Warning: Mentions of rape.
(unedited)
For as long as I can remember, the local park has been my favorite place to hang out. When I was younger, I loved to play on the slides. The wind flying through my hair gave me a few short seconds of bliss that I couldn't find anywhere else.
As I got older, I became less interested in the sliding down the slides and more interested in trying to climb up them. It was like a little challenge to brighten up my boring days.
But soon, that became as boring as everything else.
For a long time, I stopped going to the park. There was a three or four year break from my previous fun on the slides. And then, at the age of thirteen, I had a stroke of bad luck with the park. Though, it was partially because of a stupid decision on my part.
At two in the morning an a cold night at the beginning of summer, I snuck out of my house to see someone I had met online. He seemed nice enough, and I never once thought that he might not be who he said he was.
I met him at the same park I had spent so much time at as a young child.
I got to the park before he did and I sat on one of the benches that didn't have a light shining on it. I thought that it would be better to stay hidden until he arrived.
But as the minutes went by, I became more and more anxious as the adrenaline wore off. Why had I decided to meet a nineteen-year-old boy in the middle of a park at two in the morning?
It didn't matter, there was no going back.
That night, I was raped in the park I had always loved. It had become a place of horrors, a place of pain.
The month after I turned fourteen, I found myself in a relationship. When my boyfriend wanted to hang out at the park I now hated, I almost said no. But I didn't.
I met him at the park and we sat on the slides and talked for hours.
Maybe the park isn't as bad as I thought it was.
Word count: 383
