Day 24

When I was a little girl I was convinced that nothing was real, and the world was all mine. Everything happened because I wanted it too, whether I knew it or not. When I was eleven, I had a falsely labelled "asthma" attack and disappeared into the school bathrooms, hoping I would have enough time to work a plan I had spent weeks contemplating. Shoving myself into the stall, I increased the extent of my fake heaving to deter anyone from sticking around as I rummaged around in my coat pocket. Once I was sure everyone had dispersed I pulled out a bottle of my dad’s narcotics. Rubbing my hand over the smooth plastic container, I felt my other hand rise and pop off the cap. I didn't remember much of anything after that moment. My body was nervously out of control; shaking violently, I swallowed a handful of bare pills, only to chase them down with water later.

I walked into class eventually, leaving the bottle on the bathroom sink. I took my seat next to a girl named Mandy Jenkins, and felt the collective states of classmates pierce my skin. "Are you alright Isabelle? Do you need to go home?," my teacher asked alarmingly. My body was already shaking; everything I saw was just above a twisted blur. I remember my teacher screaming and shaking me, saying my name over and over. Isabelle, Isabelle, Isabelle! Mandy was screaming, and I myself was on the floor, covered in puke and undigested capsules.

Turns out, everything I believed was a lie. I couldn't make things happen because I wanted them too. I had assumed death would be so easy to accomplish; it happens all the time right? "You could have died. You could have died." my father stressed between disappointed tears. I knew I could have died. But what I learned was I would not have woken up, no matter how badly I wanted too.

Everything came with a price.

When I was about fifteen years old, I was sitting in the park one evening… and then I wasn’t. I was lying-- actually sprawled out somewhere in the woods and crying profusely, mouth covered, body kicking and struggling to figure out what exactly was happening. A larger figure was atop me, hot sweaty and heavy pushing me harder and harder into the fresh loam underneath my back. Damp and wet, it did nothing but soak my aching back with evening dew. I tried to scream louder but nothing seemed to work. Everything was going too fast... yet also not quick enough. Because the only word I could really take the time to legitimately think about was the word I was too scared to utter after the situation ended. Everything was gone, and nothing I knew would be the same.

I was being raped. Rape. Rape Rape Rape Rape.

It was almost nine o’clock when I managed to stumble through the door, clothes torn, eyes puffy and red. My body was nearly shaking to bad for me to stand as I cried in the doorway to my father. Clothes stained by the deep green grass and blood from a place I couldn’t find the courage to even look at. My tongue was a bit swollen and sliced from the pressure of my own teeth when the man tried to keep me from screaming. I felt my knees start to wobble as one of them buckled. I grabbed onto the door as my father managed to grab my, throwing me into his arms.

I didn’t have to explain to him what had happened, because he had somehow already knew. The look on my petrified face maybe? My refusal to touch him? The distance I forced between us as he drove me to the hospital? The uncontrollable tears? The blood on my clothes? All significant signs of what had just happened to me. I tried to find a reason for something like this to have happened to me. I hadn’t done anything I could remember to be wrong, but I knew everything came with a price.

I must had done something terrible to deserve it. No matter how many sexual assault counselors I spoke too, no matter how many days I went through telling myself it wasn’t my fault. I knew I had done something.

Something terribly wrong.