Fork in the Road
I’m hovering in spirit-form as I watch two fourteen year old girls sneak out of their bedroom window to attend a party in the spring of 1990. I focus my attention on the insecure one—Sara, the one with soft feminine features. I will follow her—shadow her—to tell her story. But as I look upon her now, before they move towards that window, she is smiling. My eyes well-up with tears at the sight of the light sparkling in her eyes, they radiate a special hope and innocence. She had been told her whole life--up until now—that she has a pretty smile…the kind that can light up any room or mood. I want to swaddle her and put her to bed—keep her safe—prevent the forthcoming events, but the paralysis of recollection precludes me from such a miracle, so instead I am left to witness the events that unfolded that evening. And so they go…
Sara was small-boned—a dancer since the age of two--and her undeveloped body still reflected that of a little girl. Her general understanding of life was just as stunted: naïve with Pollyanna optimism, Sara’s courage was almost non-existent. Her more popular friend, Kristy, told Sara about the party. Sara was hesitant but overwhelmed with a feeling of acceptance through the invite to attend.
Kristy offered to get Sara ready. She told her to leave her retainer at the house—you’ll look older—and they listened to music as Kristy dressed Sara up like a cheap doll in make-up and clothes as though prepping her for a perverse beauty pageant designed for toddlers. Kristy was a reckless and wildly confident girl. Sara was drawn to her dysfunction. She admired Kristy’s callous approach to boys and school. Kristy had developed early--both physically and emotionally. As they got ready for the party, Sara watched the way the clothes fell onto Kristy’s mature body and wondered what it felt like to have clothes drape the curves of your body in that way.
Around 10 o’clock on that warm night, the girls jumped out of the window. Although Kristy’s bedroom was on the first story, the landing was harsh—more harsh than anything Sara had ever done, and she paused one brief moment to consider the presenting crossroads. She told Kristy that they should reconsider, that they were making a mistake. The street in its night light and illuminating affect scared Sara. Although she’d walked down that road hundreds of times, it suddenly seemed foreign and dangerous. But Sara was quickly reassured by her exciting friend. They hitched a ride from an older boy in the neighborhood, and were on their way to a place that proved more life-altering than either of the girls could ever have imagined.
When they walked into the party Sara’s eyes were as big and hopeful as her heart. Everyone was friendly and welcoming. She immediately noticed that there were no other girls, just boys who were three and four years her senior, in attendance. She immediately felt a sense of coolness—she felt popular. A group of boys she recognized from the hallways at school sat around the dining room table, playing cards, and invited the girls to join. Kristy’s boyfriend was there—she sat on his lap and immediately immersed herself in him. Sara felt alone. She was very shy, so she dismissed this emotional discomfort as something to be expected—assuming it was a usual hurdle for her, rather than recognizing it as a gut instinct.
The boys seemed to recognize Sara’s feeling of displacement and started to play drinking games with her to make her more comfortable. Turn after turn, they told her to drink. And she did. She started to feel more relaxed. It was her first time drinking and the alcohol went down easy. She forgot she was shy and didn’t fit in. Her body felt warm. She was more talkative and almost comfortable in her own skin. She laughed at their jokes and felt free for the first time. Then one of the most popular boys told her she was pretty. She blushed at the compliment and felt dizzy from the alcohol, so he offered to help her “walk it off.” He said he’d like to get to know her better: he suggested they look for a quiet spot to talk because he had actually always liked her from afar. Her better sense knew he was lying, but it felt good to believe him—so she went along, willing to play pretend for a minute. She continued on, stumbling down the hallway, and he helped her. They found a quiet spot at the end, in the darkness.
And then he kissed her. Sara had never been kissed—aside from on the playground in grammar school and once on the walk home from middle school. And this kiss was different. It was wet and forceful. But she liked it. She felt her body warm to the sensation and smell of the teenage boy. He was wearing his football jersey—a plastic kind of material that was easy to grab onto. As he pinned her against the wall she was torn between enjoying the power he had over her, and knowing it was dangerous. She became dizzier from standing with her hands above her head—she had to keep them wrapped around his neck to steady herself--so he led her to the bedroom. Where she could lie down.
There were two mattresses on the floor. She saw Kristy with her boyfriend sitting on one. They were still drinking and appeared to be looking through some CD’s. It crossed Sara’s childlike mind, as the boy led her to the other bed, that Kristy should be careful: they might spill the drinks on the mattress and that would be irresponsible at someone else’s house.
Next thing Sara knew—as the room spun when she fell to the floor—the boy was on top of her. She pushed his shoulders and told him she couldn’t breathe, as he tried to stick his tongue in her mouth. She was shocked at how a few minutes ago she enjoyed the way he kissed her. Now it repulsed her and she felt sick from the smell of beer on his breath. She told him “no.” She told him to “stop.” And she continued to attempt to push him off. He wouldn’t budge. Her thoughts became slow motion as she retraced the events leading up to the minute. And she was so confused, he didn’t seem as big when he was upright--she was shocked by his strength as he held her down. As she struggled to free herself--gasping for fresh air—she felt his hand near her thighs. And then everything in her consciousness stopped.
All at once, the ghost of her past stood up and left the room. The little girl who played with dolls until middle school, who wrote stories instead of watching television in grammar school, the shy ballerina who was taught to look above the crowd to avoid stage fright at recitals—died. And her future—it was all forgotten. She didn’t exist. All of her hope--her dreams, plans, along with her good grades and good behavior—all ceased to exist. And her present—frozen. Burned alive. She felt something hard and powerful between her legs. He spread Sara’s legs with his boney knees as he pinned down her hands. His facial hair scratched her youthful, once-rosy cheek as she turned her head to breathe. She couldn’t stand his mouth on her, but he continued to slobber…her hair stuck to her neck, wet with his perspiration and saliva. She cried for her Kristy to help her. She was only 6 feet away. But Kristy laughed in response, dismissing Sara’s pleas as childish. She cried and asked kindly for him to please stop. But he continued.
When the boy entered her, Sara felt herself crack in two. She felt she was torn up the middle, and the boy seemed to gut her like a deer—pulling all of her happy memories and hopeful dreams from her soul. This violence exposed her innermost intimacy. With overwhelming pain radiating beyond a physical torture which left her body feeling broken into a million pieces: she left her body. Tears fell from her eyes as she watched her childhood drain like waste from her tiny body. He took every ounce of her innocent joy and beat it flat and lifeless, as he raped her for four hours that night. Eventually, she stopped crying. For a very long time.
It remains a mystery how the girls got home that night, but the next day Sara felt she’d lost something pure and gained something evil. A shadow was cast over her heart and it hardened with thick ivy and sharp thorns. Her personality was forever altered, darkened and without faith in outsiders. And physically, she was traumatically injured—she could not sit down and for days walking took effort. She hid her discomfort, like she hid the secret of what had happened to her. A few days later, in the rumor mill at school, she had heard that the boys at the party had to throw away that sacrificial mattress. Apparently it looked like someone had been stabbed to death on it.
The day after the party, as Sara sat side-like on a pillow, watching prime time with her parents, that boy—her rapist—called her on the telephone. He apologized. Shaking from her core to her fingertips, the event, his voice, his apology—replayed quickly in her mind: he too was just a kid whose life was also forever changed by his decisions that night.
So I forgave him.