It was a Wednesday in her seventh grade, I remember it like it was yesterday. This wasn't the first time my cousin had been assaulted or harmed by a boy. Sometimes it was people in our school or people in our family. This time, thank God, it was someone in her school.
The year previous, a boy had touched her and wouldn't stop when she yelled at him. No one helped, they thought they were just playing around. It had hurt her, hurt her so bad that she couldn't even be in the same area as a boy without getting uneasy. Her friends shielded her, but it just wasn't enough. Then, she met a boy.
He was kind to her, and they had a lot of the same interests. There was only one thing, he liked to hit her on her face. At first she thought it was just a playful little slap, but the slaps got harder and more frequent. Her cheeks would be red by the end of the day from being hit, crying, and being embarrassed. I can't remember how many times my cousin and I had to journey south to court for custody battles and domestic violence cases within our family. We were dysfunctional, but that didn't seem to bother my cousin. At least, not that we could tell.
So in the end, she ended up breaking up with him. That's when things got ugly. A boy told her class he'd give five dollars to whoever would slug my cousin. So, her ex-boyfriend did, and he slugged her good. Her nose bled, and having IDA didn't help her cause. Her blood wouldn't clot, and it just kept pouring out. It took the teacher quite a while to realize what had happened, but he only dismissed it and sent her to the nurse. This rekindled her fear of guys, the fear our family knew all too well.
At first she thought guys disliked her because she was fat, but only she thought she was fat. It didn't help with mean friends, friend's friends being mean, and girls and guys making oinking noises at her and calling her a cow. We first noticed her problem when she stopped eating. Skipping one meal isn't even close to being compared to how much she skipped. Somedays she'd go all day without food, not eat breakfast, and then break down at lunch time. She'd eat so much it'd all just come back up. She was losing weight by the pounds, but it still wasn't enough. She had scars on her belly and on her back. Some were deep, some were small, some looked like they were punctures by a thumbtack or needle.
Either way, it wasn't a good sign. She was sick, only it was the kind of sick no one could see. She then met a boy, who seemed nice enough. He was kind of short, which was the only thing my cousin disliked. She had something against short guys...short people in general. They would talk for hours into the night, she'd draw anime pictures and show them to him, which was a huge step because she didn't share her drawings with just anyone. He saw it as something more than just a friendship, and started showing his feelings. My cousin denied his feelings, and didn't show any back. This made him mad, so he started being mean to her. That just drew the line, and she went off on him.
Now, according to most, it's rare to see my cousin blow up. It takes an awful lot to make her mad, and a ton of things to make her go off. She did, and according to my friends in her school, it was quite a sight. After that, he told her he'd date all her friends and make them hate her. It worked.
I thought she was wrong, wrong about the people who were mean to her. Wrong about the boys, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Unfortunately, before it was too late, I realized I was the wrong one. I should've helped her when she was getting slapped, when the boy was showing unwanted desire, when she needed someone. This is the first part of her story, the part where she started to crumble. Unfortunately, we have a long way to go before this story has a different light.
