The One Who Lived

Prologue - The One Who Was Wronged

Ever since I was little, I have thought something was wrong with me.

I was never one of the girls. I never fit in with their pink and purple conversations, or the ones that started with the icky-ness of boys and eventually turned into crushes and loves. I never could gossip the way they did nor listen to the life ending worries that were actually nothing compared to the suffering of others.

I eventually realized that it was due to my upbringing – as the youngest of four and the only girl – I have literally only been around guys for the entirety of my life, and that didn't change when my family moved from Iowa to Camdenton, Missouri.

I couldn't make friends like my brothers could, so I became the piggyback sister.

I only hung out with my brothers, and in turn, their friends. I became one of the guys while being a girl.

Well, that is until I met Bryce Brooks.

Being with Bryce, and being known as his girl, changed everything.

It meant that I attended the parties that he attended, and then quickly became friends with the girls that he was friends with. I started to actually become the girl that I saw in movies and dreamed of being.

I started to fall in love with him and his life.

Even with the rumors that circulated about how he had treated past girlfriends and some other girls, I never swayed in my love for him. He never did that to me, and even when he started to become agitated and aggressive, I thought that I could change him.

I just didn't realize that you can't make the devil into an angel.

Bryce was so good at his showering of love, and declarations of how wanted I was. He was always good at making me feel so extremely important – until I wasn't.

Until he would hit me.

I remember being younger and thinking that if a guy ever hit me that I would call my brothers. I was convinced that as soon as I told them that my they would kill whoever dared to lay a finger on me, but then again, I would never be with a guy who hit me.

How goddamn naïve...

I remember the first time he hit me. We were both shocked because it just didn't seem real, but then he did it again...and again...and again. Once it started, it never stopped happening.

At first, I could brush it off and act like it didn't happen, and I could even act like I didn't care.

It only happened once a week and that was tolerable. Then it became twice a week, and then it quickly became every day. Suddenly, I didn't remember who I was or what happened to get me there. I somehow became a broken and abused girl who had no identity nor self-worth.

I became a girl that was so lost that I let a guy hit me and destroy me. I let some stupid, piece of shit guy turn me into a broken girl who didn't even recognize herself.

I lost the ability to love and recognized myself after every verbal lashing and physical hit that he put me through, but I could tolerate it. I could save him and bring him back to the good side – I just didn't realize that there wasn't any good in him to begin with.

While all of this sucks, and that is the main reason that I have stayed silent in the year since – the main reason is the question that I fear people asking. The question that involves the prompting of what caused me to wake up? What was the final thing that he did that woke me up and made me realized my worth?

The answer, you ask?

It wasn't me. I didn't make the decision to end our one year, one month and twelve-day relationship. After all the rape and abuse, it wasn't me who finally was tired of it – it was him.

Why you ask? Why did he break up with me?

Because it simply wasn't good enough anymore. There was no more excitement in it for him because – even though it had been from his hands – I had been used and abused and there was no longer any 'fun left inside of me.'

So, when you hear about how 'empty' I am and how 'boring' I have become from other people, that is why. Because no matter how much I gave to him, and how much suffering he put in me, in the end – the rape and torture of my life simply was no good enough, and I don't know how to cope with that.

I don't know how to cope because he took everything, and a year later I am still left with nothing.