If anything, it has only taken her farther away from me.

It doesn’t get easier.

It just doesn’t get easier. And I can’t stand it. I can’t stand myself. I can’t stand that these men are free. Unpunished. I can’t stand pretending. Restraining myself.

I need them to suffer—to pay—before I go insane.

Maybe I already am.

Four

Rocky

I lie in bed, unable to sleep. This isn’t unusual. But the reason I can’t sleep tonight is. My thoughts are stuck on Linken Elliot.

I can’t stop wondering what happened to make him start teaching self-defense classes. Joe said there was a girl. That Link does it for her. Who was the girl? His sister? Mother? Girlfriend? Wife?

What happened to her?

If I know the answers maybe I’ll feel better about the classes. About him.

I replay the class. What Link said. How his eyes met mine when he talked. How dead his stare is. How much his smile transforms his face.

I think I want to know him. Understand him.

I imagine what it would be like to touch him. To let him touch me.

I don’t allow men to touch me. I haven’t had sex with a man since Garrett forced himself on me. Now all I’m able to do is order men to their knees so they can go down on me. I have to be in control.

My need for power came to me by accident. It was just after the prosecutor broke the news that there’d be no charges brought against Garrett. I was…upset. Enraged is probably a more fitting word.

So I did what any teenager unable to deal with her emotions would do. I went to a party and got mind-numbingly drunk. Several things occurred that night. The first being that I realized I liked—no I loved—the effects of alcohol. I was numb. Free. And it felt amazing.

I also found out that Cecily, my friend since childhood, didn’t believe I was raped after she very bluntly explained, “Whores weren’t allowed at her party.”

Doug kindly offered to drive me home after witnessing Cecily berate me in front of all her guests.

As we drove in silence, I looked at Doug and was astonished that I was still attracted to him. The thought of having sex with him both turned me on and sickened me simultaneously.

And then I wondered if Doug could possibly erase what Garrett did.

I told him to pull over. He did so, quickly, thinking I was sick. I told him how I could still feel Garrett inside of me. Against me. His breath and his hands. All of it. Always. I asked him if he could take it away.

When he asked me how, I explained I didn’t know. But the need was real. It was overwhelming. It was consuming me. So we played a dangerous game of trial and error. What I could handle and what I couldn’t. It became apparent fairly quickly that I couldn’t handle much. But I liked this game because I controlled it. I controlled him. And when he lowered his head and swept his tongue against me as I ordered him to, I liked that too. I liked it because it felt good. And it felt good because Garrett didn’t do that.

I was too embarrassed to see Doug again after that. By that point I had stopped going to school, so it wasn’t hard to avoid him. Though I didn’t like to be touched, I had become addicted to this new game, so I began searching for ways to reenact it. On a search for that person who could finally erase Garrett.

As soon as I hit drinking age, I started hitting up bars. Bathrooms became my room of choice because I felt a false sense of protection remaining in a public place. The fact that a public restroom is similar to a locker room is something I refuse to think too hard on.

I haven’t felt a man’s hands on me intimately in three years. Yet, I can’t stop picturing Link’s hands now, gliding along my heated skin. Pressing and caressing all the right places. His callused fingers prodding all my girly spots. The thought scares me and excites me at the same time.

I slip my own hand under the blanket and rest it on my belly. I concentrate on the pressure of my touch, flexing my fingers one at a time. The heat of my palm against my stomach stirs my need. Arousal flares within me.

Link’s smile flashes behind my eyelids. I envision he’s smiling at me. For me.

And I want to play the game with him.

My fingers work under the waistband of my sleep shorts and into my panties. I keep my touch soft, gentle, barely there as I caress my mound. Once, twice, three times. I’m so warm. My eyelashes flutter. My toes curl into the mattress.

I part my lips with my first and ring fingers, letting my middle finger play in my wetness. I’m slick and hot. I circle the sticky moisture around my clit. Each sweep pulls me closer.

My hand is no longer my own. It’s Link’s. It’s his fingers parting me. His finger rubbing, touching, causing my hips to jerk with each stroke.

His other hand slips under my tank top, finding my breast. He pinches my nipple, gently at first, and then firmer until it almost hurts in an exquisite way. I moan, low and long. It feels so good.