Unphysical

For some reason, my lips wouldn't move. I couldn't speak. I wondered if this was what it meant to be paralyzed with fear, so scared of what was about to happen that I literally couldn't move any part of my body.

Not that I had to move my body. He was more than comfortable doing it for me. There was a heavy weight on top of me, as well as a hand pressing down on the back of my neck, forcing my face against the pillow. My body felt like lead. His other hand shifted around my back, my legs. When he touched my skin, there was an involuntary flinch. So I knew that I could move, but my mind and body just didn't seem to be cooperating at that very moment.

Before that night, I had only gone so far as to kiss a guy. At eighteen years old, it wasn't something that I regularly broadcasted. I felt like a loser around my friends, who were all significantly more experienced than I was. I felt uncomfortable in my body and I felt even worse when someone else was touching me.

His hand pushed down harder on my neck. Something big was about to happen.

I remember the sound of the cars speeding down the road outside of his house. How close they were, how blissfully unaware of what was happening. I remember that it was dark outside, but the room was lit by a little lamp in the corner, or maybe it was the light outside shining in through the windows. I remember hearing people walking down the sidewalk and talking.

Most of all, I remember how, when he got what he wanted, when my lips finally seemed to work, when I shrieked in pain into the pillow, when the tears rolled down my face, he laughed. I've never heard anyone laugh so hard in their entire life.

I didn't move when it was over; I didn't move for a while. I just laid there in silence, crying. He was angry because when I cried, his pillow got wet and he had to get a new pillowcase. A new pillowcase, can you imagine! It seemed so trivial to me, so meaningless.

Finally I left, but I don't know when, and before I left he kissed me and told me that he'd had a good time. I smiled and nodded. It seems to me that smiling and nodding is always what I do when I'm uncomfortable, when I don't know what to say. And I walked home with that stupid smile still stretched across my face. I walked for over a mile and when I got home, I took a scalding hot shower for who knows how long. I missed my classes for the day. I scrubbed my skin until it was raw and swore that I would never drink again in my life. I'd never again get with a boy.

I hated myself.

I blamed myself for everything. For drinking, for being stupid, for trusting someone that I had no right trusting in the first place. I stopped doing my homework. I stopped going out. I stopped eating. I wanted to punish myself for what I did. Never once did I stop and think that I had already been punished enough.

A few weeks later, I drank again for the first time. I was dressed up in a crazy outfit; everyone was. I had a mask, leggings, someone else's shirt. Behind this new facade, I felt safe and invincible. I drank and laughed and for the first time in a long time, really smiled. Some people at the party shook their heads, said I drank too much, I was making a fool out of myself. I wanted to scream at them, tell them what I had been through. If they only knew...

I texted him that night. Begged him to let me come over. I cried when he didn't answer me. It was stupid of me. But because of my self-hatred, my anger at myself, I managed to not blame him at all. Maybe he didn't care about me in the right way, but he wanted me in some way, and to me, that was better than not being wanted at all.

It took a while. It always does. Sometimes I still look back and wonder how he is. It's been a few months since I've seen or talked to him. Some days, I still want to. I know it's screwed up but that's just the way it is. Except now, I want to confront him. I want to ask him why he did what he did, why he laughed so hard when he did it. I know that while it is somewhat my fault, I didn't deserve what happened to me.

At the time, it seemed like the world should've stopped spinning, like rivers should've stopped running and seasons should've stopped changing, and like someone, anyone should've noticed that something was wrong. But now I realize that sometimes it's harder to acknowledge emotional pain than anything else. While it would've been nice to have someone there for me, nobody could have gotten rid of the pain for me; that was up to myself to do. I survived. I survived even though I never thought I could. I cried myself to sleep every night, until that night that I didn't, and swore I wasn't worth it, until that day I realized that I was.

I went through Hell and back.
And I'm an incredibly stronger person because of it.