Oh Ms Believer

95. Samantha

The first month out of the hospital I stayed at home most of the time. Ms. Heron came back and tutored me. I didn't want to set foot in the school anymore. I missed my friends and I missed basketball but I couldn't play basketball anymore anyway. For one, I can't wear my hoodies and sweatpants. I have to wear shorts and my school jersey. Too much of my body would show. And then who knows what could happen?

I also didn't like wearing my leg anymore. It reminded me of what Tristan did. Because what he'd done had caused it to get loose and I think that's what made me realize something had happened.

Mom also got insistent that I needed to go to the support group. I didn't want to. I didn't want to relive what happened. I didn't want to tell a bunch of strangers what had happened.

But, here I was, for the third week in a row, and the facilitator, Karen (but nothing like those ones you see on the internet. She's really nice) was looking at me expectantly.

"Samantha, you've been coming for three weeks and you haven't spoken yet. We're all friends here. No one will judge you. Would you like to share your story"

I shook my head.

"Samantha," Karen said. "We can't help you if we don't know what happened and what you're grappling with. Now, your referral said you're very eloquent and intelligent. I'd love to hear from you. I think the group would, too."

"Yeah. We shared our stories. You think it was comfortable for us?" One of the girls, Patty, said.

I took a deep breath.

"I was raped at a school dance," I whispered.

"Sorry, could you repeat that a little louder?" Karen asked. "I couldn't hear you."

"I was raped at a school dance!" I shouted. "Are you happy?!  Is that what you wanted to hear?"

I broke down into tears. The girl beside me tried to put her arm around me and I pushed her off.  Suddenly, Karen was kneeling in front of me. Like Tristan had been. I pushed my chair back.

"Don't touch me!" I cried.

"Samantha, shh, relax. I'm not going to hurt you. I was just going to come talk with you a little bit. I want you to know that you are okay. You are safe here. No one is going to judge you for what happened to you. That's what this group is for. It's for you to hear from other people who have experienced something similar, to get support and learn how to move past these traumas and heal. Take back your independence."

"But I still don't understand why.  Why did he do it?" I cried.

"We certainly can't answer what he was thinking or why he'd do what he did, but we're here to help you work through your trauma and not his reasoning. Because in all honesty, his reasoning doesn't matter. What he did was unacceptable. I know you already know that.  Now, since you've gotten the hard part out, would you be willing to tell us, from your perspective, what happened?  You don't have to go into detail."

I took a deep breath and blew my nose with the tissue Karen had brought over.

"It was the Winter Ball. It's kinda like a junior prom, except seniors come, too. My school doesn't do a junior prom. Just the prom for the seniors in May," I started.

"Why is that relevant?" Casey, another girl in the group asked.

"Because, idiot, her assault took place at the dance!" Patty said.

"Patty - no name calling. You know that."

"Sorry. I'm just pissed that this happened. Again. But I bet I know who got blamed," she crossed her arms and sat back.

"Samantha, can you tell us what happened?" Karen asked, bringing all the attention back onto me.

I breathed in again.

"So, he picked me up at home. My mom and dad took pictures and then Tr... he drove us to the dance. We don't live that far from the school so we were there pretty soon after the dance started. We met up with our friends and we were all dancing and having fun. Whenever we sat to rest Tr... he would go get us drinks. I'm diabetic so he said he was sure to get sugar free pop.

We kept dancing and he was somewhat okay with one of my guy friends dancing with me, but for the slow dances insisted on dancing with me.

Later on I started to feel weird. My head felt ... fuzzy?  My best friend asked to see my phone because I have a glucose monitoring app and she said I was acting weird. 

What happened after I don't really remember. I know my friend said she asked him to take me to get some air but we wound up in an empty classroom. He was touching me and I asked him to stop. But he wouldn't."

Tears were streaming down my face.

"He put his hands under my dress and I tried to push him away but I felt like I had no control over my body. And I'm not some weakling. I play basketball and I play wheelchair basketball. I should have been able to push him off me but I just couldn't make my body do what I wanted it to do.

Then I think I blacked out. When I next woke up," I sobbed. "He was doing up his pants, my dress was torn and pushed up and my leg was loose."

"Your leg was loose?" Casey asked. "Sorry, that makes no sense to me."

"Samantha has a prosthetic. As you can see, she only has one leg, Casey," Karen said, indicating my folded pant leg. I was wearing sweatpants and a big hoodie.

"So, what do you mean it was loose?"

"He must have done something and maybe pulled on it, because it's made to fit over my stump and it was pulled off a bit and askew."

"I bet I know one of the first questions you were asked," Hannah, an older girl in the group said. "What were you wearing or how much did you have to drink?"

"No," I frowned, thinking. "I was roofied. They found it in my blood at the hospital."

"You went to the hospital?" Carly asked.

"I was taken to the hospital when I passed out again after.  He was trying to make me get in his car and he was saying he would take me home by my best friend kept telling me to go with her. I was really confused and I don't remember exactly how any of that happened. I don't remember how we got outside or why I was still letting him near me.  I remember Jill calling for her Dad. Then I woke up in the hospital. By then they'd already done a rape kit and blood work and they found the roofie," I said.

"Hold on a second," Hannah said, sitting forward. "He roofied you?"

I nodded.

"That little bastard," she said. "Is he going to jail?"

"I don't know," I said. "I just wish he'd get out of my head."

The group looked at me sympathetically. But I didn't feel like they were pandering or insincere. They'd all been through something similar. And they all seemed to be doing so much better than I was.