Warning: Rape is mentioned. If that bothers you, please don't read.

"Did you hear about that Kirk girl?"

"What? No. I must have missed it. I skipped first period. What?"

"I heard that she waited after the football game to talk to the quarter back."

"No."

"Yes."

Faint, breezy voices drifted through the air, opaque, like smoke, wrapping around my throat. I walked down the hall, hugging myself tightly, so ashamed and sick. Everyone's eyes were on me, watching me, studying me, waiting for me to do something, or say something.

I averted my eyes, staring at my worn out shoes as I passed down the corridor. I heard the whispers, the voices, the fake concern, the ridicule, the scorn. The girls' voices rang through me, echoed through me, ripping me on the inside, twisting me. They didn't know what happened. They never would.

I was so ashamed.

I felt so wrong, so violated, used, and broken. When I shivered, I heard another wave a laughter, malicious, a roar in my deafened ears.

When his voice clamped around me, tight and heavy, I could only hear him, the awful words, derogatory, hateful, disgusting, and they made my entire body ache. His voice made every bruise, every open cut, throb and I bit my sore lip to hold back the sob, but I couldn't reign in the tears.

I was paraded all the way down the hall, lined on both sides by everyone who could fit, everyone who wanted to see, even the people I called my friends. They wanted to see my bruised and broken lip, cracked, and it bled a little if I opened my mouth too wide. They wanted to see the mottling around my wrists, all black and purple and so sore, and one person grabbed my wrist as I walked by, and I bit my tongue to trap the scream in my throat. They wanted to see that I had finally been put in my place.

No one knew what happened. Except for himself and I, no one would ever know. He threatened me when I was lying there bleeding that if I even breathed a word about this, he would hurt me so badly that I wouldn't ever be able to talk.

I was humbled in the hardest way.

Every fight I'd gotten in, every broken bone, black eye, split lip, none of it hurt as much as this did. This humiliation, the attack, and the fact that no one can ever know what had happened, that no one would ever be able to see the wound, to mend it, to kiss the scar and dull the ache. They would never know how I spent every last credit I had to get into town and buy that medication that prevented conception, because I didn't want to bring a child into this world that way. I don't think I'd ever be able to love that child the way it deserved, and the world didn't need another one of me, broken and unloved.

He followed me down the hall after a while, close enough that I could feel him, but far enough away that he couldn't touch me, his cruel voice behind me, slandering me to his friends, an awful laughter in his voice. None of his teammates could know that it was he who did this to me, that it was his hands that bruised me. That it was he who violated me, left me bleeding and hurting, broken and so afraid.

He left me somewhere I couldn't recognize. I didn't know in which direction my house was. I wasn't in Riverside, and I was scared. I trembled, wrapping myself in the dirtied sheets, trying to keep my body warm which felt so cold. I couldn't stop shaking. I couldn't stop crying. My skin crawled, it didn't feel like it should have, it didn't feel clean; it didn't feel like it was mine. My throat was sore, aching, my sobbing voice hoarse.

Every inch of skin felt so cold, every inch but where bruises flowered on my skin, a horrific violet color I had never before hated and feared so much. Each hipbone felt as if hard fingers had reached them and broken them in. It hurt to move, and I couldn't even curl up on my side for the pain that surged.

I couldn't even think of what he had done to me. Every thought in that direction flared a hot, scalding white, pushed me away, tried to protect me, if even for a little while. I ceded, but I knew I'd have to face it. That scared me. It scared me that I could never take this back or forget it. I'd never be absolved. I'd never be justified. And I'd live with this the rest of my life.

No one could ever know.

I could never be able to stand up on my own.

If they knew, it would only be harder to.

His hand fell on my shoulder. I felt my eyes grow wide, every image flashing before the irises, and I collapsed to my knees. He laughed. Said whoever had broken me had done quite a number. I resisted the urge to accuse him, to stand up to him. I was so afraid of what he could do to me. I tried to push myself up, but his girlfriend pushed me, and I fell to the floor.

