Warning: This is a violent and possibly disturbing rape scene. If you skip this chapter, you'll won't have missed any crucial plot points or anything, things will still mostly make sense. Your own discretion, here. Still in present tense.

Chapter Fourteen

FWOOO

When he comes, I'm not anywhere near prepared. I've dozed off in a sitting position, but I'm not fully asleep. I watch the crack of light from the hallway's window grow, with a soft, creaking whoosh. I sit up straighter, suddenly forgetting everything I've decided on, every certainty I've hated but accepted, and try to scream. Nothing comes out of my mouth, but from Jared's comes a "Shhhh," lost in the thumping of blood in my ears. He closes the door behind him. When I hear it click, I close my eyes and stop scrabbling to think of a way out of this situation.

The worst part is how he strokes my hair, wipes my tears away, and laughs. I think he's drunk. Maybe. It would be better if he was, because it seems worse for someone fully in control of themselves to be capable of this, whereas a drunk would have some glimmer of an excuse to make me continue to believe in humanity. I don't smell alcohol on his breath. I don't smell anything. I hear and I feel, but I don't smell anything, don't see anything because my eyes are squeezed shut. He tries to kiss me, but I clench my lips even tighter than my legs and my eyes. He gives up trying to force my lips apart with his tongue, and this is one battle I feel I've won, even though I'm fully aware he's about to win the war.

I don't know when I started struggling again, but I am. The momentary shut down is over, but I'm still not screaming. I don't know how he knows I won't scream, but I won't. Another small victory, if I can succeed in silence.

It's all so inevitable. I've known he would do this, I knew from the moment I walked into this house a week and a half ago. Night after night of peace may have muddled my certainty, but this morning's reminder –a couple of words and a body pressed against mine in the kitchen, remember?- brought it all back. So I've been . . . maybe not prepared, exactly. But this isn't a shock.

And another inevitability is that he pries my legs apart with hard, bruising fingers. I don't feel the pressure he exerts on them, no, the only pain I feel is the scream of my muscles. I refuse to unlock them, to let them relax, until long after they're useless. Maybe I shouldn't have given up the few forms of athletics I used to have in my life, because now my legs are pathetic and flabby and begging me to let them stop. I do. That in itself feels like giving in. I guess it is. Because now he kneels between my two legs, and there's no way I can get them back to their defensive position. I realize they're shaking, hard. Grateful and apologetic to me at the same time, and mourning. I use my arms instead, trying to push him off me, though I don't know what good that would do. If I shoved him backwards, off the foot of the bed, either it'd be loud enough to bring Deb running, or he'd just get back up on me, with a vengeance. It's not just that I can't win this, it's that there is no win for me to attain. It's lose-lose. When I realize this, you'd think I'd give up. I should let him have me easily. That would mean less pain, less bruises to show for it in the morning, and it would be over faster. But I can't.

I'm like a toy car that's hit a wall, but I'm programmed to keep moving, keep sapping my battery to try and go forward, when if I had any sense I'd just stop and hope somebody comes to turn me around onto a more productive path.

So I keep pushing, and refuse to let too many tears fall. And I refuse to scream. I half-laugh, half-sob, at the thought that when all's said and done, I should be proud that I could keep quiet and take it all, just like I'd always told myself I had to. For Deb's sake.

It strikes me now, as Jared yanks and shimmies my pyjama pants down, stroking the bottoms of my thighs with his warm hands, that I shouldn't have come to Australia. Six months away from what used to be just inappropriate comments and mild touching, and I'd forgotten how terrifying this continent was on my last visit. I wanted to see my sister, I wanted to escape my house and the messy divorce it proffered, and after I got over the initial fear, I'd sort of talked myself into a belief that it would be okay. I shouldn't have lulled myself like that, shouldn't have let it happen. If I'd fought, I could have stayed away from this damned country and this house and this room and the bed I'm about to be raped on. If I'd fought. That's right, I'd had a chance to fight, and I didn't take it. Now there is no fight, no real fight. Only an empty toy car, stuck on autopilot and trying to deny the situation it faces.

I said the worst part is how he strokes my hair, wipes away my tears as though comforting me? That's not really true. You know what the worst part is. But the stroking, the murmuring, it's awful, too. He lays his big hand on the side of my head and brushes it down, over my wet cheekbone, past my ear, and around to the point of my chin. Here it's only his fingertips, and they're soft, and my chin is soft, not yet wet from tears like the rest of my face. It's all soft, for a moment, and that's when I can bring myself to look into his eyes. I spit in his face then, an act of defiance befitting a fiery girl in a movie, a starlet or a waitress from a bad end of town. Not me.

Jared's eyes harden, as do his fingertips. He pushes them, hard against my chin, until they flit off to the side. He wipes my pathetic saliva from his cheek and I can't look at him anymore.

My panties are gone and I feel cold all over. I'm getting colder and colder and I fear his hot, sweaty skin will start to stick to me, frozen and brittle as I feel.

I don't look at him at all, I don't want warning as he's about to do it. I just brace and look away, like getting a needle. I end up looking at my panties, flung across the room. Little and limp and sad looking, apologetic just like my insufficient muscles. And teal-coloured. That means Thursday, though I barely register this. This is the moment when the nurse sticks my arm with the vaccination and I by the time I turn to look, the needle is gone and just a tiny, tiny droplet oozes from my arm as if to say, Well, that wasn't so bad, and I smile at her and she gives me a little pamphlet on possible side affects. Yes, this is that moment. I am ready to roll down my sleeve and smile and say thank-you to the nurse and get up and leave.

Then the pain hits me. This is the moment I know is supposed to be hardest in terms of keeping quiet. But screaming is the last thing on my mind. A hoarse little puff of air comes out of lips I long ago gave up keeping sealed.

Jared thrusts. In, out, in, out. I don't have the energy or the will to try and adjust to him or brace for each impact. I just lie there. I have felt worse pains. But somehow this isn't the same as falling off a bike and doing a face-plant into a gravel road, or fracturing my arm that time I tried to skateboard. Not exactly.

And then he's done. It didn't seem like a long time, but it doesn't really matter to me, either. The pain remains as he pulls out of me and pulls his boxers back on.

He leans back over my still, shocked form, and before I have a chance to close my gaping lips, he clasps his own over me and shoves his tongue in my mouth. One final defeat. Not only does he win the war, but nearly all the little battles, too. The only one I hold is my silence. He hasn't taken that from me. But I don't think he wanted to. This little victory does nothing to hurt him, it's all he could hope for. No, this win is hollow because it's the reason he won the war.

My silence is for my sister.

He's silent, too, as he leaves the room. I can't help but see his face, and he has a look on it that makes me want to cry. He doesn't look happy, or victorious, or guilty. He looks a though he's thinking, Now look what you made me do.

The look makes me cry, but I'm glad of his silence. The silence of the entire house. I feel as though the slightest sound might shatter me like the cold, brittle thing I am. I reach out and pick up my underwear, but do not put them on. I'm too afraid to lift up the blanket and see or feel the mess. The blood, the semen, the nothing. I don't want to go near that nothing. It starts where the bleeding started, but I fear it might work its way up into my chest and seize me. I worry that it is a part of him, a piece of whatever made him this way. I want to give it back. I just turn to my side gingerly, keeping my hands and thoughts well above the covers, and clutch my Thursday panties to my chest.

Before sleep, I become aware that the sheets are navy blue. Good. The stains might not show.

FWOOO

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Sorry for the downer, guys. Next chapter'll be a bit better, maybe. Probably.