Falling

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"My name is Sarah. I am eighteen years old and I have an almost two and half-year-old daughter. Her name is Mica, and, I never want her to know her father. People have asked before, why wouldn't you want her to have him as a father figure? They ask because I've never told, anyone, the whole story of what happened to me. I've never told because it's taken me three years to even let myself know the truth of what happened to me. 

"It took three years to say to myself that," Sarah clears her throat and ignores every urge to look at her feet and instead locked eyes with Owen in the crowd, "that by running at night I did not give him the right to rape me." He nodded to her and she took a step back, looking at the other people there, the hundreds upon hundreds all staring at her.

"My story starts in a hospital, I born in Alberquerqe to Nolan and Rachel Jones. They, loved me and I would have loved them, but a drunk driver barrelled into our car on the way home, they both died, and I was unknowingly desperate to be adopted. I was. At the age of three months old, I was adopted. Then at eight, I went back to foster care, when my new father, Wesley was arrested on charges of crack cocaine possession with intent to distribute. They wouldn't let me stay with my mother, Ann of eight years. I moved around a lot, more homes than I wish to remember until I met Kelly and Brian.  

"They were imperfect, but they gave me more than anyone else had. When I met Vanessa, a dear friend and she had me try archery, they let me do it. They paid my fees and before long, I was decent. It was the first I'd ever felt talented, but I had to put in the work. If I didn't, I wouldn't have anything. Even when I did put in the work it didn't always correlate with achievement. 

"My life was not all tragedy because I was actually happy. I had amazing people, I worked hard, I didn't sleep much, but I felt love. I loved the world in return until the night it all came crashing down on me.

"I was fifteen and I was about to go to Nationals. I had studied late, I had a chemistry test the next day, but I still wanted to go for a run. Wanted might actually be too strong a word. I decided to go for a run because it was in my training plan, I didn't have to, but I decided to. I went for a run when it was already dark. I went for a run in a park I went to almost every day, I knew it so well. 

"Maybe I shouldn't've, maybe I should've just gone to bed. My life would be drastically different. I was walking between running sets, Florence and the Machine in my ears, when he grabbed me from behind, pushed me to the ground, pulled down my pants, dislocated my knee, almost broke my wrists, began to rape me and eventually smashed my face so hard into the ground that he broke my nose and knocked me out. 

"It was the most violent, unforgiving night of my life. I lost my trust in my body, because if you fought, you weren't meant to get raped right? That was the deal, you fight, you get away, you don't get scarred. I did though, I fought and I didn't get away. It definitely didn't feel fair. I remember waking up, my head felt like fireworks were going off inside it. I felt sick, I thought I was going to vomit. I had a concussion and I couldn't think. I lay in the dirt for a long time, I..." Sarah trails off and turns around, looking at the back wall, at the sign declaring the event loud and proud. She's not sure if she's desperate for Owen to come and stand with her, or if she truly wants to do it alone. Eventually, she turns back around. 

"I didn't call the cops, I couldn't remember the numbers, my head didn't even know what numbers really were when I woke up. 9-1-1 was completely gone. I don't really remember typing my best friend's, Owen's, number in, I don't. To say that it was some action I planned out would be wrong, the numbers were lost on me but somehow I typed it in, and I could hear the ringing. He didn't pick up. 

"He didn't pick up and my world slowly shrinks around me. I felt suffocated, surrounded but alone. I didn't want to call again, for him to not pick up again, I don't remember pressing call again but I pulled my phone closer as those rings stabbed through my mind. Then it stopped. I could hear him breathe. There was someone else. I told him I needed him, that I was on the running track, but he didn't saw anything. I heard him running through his house. I heard a door slam, then a car door slam, then a car start. I heard him running through those tiny speakers, I knew someone had come.