They Said I Was Safe

10 years ago I was released from being sexually abused for two years.

My mother would work nights, and my older brother was asleep. He always was a heavy sleeper.

The predator took in me in the middle of the night to keep his “needs” at rest.

From ages 3-5 I was a prisoner. I was held against my will in a bed with my mother’s boyfriend at the time.

What a sick, twisted game.

He would rape his daughter next to me. Both of us looking at each other with alert eyes screaming “Help!”

There was no saving us. There was no chance at leaving. The only thing to comfort us was the ceiling.

Stable. Unmoving.

But then soon we’d lose sight. We’d be floating outside our own bodies watching ourselves being violated.

Why? All because some sick man wanted to.

Eventually the predator went to jail for raping another girl. She told.

About a year after he was in jail, I told my mother. It was when she still had color in her face and a certain ring to her voice.

She sat still. The color drained from her face, and her voice was almost in audible.

“Do you want me to call the police honey?”

My step-dad was already on the phone.

She said “You’re safe now sweetie.” And she hugged me with such love. We cried. And cried.

There was an investigation. He was sentenced for ten years since the last time he continued the crime of raping me.

And yet his son was in the other room. My mother never told my younger half-brother his dad is a rapist.

He knows only my step-dad as his real father. And that’s the way it should have been.

I was in counseling for 10 years. Therapist, psychiatrists, and counselors would always say ” You’re safe now.”

But I never knew that my mother would be the one to ultimately destroy me.

And she did. Her face is as pale as the moon. Her old loving mother voice transitioned into a constant scream. To think that they said I Was Safe.