This is the first time I've tried to put this in words, so I don't know how this will end...but I feel that it's time to say it aloud.
I cried this morning on my way to work. At first I tried to blame it on how open I've been lately...how honest I've been to those who matter to me, putting aside what may come to make sure that I never have to live with regret. But in truth, I cried for myself. I try not to play the victim, but this is perhaps the first time that I understand the full magnitude of what happened to me.
During the winter before my 13th birthday, my mother purchased a house, and the three of us (my mom, my sister and myself) started a life there. A few months after moving, just as summer began, I had my first boyfriend. He lived around the corner from me, and he was the only kid in the neighborhood that I knew of who was the same age as I. Without my mother knowing of course, he came over almost daily and we held hands while watching movies, or talked about important 13 year old issues. And every night, we talked on the phone until one of us fell asleep. A few weeks into our "relationship", he gathered the courage to kiss me. After that first kiss, we were inseperable; we kissed while watching movies and decided to give up discussing the important 13 year old issues in exchange for kissing. I wanted to seem cool, so I didn't tell him that he was the first person I had ever kissed. In retrospect I think it's safe to assume that he'd never kissed anyone either, because there was a great deal of tooth clashing and accidental biting taking place that we both pretended not to notice. My first boyfriend had an older brother who I sometimes noticed walking around the neighborhood, and his older brother had a friend who often accompanied him. They were both 19 or 20, so we never hung out together; we essentially existed in different but parallel worlds.
One day near the end of summer vacation, my boyfriend stopped coming over. I honestly cannot remember if I was heartbroken, and I don't really remember how long it took me to call his house and inquire about what happened to him. But when I finally did, one of his parents told me that he had been sent to a juvenile detention center. So there went my first boyfriend. Not long after we stopped hanging out, his older brother's friend started showing up at my house when I got home from school. Without my mother knowing of course, he invited himself in, and I didn't know how to protest or even if I should protest...so I didn't. After his first one or two visits, he started talking about having sex with me. So one day, during the fall after my 13th birthday and in the twin sized bed that I'd had since I grew out of a crib, he took my virginity. At least 3 times a week, from the middle of my 6th grade year until early 7th, he came over whenever my mother wasn't home, had sex with me, then pulled up his pants and left. Per his request, I never talked to anyone about it, until one day when I spent the night at one of my friend's houses. He had come over the day before and I was in pain as I always was afterward, so I talked my friend's mother, who was a doctor, because I wanted to know if the pain was normal. She was completely alarmed and urged me to tell my mother. I remembered only a year before when my older sister told my mom that she'd had sex with her boyfriend. My mother's reaction was to beat her with a wooden hanger until my sister was literally covered in cuts and the hanger was reduced to splinters and shards of wood. That being considered, I decided that telling my mother was definitely not a possibilty. Instead, I told one of my teachers. She immediately arranged a conference with the principal, my friend's mother (since I'd told her as well), and my mother.
This event was the start of a great many shitty events that took place during my childhood. My mother didn't beat me, but she was very mad at me. She told me regularly that she couldn't trust me anymore because I'd had sex with that man. She wouldn't let me go outside anymore, and she eventually withdrew me from the private school that I'd been attending which was perhaps the only semblance of a childhood that I had left. Years later she would tell me that she put me in city school because the curriculum at the private school seemed too hard, but I know that she did it because she was embarassed. Possibly the only thing that my mother did correctly was to take legal action. He was sentenced to 7 years in jail and is of course a registered sex offender now. Because my mother blamed me, and because my rape experience was nothing like my 1st cousin's- that same year she was beat within an inch of her life, raped and sodomized, and left in a dumpster to die- I spent years blaming myself for what happened. It wasn't until I turned 19 when I looked back and realized that I'd never want to have sex with a 13 year old, that I began to see that what he did was wrong.
You may be wondering what the point of this story is. Well, as you know, I've been living at home for a little over a month now. This monday was beautiful, sunny and warm, and I spent the day with my friend because it was her birthday. In the evening, we went to a 7-11 near my mom's house because I was dying for a slurpee. As soon as I pulled up to the 7-11, the man who I've been trying to forget for the last decade parked right next to me. I looked at him, frozen. He looked at me too, and I have honestly never seen so much anger in a person's eyes. Needless to say, I didn't get my slurpee, and my wonderful day came to an abrupt stop. I find myself wondering why he was so angry... Does he honestly not understand why what he did was completely wrong? Does he not understand that he destroyed my childhood and robbed me of my innocence for his own selfish wants? In court, he told the judge that I'd lied about my age. I was far too naive to do such a thing.
I may not have been beaten or sodomized, but I was still completely violated. Seeing him this week has rehashed so many memories...and I guess now's the time for me to deal with it. But where do I begin?
And can I really live here happily knowing that he lives only 9 houses away?
