Mistrust (3 page)

Air . . . I need air. My lungs feel like they’re starving for it; my throat is closing on the air I’m attempting to breathe.
I can’t get enough air into my lungs.

As carefully as I can, I open the door and try to walk out of the bathroom without seeming like I’m stumbling. The teachers will think I’m drunk. I’m not, and I don’t want them to call my parents.

Bracing myself against the first chair I find outside the bathroom, I steady myself.
What the hell is happening to me?

“Are you okay, Dakota?” I hear a man ask. Turning I notice Mr. C standing beside me. Looking at him, I try and speak, but my voice fails me. “I said, are you okay?” he asks again while reaching out to grab onto my elbow.

“I need some air,” I finally manage to mumble.

Mr. C looks at me, and then looks up and away from me. “Just wait here, I have to go deal with a situation,” he says as he drags a chair out and points for me to sit in it. Something’s off with him and I don’t want him to come back to find me. “I’ll be back in two minutes, don’t go anywhere.” He looks to his left and when I try to focus, I see there are a couple of guys from my class about to get into a fight. I’m trying to focus on them and see what they’re doing, but Mr. C’s back blocks everything out.

I need air. My body is burning up, my head is fuzzy, and my stomach is roiling with a desperate need to vomit.
Air . . . air . . . air.

Dragging myself out of the gymnasium and down the hall, I move toward the side doors. But with no one here to help me once I’m outside, I will need to sit for a moment out on the steps leading to the back field and gather myself.

My legs become heavier as I get to the doors. The cyclone taking place inside my head is whirling faster, and my vision is so unclear I can barely make out objects.

Stumbling down the first step, I hardly recognize where I am.

“What’s happening?” I think I question.

There’s a cacophony of dense sounds; a combination of white noise, mumbling, and a beat which doesn’t make sense.

My eyes are now so heavy I can barely keep them open. My legs are completely useless as I attempt to make my way down the stairs. I think I’m going to pass out.

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” the familiar yet unrecognizable deep male voice says. “Let me get you home.”
I know this voice, but it’s muffled by fuzz.

Trying to focus, I start to turn to see who’s here with me, but my eyes close.

There’s something warm on my face. My mouth is dry and my entire body hurts. Slowly blinking my eyes open, I gaze around me. A bright light coming over the horizon is blinding me, and I can hear the chirping of birds singing to one another.

“Where am I?” I mumble, but no one answers. Turning my head to the left, my eyes try to focus on my surroundings, but I can’t make out anything but the color green. “What the hell?” As I blink wildly, the cloud obscuring my vision begins to lift. I finally realize I’m out behind the school, hidden in some shrubs about fifty yards away from the bleachers. The sun is slanting at an angle that tells me it’s still early morning. “What?” I sit up slowly, and a spike of pain shoots up my back and into my abdomen at the exact same moment.

My body tenses with fear and confusion. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing out here, or even how I got here. Finding some strength in my legs, I manage to maneuver my body so I’m on all fours. Once I finally find my balance and stand, I’m keenly aware of the intense pain shooting through various parts of my body.

Brushing my fingers against my face, I wince in pain when I reach the side of my neck. “What is going on?” I repeat to myself as I look down at my now torn and tattered green gown. I wiggle my toes and notice I’m only wearing one shoe. I feel the soft, lush, green grass beneath my sole while the ankle strap is still attached, the shoe loose behind me.

Trying to think back to last night, clouds fill my mind. I remember getting ready, Mom taking a lot of photos, and Levi coming to pick me up. I remember dancing with the girls, but I can’t remember anything after that.

Did I drink? Is this me hungover? Or am I still drunk?

Did I do something?

As I stumble to where my clutch is tossed, I feel a distinctive pain shooting up from between my legs. I lift my dress to see what could be hurting, and I notice all the blood on the inside of my thighs. My panties are gone, and my legs are heavily bruised with marks I know won’t be fading any time soon. “Oh my God!” I gasp as vomit rushes up to burn my throat.

I barely make it back to the shrubs before I start throwing up. Once, twice, three times . . . it keeps coming up, over and over again. I can’t stem the nausea.

When the vomiting finally ceases, I’m left with an unsteady panic vibrating through me.

Tears are falling while I lean down to take off my remaining shoe, get my clutch, and start walking home. I’m so embarrassed by what must have happened. I’m not ready to look at my phone and the phone calls and messages I know I must have. I know my parents must be going out of their minds looking for me, but I’ll be beyond humiliated to tell them I got so drunk I passed out on alcohol I don’t remember having. They’re going to be ashamed of me, and disappointed.

I walk home, all the while praying they fell asleep early last night and think I’m home and in bed already.
Please
God, don’t let them notice I’m not home yet. Please God, please.

It takes me about fifteen minutes to walk home and when I do, I use my key to open the front door. My heart tightens in my chest as the opening door makes a low creaking sound. I hold my breath, hoping no one has heard me. I feel a rush of blood in my ears as I listen for any slight sound in my house. I finally realize everyone must still be asleep.

Closing the door softly, I scurry to my room as quietly as I can and lock my door behind me. With my back against the cool timber, I slide down until my bottom finds the hardwood floors beneath me. Bringing my legs up, I hug my knees and begin to silently cry again.

Raw feelings of helplessness and anger choke me.
How did this happen to me?

