Disclaimer: If I owned Degrassi then I wouldn't be posting this on fan fiction would I? Degrassi would also have a lot more anti-social people in it. Anyways this is my first fan fic so please R&R. Enjoy!
Warning: This chapter contains some quite disgusting facts, they may disturb even teenagers. This story is not meant for the eyes of children who can't accept that rape is not an easy thing and don't realise that it leaves a mark. This is dedicated to all poor teen girls who have suffered from sexual assault, may you recover from your suffering, people do care for you!
Chapter 1: Only the Beginning
As she stumbled onto the grounds of Degrassi Community School, Grace hurt all over, not just physically. Her hair was loose, falling just below her shoulders, normally it would have annoyed her to have it flapping around and covering her face but at the moment all she could think of was finding someone who she knew and could trust.
Oh God how it hurts! She thought as fresh tears began to stream down her face.
Remembering that some of her friends had sport at the moment and would most likely be in the gym. That was where she headed, each step feeling worse than the last until finally she made it to the gym. The small girl managed to heave the heavy doors open and fit her thin body through the gap that she'd made, trying her best not to allow anything to touch her back, knowing the world of pain that would cause.
No one noticed her entering the gym but when the door slammed itself shut behind her almost everyone in the class turned to look at her. She scanned the curious faces for ones that she recognised, there was Jimmy and Marco standing a few metres away from each other, Jimmy with a basketball in his hand, Spinner wasn't far away.
The coach's whistle blew, forcing Grace to jump with fright at the loud, shrillness of the whistle. Obediently the class returned to their game of basketball, Marco, Jimmy and Spinner sneaking glances over at their coach as he questioned the undersized 16 year old girl standing in front of him.
Seeing Coach Armstrong approach her Grace instinctively pulled back a little, trying her best not to cringe away from this man who was only doing his job.
"Shouldn't you be in class?" He asked her as she looked up at him out of eyes filled with fear.
Grace merely nodded, not knowing what else to do; this had simply been the first place that she'd thought to come. She'd thought that she'd had no more tears left to cry but she was proved wrong when her eyes filled up and overflowed, starting a new wave of crying.
Coach Armstrong awkwardly reached down a hand to pat her in comfort but she cringed away again as though she thought the hand was going to hit her if she let it any closer. He frowned and was about to ask another question when Marco approached the brown haired girl and gently took her by the shoulders, soothing her as best he could.
Looking at Marco, Coach Armstrong frowned for a minute and then asked, "Do you know this girl?"
Marco nodded, continuing to rub one of his hands comfortingly up and down her thin arm, not daring to stop the flow of calm, quiet words that he was speaking into the ear of his distressed friend.
"Well could you please find out what's the matter?" He asked, a little impatiently.
Grace cringed at the tone in his voice, pulling closer to Marco, the only familiar and comforting thing around her.
"Ssssshhhhh," Marco soothed her as he looked up at the coach, trying to communicate that he was trying without stopping comforting Grace, "What's wrong? Huh? Do you want to tell me?"
His hand began to move from her arm to her back so that he would be surrounding her in what he hoped was a protective circle to her, to his surprise Grace pulled back away from him looking terrified. He frowned at her behaviour but continued to talk quietly, finally deciding on a good idea.
"Coach, she has a twin," Marco informed Coach Armstrong who had turned his attention back to the practice game taking place on the court, "Maybe she'd be more comfortable talking to her."
"Do you know what class she's in?" The coach asked turning back to look at Marco while he spoke to him.
"No, but I think that Jimmy does," Marco replied evenly, even if he had known what class Anna was in, he would still have stayed with Grace to comfort her.
"Right" The coach replied, "Jimmy, over here please."
Jimmy passed the ball to another player and jogged over to where the coach stood, "I've just been informed that you know what class this girl's twin is in. Is that right?"
"Yes sir," replied Jimmy, looking the coach in the eyes, "I know what class Anna's in."
