The Story of Elizabeth Smart

09

Chapter Nine-Broken

After he crawled out of the tent, I lay alone. The sun was up, but it was still early and the thick trees provided heavy shade, keeping it cool inside. I lay on the dirty blankets, curled in a fetal position, the linen robe pressed against my waist.

I felt disgusting. I felt sick. I felt like someone had crushed my very soul.

I thought about my family and what they were doing. Did they realize that I was gone yet? Were they looking for me? Was there a chance I might be found? I thought about my sister, Mary Katherine, and what she must be feeling. I thought about my brothers. I thought about my mom and dad. Then a terrible idea seeped into my soul: If they knew what the man had done to me, would they still want me?

The question cut me to the core.

Would they still love me? Would they want me? Or would they feel like, “We don’t want her anymore”?

I know that sounds crazy, but that’s exactly how I felt.

I didn’t feel like a whole person anymore. I felt like I was … like not even half, like I was just a portion of a human being. I just felt filthy and disgusting. I felt like, Who could ever want me back? Who could ever want to talk to me? Who would ever be my friend?

I don’t know what the exact definition of despair is, but if it is feeling as if your life is over, as if there’s no point to continue because no matter what happens, you will never be accepted or happy again, then despair is what I felt.

Part of the reason I felt so bad was that my family was very religious. I had lived a sheltered life. In my faith, and in my family, a great deal of emphasis is placed on sexual purity, waiting until you’re married for those kinds of relationships.

Another was the fact that I was so young and so I didn’t have the tools yet to deal with what had just happened to me. But I now understand that what I felt is not uncommon among victims of rape or abuse. Rape is such a violation; the feeling of worthlessness is almost universal. In addition, some women feel like they might have asked for it or deserved it in some way. They think it might have been their fault because of a low-cut shirt, or maybe they were flirting, or somehow they had communicated that they wanted it and then they didn’t want it anymore. There are lots of reasons why they might feel responsible.

But I was not confused. I knew what had just happened to me wasn’t my fault. I didn’t ask for this! I didn’t run away with this stranger. I didn’t marry him. None of this was my choosing.

But I still felt completely broken.

Imagine you have a beautiful crystal vase. Then imagine that you accidently knock it off the table and it shatters into pieces on the floor. We all understand it isn’t the vase’s fault that it was pushed off the table and shattered. But still, it is broken. It is worthless. You don’t want it anymore. So you sweep it up and throw away the pieces.

That is how I felt.

It wasn’t my fault. But I was broken. No one would want me anymore.

So even though I knew the bearded man could kill me at any time, I had already reached a point where I no longer cared.

I thought about other children I’d seen on the news, children who’d been kidnapped and didn’t come back. I thought they were the lucky ones. They were in a better place. I began to realize that there were some things worse than death.

I believe in a God who loves me. I’d never pictured Him as mean or vindictive or anything like that. I’d always pictured Him as a beautiful person, glowing with love and kindness, someone who understood exactly how I felt all the time, someone who loved me as one of his children. I think of Him as someone who comforts and loves everyone.

Even after I had been raped, I still thought of Him that way. He loves us all. Even me. Even still.

I would have happily gone to Him if I could have left that place of pain, if I could have left behind all those feelings of worthlessness and fear, if I could have left behind all of the feelings of darkness. I wanted to go home to this person who loved me, who would take care of me and protect me and never let me feel the hurt and pain again.

But even in the midst of all this emotion, it never occurred to me to take my own life. I knew I could never do that. If someone with a gun had said, “I’m going to shoot you,” I might have said, “Okay.” But if they had handed me a gun and told me to shoot myself, I would have recoiled at the thought. I could simply never do that, no matter whatever else I felt.

So I just closed my eyes and curled up into a tight ball of despair. I pushed toward the corner of the tent and cried myself to sleep.

The last thing I remember thinking before I drifted off was, Tonight I’m going to run.

*

I slept lightly for an hour or so, never really slipping away, always aware in the back of my mind where I was and the situation I was in. There was no rest in my brief sleep, no comfort, no solace. It was a weary sleep. Hard ground. Dirty blankets, sheets, and pillows. The horrible linen robe bunched around my body. I was in pain. I was bleeding. But it was infinitely better than being awake.

I woke up feeling something being wrapped around my ankle. I jolted awake. The sun was high and it was getting hot inside the tent. The man was kneeling over me, wrapping a steel cable around my ankle. The cable was stretched to near its limit. I followed it with my eyes. It extended out the tent door and disappeared.

I turned back to the man as he jerked the cable tight around my ankle. “What are you doing!” I cried in disbelief.

“Shearjashub, I just want to take away any temptations,” he replied sarcastically.

I felt the cable being cinched against my skin. I felt its tautness. I felt its strength.

My heart sank.

“Shearjashub, you’ve got to be a good girl now,” he said.

Shearjashub! Who was Shearjashub? What was Shearjashub? I didn’t know.

I watched in horror as the man finished his work. He used a crimper to clamp the cable tight, then gave it a tug to test it. Satisfied, he crawled out of the tent, leaving me alone again, leaving behind the taint of his smell. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse!

I picked up and studied the cable. Steel wrapped inside a plastic cover. It seemed strong enough to hold a car. I adjusted my leg, relieving some of the pressure.

Earlier that morning, even as the man had forced me out of my bed, then throughout the long hike up the mountain and the horrible nightmare in the tent, I always thought that he would kill me. I thought he would hurt or kill my family. That scared me even more. And I absolutely knew what he was capable of doing now.

If you haven’t been in such a situation, if you haven’t felt the kind of stone-cold fear that cuts you to the core—and few people really have—it’s impossible to imagine what it does to your thinking, to your emotions, to the way your heart and brain begin to work.

I had always been afraid that he would kill me. But now I realized that wasn’t his plan. He wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble to bathe me, dress me up and marry me, and then to trap me with the steel cable if he were going to kill me. My nightmare was not ending. It was just getting started.

Then I had the most horrible thought of all.

What if this goes on forever?!

Is this to be the only life that I will ever know?