Author:  Lilly

Some things can’t be repaired. If you break a teacups handle off super glue will do wonders.  The crack will be seen, but the cup will be useful.  If you smash the same cup with a hammer there is no hope that it will ever be repaired, much less hold water.  People are like fine China, but sadly most people aren’t treated with such care.

The girl lay motionless, tired from fighting against the boy.  He held her hands above her head with one of his own while keeping the other clamped tightly over her mouth.  Tears streamed from her eyes and thundered in her ears as they hit the sheet.   The blood pounding in her ears, the gruff grunts from the boy, the ticking of the Felix the cat clock on the wall.  Her shirt was pulled up above her barely developed breasts, and her skirt was pushed around her waist.  Her underwear had simply been moved out of the way.  One pink converse was still on her foot though she had lost the other in the initial struggle.

She was trying to think of the trip to the shoe store with her father to get those shoes.  Her “back to school” present from the man that she rarely saw.  He hated the pink ones she had picked out, which made her want them all the more. She actually preferred the red pair but his obvious distaste for the pink made them appealing.  He had promised that she could have whichever pair she liked, that was the deal.

There was so much pain down there, and everything felt so wet, and since she knew little to nothing about what was happening she was scared that she had wet herself.

She had done that for a while after her father left – wet the bed.  That was until her Mother had moved her into her room and let her sleep on a pallet by her own bed.  She would say “Tell me a story, Lilly” every night and the girl would launch into tales of Princesses and dragons or cowgirls and wild mustangs.  When she moved back into her own room at the age of seven they would tell stories to each other through the wall that separated them a la the Walton’s.  Her Mother would tell her that she loved her stories and the girl would sleep.

The boy was slowing.  Coughing.  No, he was crying.  His grip over her mouth loosened, and she tried not to move.

She thought of the beach, of her Sister’s invitation, and how she should have taken her up on it.  Her Sister was home for the Summer from college in Idaho, and she had wanted to spend every day at the beach.  She should be playing in the surf or sitting in a tide pool now.  She could have taken her Barbies.  She should be anywhere else.

He was shaking, his full weight on her, shaking and crying.

Felix’s tale wagged back and forth ticking off the seconds.  On the wall, a poster of STYX’s “Kilroy was Here” hung it’s corners curling up from the humidity.

The boys breathing slowed, his hands released hers, and he pushed himself to a sitting position and hung his head in his hands.  Scared to move she slowly inched her body away from where she had been pinned rolling on her side.  She could see that it was not urine, but blood that she had felt and she started to shake.  The boy still crying, handed her the missing shoe that had fallen to the floor.  The red scratch marls on his thigh from where she had tried to push him off the only sign she had fought back.

“Are you o.k?” he asked, concern in his tone.  He looked at her then, and he was not a monster, he was just a boy with red eyes and shaggy hair and snot running from his own nose.  He had been her friend.  He had been like a brother.  She was scared of him now, and angry, but she felt sorry for him at the same time and her twelve year old mind could not make sense of all of those feelings.  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said. “I don’t know why… you said we could kiss and.,” the words were lost on her.

She sat up, in pain, but needing to move away from him.  “Your Mom will be home soon,” he said.  “Do you want me to walk you home?”

“I need something to wear,” she whimpered.  “A tee shirt.  Something long.  And I’m bleeding.”

Digging through his drawer he produced a “Purple Rain” shirt and she pulled it over the clothes she already wore.  She would throw them away when she got home.  She and her friends were always sharing clothes and her Mother would never know.   The boy told her where she could find one of his mother’s sanitary napkins in the bathroom while he pulled on a pair of shorts, and she stared at his naked body.  She had never seen a boy without clothes before, and she walked down the hallway clinching her skirt between her thighs to be sure not to get any blood on the floor.   She left as quickly as she could walking her bike since she could not ride it, and making a plan to get rid of the clothes.

She didn’t cry in the shower that day.  She wouldn’t cry in the shower for years, but that was the best shower she had ever had in her life.

Ten years ago, while pregnant with Abby, Lilly and her husband went home for Christmas.  The boy, now a grown man with his wife and son in tow, knocked on her Mothers door and was greeted with hugs and smiles from her family.  She was terrified.  Her husband, the only other person who knew what had happened between them stood in front of her protectively.  He stared at the man until unable to take the scrutiny he found a reason to cut his visit short.  Her husband never said a word.  He simply stared.  His hand also never left hers and she felt safe.  That’s why, years later when her husband said “I never meant to hurt you,” she knew that, unlike the boy, she could forgive him.