Resilient

Resilient

The first time that it happened, I remember being incredibly calm.

I remember his taller, larger, stronger body blocking the path between me and the door.

I remember that very shiny silver gun in his hand, and I remember the feeling of the cold metal pressed hard against my temple.

I remember the sound of the safety clicking off, and how my eyes squeezed shut as I waited for him to pull the trigger.

But it never came.

He pulled me into his arms, muttered apologies as he cried into my hair. My body was rigid as he held me, and my eyes were vacant as he led me to his bedroom. I remember thinking that there had to be a reason that he was the way that he was. At least, that's what I believed in the beginning.

But it never got better.

The next day, I remember waking up to him fucking me. I remember crying as his thrusts got harder and harder, I remember asking him to stop. But he wouldn't.

I remember him telling me that if I didn’t come back there that day after class, he would find me and I wouldn't like how he made me come back.

I remember returning that night and staring at the chipped olive paint of his door for what felt like hours before I finally walked in.

I remember seeing him, sitting there with two of his friends, a line of white powder already waiting for me on the glass table. It was his version of a welcome home gift, and I can even vaguely recall thinking that it was a sweet gesture.

I remember the coke being the only thing that made being around him okay.

I remember clutching those stained gray sheets as I cried myself to sleep that night. I remember thinking that when he hit me, it felt like a knife ripping through me.

At least that's what I thought until I actually earned myself a stab wound a few days later.

There wasn't a time during that month and a half that I was stuck in that apartment that I didn't have some kind of injury.

One day, a black eye.

The next day, my nail beds are bleeding from the pins he'd shoved underneath them.

A blow torch burn on my upper thigh.

A broken rib.

A fractured finger.

A busted lip.

An arm full of cigarette burns.

A neck covered in makeup to hide the bruises from where he choked me.

And yet, no one asked me if I was okay. No one said a single damn thing.

I grew to live in a state of constant terror. I forget when I began to think that being happy was an impossibility after all that I had lived through. I forget when I stopped blaming him and began making excuses for him. I forget when I stopped fighting to get away and instead became resigned to stay. I forget when I began to equate pain and torture to love. But I still remember what it was that made me say I had had enough.

I remember him holding me down.

I remember him forcing my head back and pulling my mouth open.

I remember him pouring the liquor down my throat.

I remember him telling me that I always fucked better when I was drunk.

I remember him inviting his friends in the room.

And then I try not to remember anything.

After that, I try not to think about what happened, but I can't get the image of what I saw in the mirror the next day out of my head.

I can't stop remembering the dark circles under my eyes.

The way my mascara ran down my cheeks.

The way every inch of my body ached.

And the feeling of emptiness. That feeling has always been the worst part, and it took me a long time to figure out why that hurt so much but I think I finally have.

I hate that empty feeling, and I hate that night, because it's the day that you stole something from me. Not my innocence, because that was long gone. And not my pride, because that had been lost for a while to.

No, that night, you stole my self-worth. You stole my self-confidence. You stole every single part of me that I liked.

And that's why I hate you. And that's why I hate me. Because I let you take it all away. I let you make me a shell of my former self. And some days, I'm still worried that it'll all never come back.

That I'll never come back.

That I'll never be happy.

That I'll always be ashamed.

So now, I pray every day that I'm wrong about it all.

Dear God, I hope I'm fucking wrong.