The morning alarm rang, and the other students scattered, heading to their first period and I just laid there on the floor until the principal found me and dragged me to his office for skipping, calling my mother. I could hear her disappointed tone over the phone as she asked me 'why,' and I felt bitter, angry tears in my eyes, stinging like acid as they rolled down my cheeks, so flushed in humiliation. I wiped them away as I was escorted to class.

I sat through eight periods of ridicule, whispers, and jokes.

Everyone couldn't get over how I was acting, so covered up and humble. They didn't know that under the long sleeves I was hiding bruises and bite marks. When I fell asleep in fourth period, they laughed as I was yelled at, woken up with the instructor's shrill voice in my ear as she called the principal again. They didn't know it was because I had taken so many painkillers that morning so I wouldn't be able to feel that part of me he abused the worst.

When I passed out in gym, after I had popped a few more pills, I couldn't help but remember the mockery and scorn I saw as I collapsed.

The nurse's office was cold, the only room in the building to be air-conditioned. It made me remember. It brought back everything, brought it up, and my mind, in regurgitating it, ripped me open.

He had told me during the day that after the game he wanted to see me. I waited, and he told me he loved me. I stupidly believed him, believed his promises, those false, arrogant lies.

But he broke those promises. He brought me somewhere so far from home, to a run-down hotel, dirty and unkempt, and I was nervous, but for all the wrong reasons. He gave me something to calm me down. How could I have been so stupid?

And when it was over, as he was leaving, the most awful look of concern was on his face, a mixture of his worry that I would tell and that somehow I was catatonic. I wish I had fallen comatose. I wish I could have just drowned it out. But I couldn't find solace in that awful look or the lied words of a failed apology that battered my ears, that regret that was so absurd, so fallacious, so late. I knew he meant none of it, he never would.

Lying on the unforgiving cot in the nurse's office, it felt so alike to him. So like last night. I started crying and thrashing. I felt hands on my skin and I screamed, sitting up, trying to fight them off. When my vision cleared, the nurse was backing away from me, frightened, and students were looking in the window, amused and astonished and waiting for more.

I pushed by the nurse, escaping out into the hall. I ran for the exit, trying to wipe away the tears that wouldn't stop falling.

The doors flew open in front of me, and the sky ripped open and cold rain fell on my face, mixed with the tears. The front entrance was lined again, everyone standing side by side, hands outstretched, their fingers brushing my arms, vaguely grabbing my hair, my clothing, as I passed.

A tall figure stood at the gate. I ran to him unthinkingly, running into those outstretched arms, begging him, please, to save me. His hands were warm, they reached inside of me. I held onto him tightly, but he reached too deep and pulled me apart. I asked him why, but his Southern tone held no comfort. He changed, so cold and those hands reached deeper. Another broken promise.

Hands reached for my core, grabbed it, palmed it and ripped it out, and everyone could see how broken it was, bruised and beaten. I reached for it, but my fingertips were just short and I screamed for it back. He said he had to keep it, his voice warming up again, but tainted and so wrong.

I needed it back. I couldn't let it go. I begged, but he wouldn't relent. Please.

His eyes locked with mine.

I backed away, turning, facing everyone with their faces stretched into grimaces, staring me down with eyes black with hatred and contempt.

You don't belong here.

Please.

Someone.

Please.

But no one came. I fell to the floor, lying there, as rain fell, drowning me. But it wasn't rain. It was every ounce of pain, it was everyone's contempt, my mother's broken heart, my father's stolen life, my brother's abandonment, Frank's disappointment and those hands that violated me and broke me and ripped me open.

It fell harder and harder, falling into me, filling me until I could feel it pour out of every wound, keeping them open and I scream, but was muffled by the thunder of my mother's voice, the lightning of my bruised mind.

My body was numb.

I scream until my voice gives out, leaving it open in a perpetual silent cry.

I was so scared.

Please.

Someone.

Someone save me.

Please.