"Then would you please run along and ask to borrow Anna for a bit, say that your teacher has said sorry for the disturbance but she is needed for matters concerning her twin, do you understand?" The coach asked.
"Yes sir," Jimmy repeated before running out of the gym.
-
Anna was sitting next to the back window of her class when she noticed Jimmy, one of her friends, come and knock on the door. He looked worried and glanced nervously over at her before addressing Mr Simpson.
"Excuse me Mr Simpson, sorry for interrupting but Coach Armstrong was wondering if he could borrow Anna for a bit," Jimmy said from the doorway, "It's to do with her twin sir."
At the mention of her twin Anna sat up in her seat and looked over the heads of the students in front of her at Mr Simpson, a pleading look shooting in his direction. She barely waited for him to nod before she picked up her books, stuffed them into her bag and ran for the gym, half a step behind Jimmy.
When she entered the gym, the first thing that Anna saw was Marco standing nearby, gently rubbing Grace's arm as calmly as he could. She rushed over, dumping her bag and instinctively running to comfort her twin.
"Gracie," She called out to her twin as she half ran to take over from Marco, she fell into her native tongue, Arabic, "What happened? Why didn't you call us this week? Damn I was worried about you."
Grace shook her head as Marco released her and allowed Anna to take over as head comforter, he returned to his basketball game, glancing over as often as he could.
"Sir?" Anna asked the coach standing nearby, "Could I please take my sister over to the stage? Away from most of the noise?"
"Just as long as you stay where I can see you," he agreed.
"Thank you," Anna said as she led her twin away, questioning her in a calm voice that seemed to comfort her no matter what Anna was saying.
Once they were seated on the steps leading up to the stage Anna began to question her twin and fuss over the thin brown haired girl. Eventually she asked what had happened and pointed out that she couldn't help if she didn't know what it was that her help was needed for.
At this point Grace stood and said hotly, "I was raped okay? Are you happy now, I was walking to the train station and then a group of boys came out of nowhere and took me off to some run down old house and then raped me," All of this was said in Arabic so even though the students having their sports class were aware of the yelling teen, they didn't understand what she said. "By Isis it hurts," She finished as she sat down and leaned her head and her right shoulder against the wall.
At first all that Anna could do was blink, then she found her voice, "When? Who was it? I swear by any God or Goddess who has something to do with this that I'll kill them for what they've done."
Grace shook her head, pressing her eyes shut in an attempt to stop herself from crying again, "Anna you couldn't do anything, it's too late now. They've already done the damage."
Anna went to pull her sister into a hug but the moment her hands touched Grace's back the little girl pulled away as fast as she could, a strangled yelp coming forth. Frowning at her twin, Anna moved around behind her twin and lifted up the back of her shirt a bit. The sight that met her was sickening, her twin's back was a mass of gashes and bruises, varying in size.
"Grace who did this to you and why?" Anna murmured, still speaking Arabic.
Grace put her head down, "They did, I didn't always do what they wanted straight away so they added up all the times that I didn't and then when they'd finished with me they beat me for every time I was disobedient."
"Well I'm not just going to sit by and watch you go through all this without help Gracie, I can't do that, we're going to talk to someone about this, Mr Radditch if we have to," Anna said, pulling Grace gently to her feet.
The fear showed in Grace's eyes at the thought of telling someone in detail about what had happened. She knew deep down that it was the right thing to do and that it could help her to put her rapists behind bars, even if it was only in a juvenile detention centre but telling someone about it? That would mean that she'd have to relive every moment of that hell house by telling people over and over, first Mr Radditch, then he would want her to tell the Police and then she might even have to repeat it to a councillor, she didn't want this.
"Grace," Anna began, "I have no idea how scared and hurt you are right now but it won't help you in any way to keep this to yourself. You keep this to yourself and they can easily come after you again or they could move on and give someone else this amount of pain. Please just come with me, you don't have to talk to Radditch, I'll do all of the talking if you want me to but we have to tell someone."
