Rise From the Ashes

It wasn’t violent, the attempted rape. It was mostly tearful, with me pleading for the man to stop. And sick and disgusting. It smelled gross and dirty. I could smell his sweat, I can still smell his sweat. I will never forget it. I will still remember the scent after he got done, after he realised I want going to let him. I fought in my drunkenness.
He had told me that he wanted to talk to me.
William Triplett was his name. He was an ex of mine, and I had just turned 16, and he was 25. I was desperate to find someone who was mature. I was desperate to find someone who cared about me deeply. I didn’t want a typical teenager relationship; the urging for sex or for oral or whatever. I thought an older man was the way to go. I wanted love, and nothing more. I didn’t want sex, I was a virgin, and still am. I just wanted to be held and feel warmth. But he didn’t understand.
How terribly wrong I was to think that boys grew up to men and wanted a real love story, not a sex story. How terribly wrong.
William had cheated on me a month before the Halloween party. He screwed around with other girls, tried to get into a friend’s pants, and was being suspiciously flirty with his own cousin, whom was my best friend. That’s Missouri for ya; guys wanting to get into the pants of their younger girl cousins, even their nieces or their nephews. It’s sick. I should’ve known he was a creep when I saw his deceiving sky blue eyes, his muscular body, his perfection. He was shorter than me, but I’m 5’9 and it’s hard to find guys taller than me here in Missouri.
He had wanted to talk to me. I was hopelessly drunk and stupid. I was so drunk, I had dropped a cigarette on my hip and watched it burn for a minute. I didn’t feel the pain, but I think I wanted it. I hated myself then, and still do every once in awhile. But doesn’t everybody?
He coaxed me into the bathroom. I had followed, even though I had another friend there telling me not to. I still loved Will though, despite everything. I still wanted to give him a second chance.
He took me into the bathroom, then he shut the door behind me. I don’t remember everything, but next thing I knew, he was kissing me, everywhere. Then he took off my clothes. At this point, I finally saw what he was trying to do. I told him stop, I begged him “Please, anything but that”. He tried anyway. He tried to force himself intercourse. I cried and I sobbed and I begged him to stop.
If my best friend’s sister hadn’t walked in, I would’ve been raped.
He stopped, realising that it was not a good environment to rape. He was such an idiot. With that many people around in a small house, he should’ve known.
At least he had the decency to clothe me afterwards. When I fell asleep that night, it didn’t hit home at what had happened. I passed out in my friends bed.
The next morning, I cried in the shower. I tried to scrub off the dirtiness and the filth. It was surely my fault, I had thought. It was surely something I had brought upon myself. I WAS wearing a skirt, that was long and beautiful, but I hiked up to my hip to give it a twist, and I was wearing a red corset. I was supposed to be Snow White, since I had black hair and pale skin.
I scrubbed and scrubbed, turning my skin the red of the devil. I cried harder still, knowing that I was tainted forever. I had tried to push him off, I told him no. What did I do wrong?
Months afterward, I got sick of being dirty. I became a recluse. I stayed away from people as much as possible. And then I planned on killing myself.
I had it all planned out. I was going to hang myself with a scarf, but if that didn’t work, I outlined my arteries and I would open my veins and bleed out in a hot bath or something. Before I could do any of this, as I had the scarf in my hand, read to hang myself and end my fucked up life, I noticed a paper on the ground. In a daze of insanity and depression, I picked it up and saw what it was.
Megan Meier’s story.
I don’t know of you know of Meghan. She was a girl from Missouri who killed herself from cyber bullying. She was from St. Charles and went to Fort Zumwalt middle school. She was beautiful, I thought she was pretty. She was bullied because she was ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’. She had been bullied before she killed herself, and when she died, it was a week before her 14th birthday.
On the side of the paper it had the suicide hotline. Not thinking, and nervous, I called and the man on the line got what school I came from.
Ironically, Tina Meier had came to our school and was talking about the suicide of her daughter the very next day. The principle pulled me out of the assembly and talked to me about suicide. The counselors helped me too. Then the female counsellor drove me home and told my mom what had happened. I didn’t want her to find out. I wanted to keep it a sect, I didn’t want to be considered weak and stupid. When I told my mom I was almost raped, she didn’t believe me.
What do you do when your own mother doesn’t believe you? What are you supposed to do? To this day, she still doesn’t believe me, I know she doesn’t. Even if she doesn’t though, I will always remember something from that year, just when I was a sophomore. It’s been two Halloweens since, and stil remember most of it. Some of it is blurred from my drunk, but I got most of everything.
I remember to never give up, no matter how down you are about yourself. I still have problems doing that, but I keep on mind that there are people who love me and so what if my mom doesn’t believe me? At least I know it happened. At least I know that I’m okay now, and that William Triplett is rotting away in prison now for a few years because of thieving. I hate him. I wish he could drive up one day, so that I could tell him how I feel. Tell him how I felt like killing myself and that I hope he fucking feels like a piece of shit for trying to rape a 16 year old girl. Tell him how many nights I’ve spent thinking of ending it all right then and there, I still feel that way, but I won’t do it because of the people who will be left behind. They will be victimised for something I have done, and I’m not that kind of person. I remember how helpless I felt, and how I quieted my crying as he tried to hurt me, because i gave up. I still cry. I’m crying as a type this even.
I hope he learns his lesson in that dirty prison cell. I hope he fucking feels guilty for everything he’s done and feels how I feel now: Dirty. Gross. Tainted. Disgusting. Think of any synonym for those and it’s exactly how I feel.
I still smell his disgusting body odor as he tried to take advantage of me. I will always remember.
And William Triplett, if you are reading this now, you deserve all of the shit you get and all of the pain and hurt you feel. I don’t feel an ounce of sympathy for you. I don’t hate the guy who molested me as a child for two years as much as I hate you right now. The odds of you reading this are none to zero, but I don’t care there’s always this chance that you’ll stumble across it nice you get out of prison. I hope you see it.
Rape is a crime of hatred, power, and control. It doesn’t matter if you are wearing the skankiest clothing ever or nothing at all, when you say “No” it means “NO!” You sick bastards who are raping women who aren’t lucky enough to be saved by an unlikely hero deserve every terrible thing you get. Even you sick women who are raping men deserve the worst things ever in your life. How dare you try to take advantage like that? HOW DARE YOU? What are you, God?! What are you, the very son/daughter of the holiest thing alive, and you think you can get whatever you want? FUCK YOU.
We are survivors, we will rise above out past. We will save ourselves and we will heal. We won’t be controlled by you dirty birds anymore. We will live and we will be what we want to be. We won’t be controlled by your sin anymore. We won’t be curled up in bed, holding ourselves, and wishing to die. We won’t be the number that you see in statistics about people who are raped/molested every year of every second. We’ll rise up and succeed as we watch you fall off your high horse.
We will rise up from the ashes and be reborn into a Phoenix.