Titled:9/16/1996

Titled:9/16/1996

14 didn't mean anything before that day.
An unremarkable number.
On an autumn evening.

The sky was natures jewelry box and the leaves sparkled like heavenly adornments.
Reds oranges and yellows setting the sky ablaze.
The smell of a nearby bonfire hung in the air like the tangible
scent of comfort.

I walked a bit unsteady in shoes that were a little to high,
but still there was a spring in my step because I wore a new sweater beneath my new jacket.

My mother had let me use just a drop of her favorite perfume Eternity.

I felt so grown up like maybe I was almost a woman.
When I look back now I could weep for the child I was.
The naivety that I had then and the reason it was torn away in just a few short hours.

I walked up the drive and rang the doorbell
Her mother opened the door with a smile
and greeted me with a hug.

My parents had said the party would be "safe."
Since there would be a chaperon there.

After that night we all had to redefine what safety was.

I was drinking a Pepsi when he came up to me.
The brother of my best friend.
He was home from university,
he always came home on the weekends for hot meals and laundry service.

"Aren't you pretty as a blossoming Rose?"
He knew I hated my middle name and so he always made little jokes. It embarrassed me, but at the same time the sound of his voice and the way he looked at me made butterflies flutter in my belly.

He was 23 and until the past 6 months he had treated me like a kid sister. Now somehow in a way I could never fully explain our dynamics were different.

When he would touch me under the guise of a tickle war it didn't seem quite appropriate.
There were a million warning that I just didn't see.

So when he asked if I wanted to see his new stereo I said "sure."
As we walked up the stairs I could feel the boys and girls there looking at us. I was nervous wanting to turn back.
He whispered some forgotten joke under his breath and I laughed. I could feel his fingertips pressing into my back as we hit the final stair.

His room was cluttered and posters of topless woman on beaches appeared glossy under the low lamp light.

There on his desk next to his computer was a shiny metallic gray stereo. It seemed to have more knobs and buttons than necessary.

I sat on the bed since he was in the desk chair flipping the knobs and switches.

Very soon the room was filled with the sound of electric guitars.
It was too loud.

When he sat on the bed next to me the butterflies in my stomach disappeared and in their place was a feeling I would later recognize as fear.

He kissed me then, draping his hand around my shoulder. I tried to push him away as he pushed me back. He was stronger than me and held me easily with one hand as he straddled my hips.

Pushing the thin cotton barrier that separated us aside he burst through my innocence in less than an instant.

I was screaming then,
and he slapped me hard enough to shatter my cheek bone and make my eye swell shut.

I was crying
and still he pushed, laughing
as pain burned up my insides.
I pushed him again hoping that the pain had made me stronger.
It hadn't.

When he was spent he pulled away and arranged his clothes,
then as he was leaving he told me he loved me.

I lay in that room crying
praying that the tears could wash away the pain.

As I lay there my blood soaked the the light blue sheets from the middle to the edges of the bed like a sunburst.

When I could I stood,
and walked out of that room and down the stairs and out of my childhood

There were more stares and everyone was hysterical except for me. Blood soaked my legs from the inside of my thighs to the insides of my to high shoes. I could still smell the scent of the bonfire smoke as I shivered in the night air.

I had forgotten my new jacket

I made it all the way to my front steps before I passed out.

Before that night 14 didn't mean anything
I just didn't know it was everything.