Content Warning: Sexual assault.

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I'm sure you know where this piece is going, already. "I never did."

It went something like this:

"We've been together for a year and a half. I thought you loved me-- you said you loved me. All these months--"

"--I never did."

"You never what?"

"I never did-- love you, that is."

His voice was cold. His blue eyes were the color of steel instead of the skies I'd become accustomed to. He was telling the truth.

We were sat on the porch steps beneath the lamppost. School had been out for a few weeks, and I was finally sixteen...finally legal. I was naive. We'd spent the last summer in the balmy grip of sweaty, sensual first love. I assumed this summer would be the same. You didn't just walk away from someone you'd invested this much of your short life into, did you?

All the things we did...

I'd lost my virginity to him.

I'd lied for him, when we'd been caught and they'd sent me to court, bringing up charges of statutory rape against him.

I'd lied.

I lied like I never had before and never will again.

I was an actor at the time and at the threat of sounding like an egomaniac-- quite good for a 15 year old girl. I put on one hell of a show.

They believed me.

They believed me when I told them we'd just shared kisses and caresses, that we'd known each other for years--that when the officer had caught us in the back seat of a beat up Honda civic that night, it'd been the first time. It hadn't.

Six months earlier he'd actually raped me in the front seat of said Honda civic, though I didn't realize that was what had happened until a year later, as diluted in my fantasy as I'd been at 15.

I didn't tell the social workers that he'd started dating me when I was just fourteen...and he was eighteen. I didn't tell them about the scar on my lower back from the time I'd said No. No. no no no no. NO. I didn't tell them about the ways in which he'd abused the body of a barely-woman, using me like some tattered sex doll. I didn't tell them.

I didn't tell anyone.

I didn't know it was wrong.

All I knew was that my heart was breaking.

All I knew was that I loved him. I really did.

I'd given my treasure to swine.

He got up and left after uttering those terrible words: I NEVER did.

I went upstairs to my bed and contemplated suicide.

I didn't do it, obviously-- but that is another story entirely.

This story continued with a girl who spent the next year flinching away from any relationship whatsoever. I lost every friendship I'd ever had, the ones who'd been by my side since second grade... they slowly faded away as I spiraled into an empty husk of my former self.

The following year, grade 12-- I attempted to find my power. I preyed on the boys, exchanging saliva and desperation in alcoves and against lockers, then roughly shoving them away when things began to progress past kisses. I was horny and angsty and utterly terrified to have anyone lay hands on me, terrified to give up any semblance of control, terrified to love or be loved.

Against all odds, I met my husband in grade 12. The first time I saw him, he was dancing with another girl at homecoming. He was terribly tall and muscled, but inexplicably awkward. He looked very much like a teddy bear. He looked safe.

I locked eyes with him across the dance floor and I think somewhere, in that moment, the both of us knew that I'd make him mine. Six months later, I did.

He was safe.

He was also just as broken as I was.

We filled in the holes in each other's hearts. He kept me safe and I kept him safe.

He told me about every terrible thing that had ever happened to him.

I told him about every terrible thing that had ever happened to me...

Except...

"I never did."

I wanted to pretend that part hadn't happened. I wanted to pretend that I was too strong, too much of an over-comer to have ever been used so maliciously.

We got married.

We had babies.

We built careers and homes and a life beyond our greatest fantasy.

But some nights...

He'd reach out and I'd curl away.

Some nights...

I'd push him away.

He'd roll over with hurt feelings and I'd cry into my pillowcase.

Some nights...

I'd refuse to be touched at all. Not even comforted by him.

Some nights...

I'd flail and kick and murmur NO, until he shook me awake with questions in his eyes and sadness in his heart.

It took a decade for me to tell him.

His heart broke-- I saw it. His face crumpled in shame and he touched me gently on the cheek, tears in his eyes, crease in his brow. The pain written starkly in his gaze, "You never told me." He cupped my face in his large hands, "I didn't know. I didn't know. All this time...I thought it was about me... I didn't know. I am so sorry." He'd pulled me to his chest then, held me like a baby bird, and run calloused fingers along my back until I'd fallen asleep. Safe.

And I've been safe ever since. He is careful and so am I. We hold to each other, but do not crush... because as much as I'd like to say that the pain went away...

