Free Sister of Silence by Daleen Berry

bed, staring up at the ceiling. Why can’t I just stay with Dad?
    But I knew that wouldn’t work. Living with Mom made more sense because I was the oldest.
    She’ll need my help with the girls .
     
    It was several months before I learned the real reason we’d left. Dad had called Mom from jail that night he hadn’t come home, whining about being arrested for driving drunk.
    We only saw Dad on weekends after that, and by the time I turned thirteen, my parents lived in separate houses, in towns 200 miles apart.
    Over the next few years our visits became less frequent, and Dad never did teach me to fly. When he went to work overseas, the visits stopped all together, leaving me vulnerable and destined to become a pawn in someone else’s plans.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Back then, I understood nothing—and thought I knew everything. From thirteen to sixteen, when most girls experience shopping trips and teenage angst through many quickly broken puppy love relationships, I experienced a combination of forcible rapes, and rapes without force when I was silently compliant, which only enhanced my feelings of guilt and shame.
    Eddie was always taking Kim and me places, and in plain sight he was a gentleman. The kissing and fondling began when no one was looking.
    “Knock it off!” I scowled at him. In return, he smiled and tousled my hair like a big brother.
    I had fallen asleep on the Leigh’s sofa one night, when I awoke to find Eddie standing over me. “Can I have a goodnight kiss?”
    “No,” I murmured, half asleep.
    He reached under the covers but I grabbed his hand and smacked it. “Don’t ever do that again!” I hissed the words.
    “All right, if that’s what you want.” He stood up slowly and turned away. Only when I heard his bedroom door close did I allow myself to exhale. Though relieved he had gone, I was also sad. For what, I didn’t know.
    In spite of my resolve and his promises, it kept happening. I longed for someone to show me attention. Eddie did that, talking to me as if I was his own age. I told myself I trusted and loved him, and convinced myself he wouldn’t do anything to break my trust. But he always did.
     
    My shame cut long and deep on the first day of high school, as I wondered if anyone noticed the change in me. I felt like the scarlet letter “A” was branded onto my chest.
    I was excited to be a freshman, but I also felt different.
    You are different. The voice in my head always reminded me.
    Living among the mountains, the coal mines, and the cornfields, I knew most girls my age were still virgins. They might have experienced petting, but that was about it. Living in God-fearing homes, they knew sex was only for married people. Otherwise, they risked the wrath of their father’s belt.
    But the sexually active girls made no bones about it. Labeled “loose,” their actions were chalked up to having a bad home life. It explained—but didn’t excuse—their promiscuity, and they talked openly about sex.
    In gym class all I could do was listen silently. “We were just necking in his truck and before you knew it,” a big-bosomed girl named Cathy said, “ he unfastened my bra!”
    Cathy’s cohort Paula joined her friend’s raucous laughter. They snickered loudly until the physical education teacher, Mrs. Niles, glared at them.
    “You two want to do laps, or do you think you can finish warming up like everyone else?” she demanded.
    “No ma’am,” they replied.
    I looked far above the bleachers to a window where light had somehow found its way through the grime, and wondered how Mrs. Niles had missed it. Concentrating on tiny details inside the gymnasium kept me from hearing things I longed to know about, but which simultaneously repelled me, as I tried to figure out why their experiences were so different from mine.
    T hey even seemed to enjoy sex. For me, every time Eddie touched me, I wanted to die.
    Maybe it’s me. There’s something wrong with me, or else I would like it,