The Old Mine

27: The Jump Gender Divide

                       Cal was not looking forward to this. All of this over a boy she dated for a few months when she was in her early teens. Cal took a few breaths remembering how her brother came into the house and caught the asshole cussing her out and calling her stupid. Bret grabbed the guy by the back of the shirt, dragged him outside and kicked his ass.

                         Mom and dad took it so seriously, they made sure that she understood... one; that he was wrong and two; that it was important for her to heal. The whole incident strengthened her relationship with her family because nobody blamed her, they never even asked her why she allowed him to do that. Cal leaned her head back in the bed and tried to let the positive part of it drown out the bad. The biggest question she had to answer was asked by therapists... Why did she allow it to go on for as long as she did? Cal couldn't answer that; it wasn't an easy thing to explain. But now she was going to have to dredge it all up again.

                         She had been hoping that she wouldn't need to worry about it right away but with her being moved to Zen's advanced training that was in the afternoon and Irene's comm training just after that her mornings were free to teach the training she and Ocea had put together. Cal climbed out of bed and got ready quickly. Once Brick had seen what the training was, he insisted that all jumpers were to take it. Who knew that the man everyone thought was a cold-hearted rule enthusiast was emotional about women being mistreated and the knowledge of that spread quickly around the base. So now, Cal was nervous; she stalled as much as she could, not wanting to do this but gave in out of responsibility. She walked into the training hall as she ran through what to say in her head.

                         The crowd was waiting... "I'm sorry that I made you wait." Cal made her way to the front and sat down her bag trying to ignore how crowded the room was "Please understand how hard this type of thing is to talk about." The faces in the room softened. "You can sit down on the floor, right where you are standing." Cal cleared her throat as they all relaxed "To start with, I was raised to think of myself as sacred. Not just my body... but me, who I am, my soul. I am sacred and should be treated with respect." She sat down on the bench at the front of the room and got comfortable. "I spent all morning trying to focus on the spirits, to let them tell me what I need to teach you."

                        Cal paused and Ocea leaned over "One of us will take over whenever you have trouble speaking" She gestured to the other women who had signed up to help teach this class "So just relax. We've got you back on this." Cal smiled and relaxed a bit.

                          The class was watching carefully in the back of the room Cal saw a camera set up and wondered. "I was young, in high school and had thought I found a wonderful man that was very popular and smart. He was really just a fling, I was not in love with him so there was no way I was going to let it become serious physically over a guy that was not going to stick around. He didn't like that and became abusive all because I didn't want to have sex with him...." Cal rocked back and forth for a moment trying to calm herself then regrouped and went at this from a different angle "When I was in the throes of abuse the thing that my abuser succeeded at was getting me to question why I was... not who I was, but why. He had me second guessing every thought and action to the point that I couldn't figure out why I even existed since I was so stupid." Cal took a shaky breath "This is not something that you heal from overnight" Memories started to surge and she paused.

                         Ocea caught her pause and stepped forward "Remember that for those that have been through this type of abuse, it is painful to recall." Ocea glanced at Cal who winked. "What is left behind is small grains of self-doubt that are not easy to kill. We are going to be trying to teach you what not to allow from anyone."