What Happened on Wednesday

Part Five

The next day, I wore a pair of faded old blue jeans and a plain green shirt. I refused to take a shower, not being able to look at myself, and I did not put on an ounce of makeup. I grabbed one of my mom's old grey sweatshirts to cover myself with, even though it was warm outside that day. I wanted to be as less as I could. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to be as little as I could be, and the suicidal thoughts came back crashing onto me full force. He unknowingly talked me down from my terrible place in mind, and yet not even four months later, he places me right back into that space.

Four months. It had only been four months. How could he do this?

I wondered what I had done wrong to deserve what happened. I thought back to my childhood, to the day that I realized my parents were getting a divorce. It was a calm divorce without any drama, but I could remember the day that my mother moved out. I wondered what I had done to upset her, what I had done to make her want to leave. I thought about the first day of school, the first day of seventh grade, when I told Oliver that he needed to be faster. Was he holding a grudge against me? Was he that angry at me? So much that he wanted to hurt me? I thought he loved me, and I couldn't understand why he would do that to me. I trusted him, and now I felt like I couldn't trust anybody. I refused to trust people for a long time.

Pulling myself slowly onto the bus that morning, I dreaded looking up. I pulled my hood over my head and sat down next to Oliver. I didn't know why I sat next to him. I immediately wished I hadn't, because when I sheepishly met his gaze he frowned at me. I could tell he was angry. "I'm sorry about yesterday, Ollie." Stupid. Why did I say that?

"Yeah," Oliver said with a quick exhale. "What the hell was that about? And what the hell are you wearing?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Are you going to answer my question?" He let out an aggravated sigh and I didn't know what to say then. I couldn't move. I was terrified. I had saved myself yesterday, and yet I placed myself right next to the person that easily could have raped me, or even had killed me if he wanted.

"I said I was sorry." As I said this, I looked back down and the realization finally hit me. I remembered what he had done. My neck began to throb as violent flashbacks crashed through my brain, I felt his cold hands pressed against my collarbone even though I saw his hands right next to mine. I realized then that I couldn't tell what day it was, what time it was, and where I was. The world around me became a thick fog and all I could do was try to escape the prison my brain had become.

"It's okay", he said. "I forgive you." He adjusted his hand and held onto mine. My hand did not seem to fit into mine anymore. After what he had done, it didn't even feel like his hand. It felt like a stranger's hand, like someone who had killed someone was holding onto my hand. He gripped harder than he had before, I thought. Either that or I was slowly trying to pull away.

I didn't remember arriving at school. The next thing I knew, I was walking with Joliene to gym class. She was talking to me but I couldn't hear her. I couldn't understand what she was saying. I watched her mouth move up and down but no words were coming out. The same thought cycled through my head over and over again. Finally, I was snapped out of my trance in the locker room when Joliene gave me a light shove. "Hey, Aura," she said. "Are you alright?"

I nodded and she glanced down. She looked me in the eye and pointed at my collarbone. I narrowed my eyebrows and glanced down. I hadn't noticed it this morning because I never took a shower and I wore large clothes and wasn't paying attention. What I saw was a cloud of purple and blue. The spreading color with yellow splotches was only the surface level injury. The real injury was what he had done to me, and I am not talking about the bruise. The real one is within, the feeling of betrayal, the feeling of a boiling hatred that made me realize what kind of situation I was in. It took over a week for the bruise to finally heal, and when it did, it was like the sun going down after a long day. The stars, the hue of my skin, finally returned after the colors finally disappeared.