The small brown haired girl looked down at the floor and nodded, she would let Radditch know, but if anything more had come from her rape then she couldn't hide that forever. Others would find out, people talked and then no one would want to be near her, 16 years old and if she was pregnant then she would be thought strange and an outcast. That wasn't what she needed.
Somehow Anna managed to get permission from Coach Armstrong to take Grace up to Mr Radditch's office without telling him too many details of what had happened to Grace. Marco, Jimmy and Spinner paused in their game as Anna carefully led Grace away from the gym, all three of them wanted to follow the twins and find out what was wrong but they figured that someone would tell them soon.
Somehow Grace managed to keep a calm composure while Anna explained to Mr Radditch why Grace had been absent from school for the past week and why she was now in such bad condition. After Anna had explained all that she knew Mr Radditch turned to Grace and began to question her.
Eventually he was done but not before she started to cry again, she was angry at the boys who'd done this to her and it hurt that they'd done it. Just because Mr Radditch had been done speaking to them didn't mean that this was it for Grace, Mr Radditch called the Police as Grace had thought he would and explained as much as he could over the phone.
It took the police 20 minutes to send someone around to the school to take Grace into the station so that they could question her about the events of the past few days. Anna was allowed to come with her and provide comfort for the small girl as the police questioned her over and over and then began the standard procedure for rape victims.
By the time the police finished taking the DNA samples from where the boys had left them on her body it was 5:00 and Grace was feeling thoroughly depressed, all that she wanted to do was to crawl into some hole and disappear. She wished that none of this had ever happened and that life would just return to normal, but she knew that it wouldn't, not now; it hurt so much that she just couldn't see where the pain would end.
Saxon, Grace's older brother had been filled in on what had happened by Anna when she'd asked him to come down to the police station. He'd excused himself from work for the night and driven as fast as he could down to the police station. When the police had finished their questioning and assured Grace that they were doing all that they could to catch the ones who'd raped her.
The ride back to Saxon's apartment was silent, Saxon drove while Anna sat in the back of his four-wheel-drive with Grace leaning against her. A doctor had been called down to the police station and she'd cleaned and bandaged Grace's back so now that pain was a little more bearable although it still hurt. This had been the same doctor to take the DNA samples and to carry out any other procedures necessary for the situation.
Anna helped her up into the elevator up to where Saxon's apartment was while Saxon handled the buttons of the lift and let them into his living room. Calmly leading Grace to the bedroom that they shared Anna helped her change into her pyjamas and then helped her into bed, pulling the covers up and turning to go.
"Anna," Grace mumbled from her bed, she was dead tired and talking was an effort but she didn't care anymore, "Don't go, please don't leave me alone."
Anna looked sadly at her twin but nodded and pulled a chair over to where she could sit beside Grace's bed, a reassuring presence. Grace reached out a hand from under her sheets and held it open waiting for Anna to take it, she did and slowly Grace began to relax, finally falling asleep.
When Anna was sure that by leaving the room she wouldn't wake Grace she gently let go of her twin's hand and padded out of the room. Saxon was sitting on the couch looking out of the window in the living room. Anna sat down beside him and put her hand on his knee.
"It's my fault," He said, "I know it is, I shouldn't ever have let her walk to the train station after dark."
"Saxon it's not your fault," Anna said calmly but with reproach in her voice, "It's not my fault, not Grace's, it's not anyone's except for the guys who chose to rape her. We didn't even know what was going on, we couldn't have helped her because we didn't know where she was, didn't know that she wasn't safe and if we had, no amount of searching would have found her."
"I guess," Saxon said and Anna could see that he still doubted this.
"Look, Saxon," She began, "Grace is going to have a pretty rough time, we shouldn't be wasting our time trying to blame people when she's going to need our help."
Saxon looked at his sister and smiled weakly, "You're getting to be more like Mum every day, so is Grace." He stopped and sighed before continuing, "Yes you're right, but how do we help her?"
"We stand by her and be ready if she needs us," Anna said calmly, "This is only the beginning for her."