The handle rattles, and I hear Mom whispering, “She must still be sleeping. Let’s go make breakfast; she’ll be up when she’s ready.”

“Okay, sweetheart,” Dad answers.

Dad mumbles something about blueberry pancakes as their footsteps go down the hall toward the kitchen.

My thoughts scatter, trying to build a timeline of last night’s murky events. But my eyes shift from wall to wall, the haze of the evening is screaming at me preventing any kind of focus. My mind is telling me I’ll probably never know the truth.
My heart agrees.

I stay on the floor trying to figure this out for minutes, or hours. I don’t know. But what I
am
sure of is the fact I have no idea what happened last night.

Finally I stand and unzip my dress, and let it fall to the floor. It’s covered in blood and grass stains, torn and shredded around the hem. Taking a deep breath shaky with trepidation, I gingerly walk to my full-length mirror. I’m not sure I’m ready to see whatever will face me in the reflective glass. When I’m finally positioned in front of the mirror, I don’t dare make eye contact. I’m not ready to see the horrific sight which will be staring back at me.

Taking in and releasing a deep breath, I lift my head to see what the girl in the mirror wants to show me. Clapping a hand to my mouth, I hold in a scream. I want to yell that it’s not me. She’s nothing more than a figment of my dark imagination, not real.

But she blinks the moment I blink and the tears stream down her cheeks, reflecting the ones running down mine. A pained, muffled cry escapes my swollen lips as I look at the broken girl in the mirror.

Her body is heavily bruised. There are marks all over her legs, with specks of dried blood stuck to her skin. There are bruises around the base of her neck and on the tops of her arms. She looks beyond broken, she looks . . . destroyed.

“My God,” I whisper as I look around the room, fearful that someone came in without me noticing. “What happened to me?” Of course the question is rhetorical. No answers appear.

Turning from the girl in the mirror, I grab my dress and scrunch it up, stuffing it in a box as far back in my closet as I can get it. Then I wrap a towel around myself and go to the door. Placing my ear up against it, I listen to the sounds of the morning. I need to make sure no one is near so they don’t see me when I come out of my room. When I know Mom and Dad are in the kitchen, and I can’t hear Sam, I open the door and quietly pad down the hall to the bathroom Sam and I share.

My senses are in overdrive, and I try to remain invisible. When I get to the bathroom, I quickly close and lock the door behind me. Taking a deep breath I feel my legs become solid again. I can’t even move anymore. I’m so scared Mom and Dad will know something has happened by looking at me that my entire body is on high alert. Swallowing hard, I try to calm my pulse as it hammers violently through my veins. “You can do this, Dakota,” I encourage myself.

Double- then triple-checking the door’s locked, I’m finally able to get into the shower, knowing I’m safe in here. Turning the water to as scalding hot as I can get it, I drop the towel and step into the continuous stream of boiling water. The moment it touches my bruised and painful skin, I let out a small yelp of pain. But I welcome the heat, and hope it has the power to wash the night off me.

Looking around the shower I try and find a cloth to wash my body, but there’s nothing in here. Dripping wet, I get out and look under the vanity to see what mom’s got here. I find a scrub brush with hard bristles I’ve seen mom use to clean the bathtub, and I bring it into the shower. Squirting liquid soap on it, I begin by scrubbing my fingers, which leads to my hands, and then all the way up my arms. I can’t stop; I need to make sure everything is removed, scoured clean so I have no trace left of what happened last night.

Every body part I touch hurts; every bruise I scrub makes me wince in pain. I dread washing my vagina, but I know I have to. “Oh God,” I say to myself as I squirt more soap on the scrub brush. Totally bracing myself I move my hand down. “Ahh,” I cry out as I wash off whatever the hell is on me. The heat of the shower is pounding on my back, and tears are flowing down my face.

This hurts so bad.
But I have to do it. I have to wash away whatever happened to me. No one can know; no one can suspect. I don’t want to know, I don’t want to even think about what might have happened. It’s too embarrassing. If anyone finds out, they’re going to think I’m a slut, and that I was asking for it. I can’t have that. I can’t let anyone find out. It’s beyond humiliating.

Shaking, I continue to clean myself, making sure any trace of what happened is long gone. The only problem is the more I scrub, the dirtier I feel.

“Get off me,” I howl while squeezing more soap on the rough bristles. “Get off me!” I keep crying as I try my hardest to clean the filth away.

I stand in the shower for so long that the water begins to cool. I look down at my body to see exactly what I’ve done to it. I’m completely raw from the hard brush, and some spots are red from where I’ve scrubbed enough to break skin. “Oh my God,” I gasp as I look at the parts of my body which are covered in crimson drops.

Suddenly everything changes while I’m standing under the now cool water. I go from feeling crushing shame and humiliation, to staring blankly at the wall. Small blurring dots dart in front of my eyes as I continue to glare at the tiles on the wall. Not a single thought enters my mind, not even a hint of feeling.

My tears stop and the compulsion to make sure I’m thoroughly clean dissipates at a rapid rate. The cold fingers gripping my throat have melted away. I can’t feel anything. I can’t think. There is nothing for me to hold on to. I’m icy cold and numb.

As I stand under the shower a realization washes over me. A part of me died last night. Something was taken from me, and I know I didn’t give permission for it to be taken. I know what happened now.

I was raped.