The story I never told.

I met a boy. A boy who seemed to soften me and bring my guards down. A boy who seemed shy and sweet. Until he wasn't. Suddenly I was on the cold bathroom floor, fingers dripping, sleeves wet, shaking. I spent so long in a state of shock that I wasn't sure how to pull myself back from. It killed a part of me inside, a part that I'm still working everyday to bring back. Every time my anxiety flares up, I clean. I find myself scrubbing and scrubbing layers of red raw skin off my body, trying to rid of the feeling he left. I zone out, I get quiet and distance myself. I drink to forget it all and avoid my problems for just a little while. I pray. I throw myself into work. I have tried everything possible to forget what you did to me, but you're still there. Lingering. It makes me so furious inside that you took my ability to experience love and sex for the first time without the crippling fear of intimacy blinding me. You had no right to take that from me. And now I will never know. Because every time someone touches me, I flinch. Every time I am left alone with a man, my entire body tenses up and the hairs on the back of my neck begin to burn. I have never spoken any of this out loud. But it makes me angry that you lied your way out. You denied it and made excuses, you never even told your family why you really returned home. You never suffered any consequences or repercussions from your actions, yet I did. And I still do, every single day. But with that anger, came so much confusion and guilt. You made me question myself and feel crazy. I asked myself if that's really what happened, as if I didn't have evidence marked on my body. You even had me wondering if I had just ruined someone's life. As though you hadn't just ruined mine. I questioned if I was being dramatic, if it was my fault for freezing up and not doing something, anything. I have always pride myself in being such a strong, confrontational person. But in that moment, I felt so weak. You took my power and made me feel helpless. And I will go out kicking and screaming if I ever let that happen again.