You're The Only Friend I Need

Glory And Gore

CASSIDY

"...and once I woke up, I just felt the overwhelming need to shower, to clean my entire body. I washed myself for hours, scrubbing and crying as the shower head poured. I only got out of the shower once I went through all the hot water, and even then it was pretty hard to turn off the faucet." I hear another girl, who I knew from high school, speak about the aftermath of her rape. "I stepped out of the shower and refused to look in the mirror. I just picked up my shower caddy and quickly got back to my room. From there I drank anything that could get the taste out of my mouth, so things like hot coffee, tea, anything; and sat on my bed, my comforter covering my shivering body." The girl, Monica, spoke while staring at the ground in the middle of circle. The other victims in the circle nod sympathetically and then I realize it was my turn.

"Oh, hi, I'm Cassidy," I begin, shifting my body as I think of what to say. "Well," I pause, trying to, but not wanting to remember. "It's kind of a blurred memory because I had been drinking, but from what I recall I met him after my best friend tried to get me to stop drinking that night. None of what happened next was her fault though, she actually ended up saving my life." I say, assuring Annalise was not to blame for anything. "I ran away from her into the crowd at the club we were in, and there he was, dancing with some of his friends." I continue, wondering how on earth this guy had friends. "You know; you'd think his friends would've stopped him..."

"They may not know, some rapists are masters at hiding who they are," The group leader says. He was right, his friends probably didn't know. They seemed like nice people, from what little I can remember.

"Then he looked at me and stop dancing for a second. He walked up and whispered in my ear, something about finding somewhere private to go with me, and I was too drunk to know any better. So I let him take me by the hand and we walked toward the bathrooms." I explain, suddenly beginning to remember more and more whether I wanted to or not. "He said 'I want to do so much to you', and I replied, drunk as ever with 'Oh really?', which only escalated his desires..."

"Don't feel bad Cassidy, just because you were turning him on doesn't give him the right to take advantage and violate a drunk girl." The group leader interrupts again, reminding me that it wasn't my fault.

"Then we walked into the girl's bathroom, and he lead us, as I tripped over myself, into the first stall. He then started to kiss me, and then..." I pause starting to tear up. "He started with one finger, then two, then three, then four, and then his entire hand," As I recite every number my voice gets weaker than the number before it. I continue, despite my vulnerability. "by then, the pain was unbearable. He said, 'That's what you'll feel once I'm really inside you,' and that's where I told him to stop, though my tears and screams should've been enough. He kept going despite my refusal, and I kept screaming. I begged him to get out of me and started punching his chest..."

I feel every eye on me as I finish explaining what I can recall of the actual rape. The rest of it I can't remember because I was an idiot who was too intoxicated for my own good. With tears now pouring down my face, I explain as best I could what I remember happening next.

"And then there was darkness. Silence. The best and the worst end to the entire thing. It was the best because I finally got a break from seeing his eyes as he thrusted into me, not hearing his barbaric growls as he pleased himself." I wipe my nose with a Kleenex given to me by Monica, who was the girl who before me, before continuing. "It was the worst though because," I pause before continuing again. "I thought I was dead."

The room remains silent as I blow my nose again. Almost everyone else was crying now too.

"I thought that was the way I died," I say, breaking the silence. "I thought that that animal took not only my body but also my life. I believed that was all I could amount to. I thought heaven and hell were both a lie. There was nothing. Which, I guess, might have been hell. Regardless, it destroyed me. But then I woke up and realized my story wasn't over, thank God." I say, not wanting to remember the black out any longer.