*Warning: There is some unsuitable content here which I would advise is not read by much younger members of the audience without parental consent and or guidance and could be found to be upsetting*
Darkest Hours
I never thought I’d be one of those people having to tell this story. I never even imagined that it would happen to me. As silly as it sounds, I never really thought it was something that happened often. I guess I just didn't think much of it. It was something I was warned vaguely about as a child growing up and, of course, the stories were always in the newspapers. Yet, that's all it really was to me; a news story. It happened to strangers across the globe whom I’d never met or even heard of before. It wasn't something I even considered would happen to someone I knew, let alone myself...
I can still remember what happened as if it were just yesterday. Every tiny, horrific detail is etched into my mind like a name carved into a stone. It took me months to bring myself to find the courage to tell anyone about what happened. I was afraid. What if they thought it was my fault? What would they say? Would they even believe me? What if they took his side of the story? How would they judge me for it? These worries haunted me, as did the memories; until I knew I couldn't keep it all bottled up inside of myself any longer.
The secret was quite literally destroying me. I couldn't eat properly, I wasn't sleeping at night. I was afraid he'd come back, afraid he'd find me and do it all over again. The scary part is none of the childhood warnings were of any help to me. I wasn't walking alone in the dark. I wasn't out getting myself drunk or taking drugs. I was with someone I trusted. That's what bothers me the most. The person that hurt me is the person I’d have gone to for help over all of this. The person I told everything to. The person that I thought I knew best, who would never do anything to hurt me. I realise now that I was wrong about him. I was wrong about everything, really. I was wrong to trust one person so much. I can't trust anybody now, not completely. I can't even trust myself.
I quite literally hurt myself afterwards. I felt so dirty and unclean and, in many ways, I still do, even now. I scrubbed myself over and over again until my skin was a raw red colour and even bleeding in places. I was disgusted with myself. I'd let this vile boy take control of me and have his way. Nothing I'd done had stopped him. I was useless, pathetic... a disgrace. I couldn't look in the mirror for I felt such shame. I was completely broken on the inside and this is what made me slowly begin to break myself from the outside too.
I took to self-harming, slicing the blades across my skin over and over again. With each stroke of pain, and every drop of scarlet blood, I reminded myself I deserved this. I was punishing myself for letting it happen to me. For letting him do the things he did. I blamed everything on myself. It was my fault. Everything was my fault. Maybe I gave him the wrong idea? Maybe I'd encouraged him? I must have been leading him on, somehow. I'm not a religious person at all but I was certain that, if the place did exist, I was going straight to Hell for letting these things happen to me.
I bottled everything up inside me, hurting myself both internally and externally for months. I was beginning to be swallowed by a deep, dark hole of depression. I blocked everything and everyone out. I rarely turned up for college anymore and, when I did, I sat at the back quietly getting on with things. I couldn't concentrate on anything for long periods of time, my thoughts kept going back to those terrible times of the past. What hurt me even more was that he was walking free. I saw him every day in the halls at College, hanging out with the guys and even talking to other girls sometimes. A part of me always wanted to warn them of what he was capable of, but I knew they probably wouldn't believe me. After all, what evidence did I have? Even if they did believe me, he’d deny it for certain.
