An Exchange

Chapter Thirty-One - Fundraiser Concert Pt 2

Penny

I ran to the football field. Glancing around at the dark, empty bleachers I ran up to where I sat during football games with Maria and Marty among the choir. The metal felt like ice, and I shivered in the cold night air. But I was alone, so let my tears fall freely.

My heart ached. I kept thinking of Ray's stunned face as I yelled at him, Giles' pain in his eyes as I turned away from him, and Jonas' surprising insight and the love he had for me. But how could I let it go?

I felt so justified in my anger. Surely those people back home had to face the consequences of what they did to me. If I just forgave them, they never would. But then, as Jonas said, they probably weren't even thinking about me and never would now that I had gone from their lives, so why would they suffer? If they found out how I still tortured myself, they probably would feel pretty good about how much they had scarred me and how effectively they had “taught me a lesson.”

A figure appeared around the bleachers. She glanced around the field then up to the bleachers, her gaze stopping on me a moment before she ran over.

Maria knelt on the row in front of me. She grabbed my knees as she leaned forward and looked into my eyes. "Penny, you're a mess."

She had brought makeup remover and cotton balls and began removing the makeup from around my eyes. Her touch was so gentle that I didn't feel the need to stop crying.

"Oh Penny. Don't cry."

"It hurts so much," I whispered.

"I know it does, I really do." She gently whipped along my cheek with a cotton ball. "I want to tell you something, not to make you feel that your problems are insignificant compared to mine—because I know your problems are very real—but so you know that I understand what you are going through.

“You know that something happened to me the summer after my sophomore year. Well…” She took a deep breath, then focused on removing my makeup. “I was trying to find a job to help out my mom financially. I hadn't seen my dad in years because when my mom divorced him, he was deported back to Mexico as he was here illegally and immigration got their hands on him.

“But one day, as I was out searching for work, he came to me. I was so surprised and glad to see him that I let him take me back to where he was staying. I didn't know I couldn't trust him, he was my dad.

“But when we got back to the house he was staying at, I found it was a drug dealers place. They abducted me and used me as a drug mule because, as I US citizen, I could move freely across the border."

She looked away from me and climbed up to sit beside me. She let out a long sigh before she continued. "They beat me and drugged me and forced me to do it. I had no way of getting out, and I was so scared because they told me if the police or border control found out I would lose my citizenship and I would have to live in Mexico and so would my mom. They also said if I tried to run, they would go after my mom and kill her. So I obeyed.

“Then one day, as I was hidden in Mexico, my dad brought a man to me. My Spanish has never been too great, but I understood what they were talking about and I didn't want it to happen. I fought them so hard but eventually my dad pinned me down and the man he..."

Her voice caught and she grabbed my hand tightly. "I was a virgin, and they did it over and over. They wanted to get me pregnant so it would be easier to get the man citizenship as the father of the baby. I felt so dirty and disgusting. When they were gone, I tried to find a way to hide somehow, but I felt too filthy to actually run.

"Then one day, the door burst open just as the man was about to attack me again, and men were everywhere yelling, “US border control! Put your hands in the air!” There was a few shots fired but I covered my face so I couldn't see anything, then the police grabbed me and dragged me out of there.