It never did.

It wasn't really the rape.

It wasn't the broken heart.

It wasn't the weird waste of the last year of my childhood.

It wasn't the friendships that broke irreparably in the aftermath.

It was the being used.

It was the lie.... Being told that I mattered when...

I never did.

Is what my stepmother told me after I admitted that the only reason I still lived with my father and her was because of my siblings. I suffered so much because I wanted to be a part of their lives and yet they questioned my love for them.

I could also name the time my father called me a hypocrite or when my evil witch of a stepmother said I was a bad friend, but they haven't hurt as much as the first.

They are happily out of my life and I don't want them back.

She said she didn't want me

Said I am the zero pt zero 1

Born under contraception...

She said she was too young

Hardly so at twenty seven...

She told me so at twenty one

Said it cold after a long run...

It wasn't for what I'd done,

But for who I was who I'd become

Somethings are carried on and on

She would have preferred more

More flaws and imperfection...

Something to blame for our

Rejection as she walked away

Returning one night to remark,

I was daddy's little girl alright,

And it's like The Devil had won:

"You're just not Human."

02.23.2023

Coldest Thing challenge @RosemarieThorn

Some years back, my father called me into his room. I don't remember how it began. I know he was disappointed in the way I relate with others (meaning: not at all really) among other things. Schoolwork, seriousness. He was upset that I was wasting away like that and so, he decided questions needed to be asked.

Before that day, I had already spoken to my parents briefly about having depression. I didn't exactly know how to explain it in any way other than using that word. So I did. And they didn't understand but well, what did it matter? They reacted the same as they always do. By pretending it didn't really happen and praying to their God for answers.

I don't know. I don't know what goes through their minds. Maybe some day, I'll understand a bit better. We're very, very different people. But back to the day on my mind.

My father asked me what the root of my depression was. So "we" could work on it, together. And I thought. And thought. For perhaps the first time in my life, I really considered it. Why was I so sad? Why was it so hard to get out of bed and do all the things I was meant to, according to him? A reason was asked of me so it could be hurriedly resolved, fixed, and then I could return to being the ever-obedient daughter I once was.

So... Fair enough. After much thought, it finally came to me. Them. Not directly "them", more of a general sense. My depression began when I was eleven years old. When I realised I was not like other people. I didn't have friends all around me, I liked to read and be quiet, I wasn't as loud or beautiful or fun. When I realised I wasn't the kind of daughter they truly wanted. One who did chores without tiring, saw schoolwork as the number one priority, was in love with their god and their way of life.

Instead, I see beauty in a life with more simplicity. I want peace. I want to find it and I want to hold that safe feeling forever. But then, I didn't understand that it was truly okay to want those things. So... Fearfully, confused, I dared to be vulnerable. And believe me, I was never that around my father. I kept on a mask to hide the discomfort and even fear he brought with his presence alone. It lingers even now.

And my father... When I told him that it was comparisons and insecurity that caused my depression, he replied very simply. What's wrong with washing plates? What is wrong with prioritising school work? How dare I complain? I have it so easy.

I suppose part of me can understand where he's coming from. But you have to understand this. Despite the fact that his childhood involved hawking fruits to pay for school and being beaten by his parents at the slightest misstep, I believe it is cruel and insensitive to compare two lives. I believe everyone suffers, no matter how rich, how smart, how successful or pretty. I believe a parent should take the good they learnt from their own, not the bad, and try to give that to his children. But my father never learnt much on how to be emotionally present, not even with his own wife and he wasn't going to start now.

Sorry if this was long. It's a story, I suppose. The truth but it sounds a lot more painful writing it down. I suppose it was. But years have passed. I cried a lot, that day. It hurt to exist even more than usual. These days, we unfortunately have a distance between us. I'm not sure he even knows it's there but for me, it is and I'm sort of glad to have it. He's not a bad man. He only did his best as he knows how. But I needed him that day. And he did the very worst thing he could possibly have. He told me that the root of my depression, the one he'd asked me to find, the one he promised to help me with... Meant nothing.

That was what I heard. That's what I've written. But I've moved on. Worse things have happened. I'm alive still. I no longer seek help and validation from others like I used to. I've learnt to rely more on myself and treat the person within with kindness. After all... If my own father finds it that difficult, who else do I have in the end but me, first and foremost?

