Drama Club

36. Audrianna's Diary (Page 10) *tw*

November 14th

Dear Diary,

Today is a cold day. It's the kind of cold that doesn't just sit on your skin; it seeps into your bones and stays there, like a layer of ice that won't melt. I looked out the window this morning and the sky was a flat, bruised gray, matching the color of the shadows under my eyes. Everything feels depressing. The world is moving outside-cars are passing, birds are landing on the frozen grass-but I am standing still. I am a statue in my own life.

I have a secret. It's a weight in my chest that feels like I've swallowed a stone. If I don't write it down, I think I might actually stop breathing. My throat feels tight every time I see him. My hands shake every time I hear a door click shut in this house.

It's about my brother.

I keep looking at old photos of us-the ones on the mantle where we're building sandcastles at the beach, or the one from three years ago where he's teaching me how to ride a bike. I used to love him. I used to think he was my protector. We got along so well back then. He was the person I went to when I had a nightmare. Now, he is the nightmare. I don't recognize the person he has become. I don't recognize the house I live in.

It happened three nights ago. The house was quiet because Mom and Dad were at that charity auction in the city. They weren't supposed to be home until after midnight. I was in my room, sitting on my bed with the TV on low. I think I was watching some mindless sitcom, trying to ignore the pit of loneliness that usually settles in when the house is empty.

Then, the front door slammed. I heard his heavy, stumbling footsteps on the stairs. He was drunk-not just "had a few beers" drunk, but the kind of drunk that makes the air smell like sour yeast and fermented rage. I hoped he would just go to his room and pass out. I prayed for the sound of his door closing.

But it didn't. Instead, my door creaked open.

I looked up, and Toby was leaning against the frame. His eyes were bloodshot, unfocused, and dark. He looked like a stranger wearing my brother's skin. I asked him what he wanted. I tried to sound brave, like the sister who usually teased him about his grades or his friends. He didn't respond. He didn't even blink. He just stared at me with this hollow, terrifying intensity.

Before I could scream or run for the hallway, he moved. He was so much faster than I expected. He lunged across the bed and his hands-those hands that used to give me high-fives-clamped around my throat. He choked me, pinning me down against the mattress. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. The TV was still playing in the background, someone was laughing on a laugh track, and I was dying in the dark.

I tried to tell him to stop. I tried to claw at his wrists, but he was too strong. He locked me down with his weight, his knees pinning my arms. He didn't listen to my muffled sobs. He didn't listen to the way my heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

I remember the sound of my own zipper. It sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room. He pulled down the denim of my jeans, his movements rough and impatient. He ripped my shirt over my head, the fabric catching on my hair, pulling at my scalp. I felt the cold air hit my skin, and for a second, I thought I had left my body. I was hovering somewhere near the ceiling, watching this happen to a girl who looked like me, but couldn't be me.

Before I knew it, I was completely naked. I was shivering, but not from the cold. I was shivering from the sheer, soul-crushing terror of realizing that the person who shared my blood was the one shedding it.

He raped me that night.

There is no other word for it. It wasn't a mistake. It wasn't a "misunderstanding." It was a theft. He took my precious virginity without even trying, as if it were a toy he was bored with and decided to break. I closed my eyes and tried to go somewhere else. I tried to imagine the ocean. I tried to imagine the woods. I tried to imagine I was a ghost, invisible and untouchable. But the pain kept pulling me back down to the bed. The smell of the alcohol on his breath, the weight of his body, the absolute silence of a house that should have been safe.

When he was done, he just got up. He didn't look at me. He didn't say he was sorry. He just walked out, leaving my door swinging on its hinges.

In the morning, I woke up, and the sun was shining. That was the worst part. The sun was coming through the blinds as if nothing had changed. But everything had changed. I felt dead inside. I looked down at my body and saw the bruises-the purple marks on my neck where his fingers had been, the yellowing blooms on my thighs. I felt like a cracked vase that had been glued back together poorly. I was alive, but I was dead. The Audrianna who liked to draw and hoped to go to college was gone. The girl in the bed was a hollow shell, a survivor of a war that happened in her own bedroom.

I walked past his room on my way to the bathroom to try and scrub the feeling of him off my skin. His door was open. He was asleep, snoring softly, completely unaware-or maybe just unbothered-by what he had done. He looked so peaceful. It made me want to scream until my lungs gave out. How could he sleep? How could the world keep spinning?

I never forgave him. I never will. I haven't looked him in the eye since that night. I haven't trusted him for a single second. I lock my door every night now, and I push the heavy vanity in front of it, but it doesn't matter. The damage is done. The fortress has already been breached.

He thinks he got away with it. He thinks because I'm the "quiet" sister, I'll keep his secret to protect the family name. He thinks I'm afraid of what Mom and Dad will say. And maybe I am. Maybe I'm terrified that they'll look at me and see the "ruined" thing instead of their daughter.

But I'm writing it here. This is my witness. This is the truth.

Toby is a monster. And I am a ghost dwelling in his house. Every day I spend here, I feel the rot spreading. I see him at dinner, acting like the perfect son, and I want to vomit. I see him hanging out with Julian and Gavin, and I realize they are all the same. They all take what they want and leave the rest of us to bleed out in the dark.

If anyone finds this... if I am gone... know that the "Total War" didn't start at school. It started here. It started with the brother who was supposed to love me.

I am so tired. I just want to sleep and never wake up in this cold, depressing world again.