"Go away to back where you came from!"

This was said by my brother. I had just gotten home from a meeting and my parents were gone. I went into the house where my siblings were in a fight and yelling. I was there about a minute, trying to get people to calm down, when my brother yelled this at me from the stairs. I was really hurt and confused. I ran into my room and cried.

This was probably about 4 or 5 years ago. I doubt my brother remembers. Our relationship is fine, but I will never forget this.

My mother is an alcoholic. When I was 14, I got into my first physical fight with her over a bottle of rum. She told me that she needed it to live, and I told her if she drank it she would die (she was suffering from severe alcohol poisoning). We both had our hands on the bottle and were pulling on it, when she started scratching my hands to get me to let go. I told her, "You're hurting me, please stop, please stop," and she said, "I know."

Before that moment I had accepted my mother's apologies about the things she did when she was drunk, accepting that alcoholism is an illness and she had limited control over her actions. And to an extent I still believe that. But I no longer allow that to be an excuse for her actions, and recognize that it doesn't mean she is worthy of my forgiveness.

Simply ranking which phrase hurt the most is almost impossible.

You could say the coldest, most hurtful thing someone said to me, was the first hurtful thing I heard. Because after this, you start to become numb. Each hurtful word gets less, and less painful. However, the bruises they leave are still very much there.

Whenever I look in the mirror I hear,

"Fat"

"Whale"

"Slut"

"Cunt"

They echo in my head like an alarm I can't turn off.

Perhaps the worst thing was when someone I cared for told me I should have said "stop."

Or maybe it was when my mother told me I needed to stop being a victim.

Could it have been when I was taught being gay was a sin?

When people I thought were friends, said they would pray for me?

I guess you could say it was when an older man held me close to him in the dark woods, and my father wished I was "stronger."

There was a time when a boy said he'd rather kill himself than be liked by me or the other guy who said I was absolutely nothing.

It's hard to decide which one was worse.

I'd have to say the coldest thing said to me was "I love you."

Because after you've felt true hatred for yourself, the thought of someone loving you is impossible.

Love sounds like pretty lies.

Lies that are used to hurt.

To take advantage of.

And to kill.

It started out like a fairytale. She was showered with gifts and poems and false hope. He came onto her strong, he came onto her fast. The word Love was spoken early on. I’m not sure when it became so horrible.“If you don’t stop crying by the time we get there, I’m slitting my wrist.” He threatens her. And these kind of words weren‘t unusual, but yet they stung differently this time. She wanted to cry louder, she wanted to scream out to the world she was a ghost to, she wanted to yell “Get me out of this Hell!” She wanted to fall to her knees and let the tears escape her even faster, even harder. But she blinked her eyes and stopped the tears. She became ice cold and numb to the temperature, numb to the feeling of anything at all. A slave to her own lover, she was. A slave to the person she thought would never hurt her. But his words cut so hard that she shut it all off. In this moment, she gave him power. She gave him evidence that she would do what he says, including telling her how to feel, she would do it. How do you write about something so big? How do you talk about something so big? When they look at us, at the restaurant, they cheers our love. They buy us shots at the bar and tell me I’m so lucky to be young and in love. And it is perfect… for him, because he got his way. But Love isn‘t threatened. Love isn’t, if I don’t get what I want, I’m taking away someone you care about. Love isn’t, ”If you ever leave me, I’m killing myself.” Her stomach sank when he spoke these words. Her stomach sank when he did cut his wrist, when he told her it’s because he loved her. Her stomach dropped to the floor when he told her, “You make me do this.” This is what happens when she doesn’t listen. This is what happens when she tries to run. When she tries to run far away, just like her own therapist said. And so she listens. When he tells her to be happy, and here are some drugs, she takes the drugs and is happy. When he tells her to stop being so mopey, she takes another bump and smiles. He can take her job, he can take her car, he can cut her off from everyone in her family. But will she let him take her own soul? Her own dignity? Will she let him have it all, all of her, and more? What will it take for her to listen to herself, listen to that voice in her head that’s saying “Get out!” “Escape!” Her life isn’t so dreamy anymore, her life is Hell and her life is reality.