The Witness

Chapter 11 - Herod

"And they believed you?" Joaquin raised his eyebrows.

Rosa leaned back and ran her hand through her hair. After school, she immediately went to visit Joaquin, like she always did. Except now there was no choice but to talk about his case.

"I hope so," Rosa said. "I mean, I'm not the type to know about random rich college boys. I'm not the type to know people, period. There's no way I would've known Tim before everything happened."

"If my lawyer could hear us right now--"

"He still won't pick up the phone."

They were silent for a moment, thinking about the same thing.

"This is unfair," Joaquin groaned.

"I am so angry," Rosa said at the same time. "But...at least we have allies now? I mean, I hope we do. I can't believe I actually ate lunch with two popular girls! We now also know why Sherwin kidnapped Sylvia."

"And we've got Tim Lauzon's full name and school," reminded Joaquin, lowering his voice.

Rosa nodded. "Two down, two more to go." She sighed.

Hope was still far away. Far, far away, but they were inching towards it at last.

***

Rosa arrived home. Her mother was at work, and since the basketball season had officially begun, Miguel had stayed in school after classes to practice with the grade school varsity. Rosa was home alone, the way she liked it.

She went upstairs to her room. Now was the time to waste the afternoon away writing in her diary. She wrote about Maddie and Tina, how they listened to her and believed her, how they shared information on the elusive Tim Lauzon. Then, turning the page, Rosa reached the part she enjoyed the most--writing about Joaquin.

She was only one paragraph in when the sound of the door chimes made her freeze.

Footsteps creaked up the stairs. Rosa closed her diary, tossed it inside her drawer, and sprang to the door. Too late. Her uncle, with his familiar cruel gleaming eyes, entered the room and smiled at her. He closed the door.

"I missed you, Rosa."

"I thought you--you weren't supposed to--"

"The Board of Directors have the Cebu problem all sorted out, thank god. Someone gave us quite a hefty donation." He stepped closer. Rosa stepped back. She waited, waited for her mind to cloud and drift away and protect her, like it always did, but everything that happened next happened so fast and it didn't have time.

So instead, she felt everything.

Standing frozen, she felt everything. Her uncle's hand on her hair. On her cheek. On her breast. Then she snapped, balling her hands into fists and shoving them hard into her uncle's stomach. Surprised, he took a stumble backwards, but eventually steadied himself enough to grab her before she could run away. He shoved her to her bed.

Rosa was overpowered. Her uncle, obviously incensed by her show of rebellion, was more violent than usual. He ripped off her clothes, slapped her face, choked her. He stayed for a long time, forcing himself inside and out, in vicious thrusts, till Rosa could feel blood trickling down her legs and soaking her bed cover. She sobbed. She felt everything.

Before her uncle pulled up his zipper, he slapped Rosa once more with the back of his hand. "Do that again," he said. "And I'll be the least of your worries." He slid off her bed and slammed the door as he left.

Rosa was in pain. A violent, searing kind of pain and shame that she thought she was used to, that she believed she had successfully warded off. Sobbing and trembling as she lay there and bled, she looked up to the ceiling.

Calling out to God was useless, that she learned a long, long time ago. If God were real, He wouldn't be in Heaven. At least, He didn't belong there. No, there should be a special kind of hell for all powerful beings who knew a little girl was being raped and did nothing to stop it.

God was just a witness, but Rosa wasn't. Not anymore.

It took several tries for her to get up. The pain between her legs was incredible, and she felt blood gushing forth with every effort. It was almost an hour later when she was able to stand and stumble to the bathroom.

Grimacing in pain, she removed her torn uniform and turned on the shower. Never had the sound of water felt so soothing. Never had she felt so cleansed and consoled for the longest time. The shower sympathized, listened, and drowned her sobs with their steady rushing. The whole time, as she cried, she was formulating a plan.

Back in her bedroom, she took off her towel, refused to look at her body, and dressed in her softest pajamas.

She retrieved her diary from her desk drawer and fished out her English notebook from her bag.

She copied Atty. Alinsangan's number and address to her English notebook. Then she tore off a clean page and wrote what she had already planned to write inside the bathroom:

Dear Miguel,

Don't worry about me. Yes, I've gone away, and it is a dangerous place out there. But anywhere is safer for me than our home. Do not call the police for me. Hide my diary somewhere safe, where Mom or Tito Geoff cannot find it. Read it at night and you'll understand why I'm like this: why I'm moody and scared all the time, why I often space out, why I have a hard time in school. On the back of the diary is a list of dates. I'll leave you to learn what they mean. You're smart, I believe you'll get it. And if something does happen to me, read the list of dates in my eulogy. Tell everyone everything. Maybe then, and only then, they'll listen.

I love you, and I'm sorry.

- Ate Rosa

She slipped this letter between the front cover of her diary and its first page. She then tiptoed to Miguel's bedroom and slipped the diary under his pillow.

When she returned to her room, she took out a few changes of clothing, her school vanity kit, and all of her pocket money, which she counted.

She'd been saving up to buy Joaquin a rap record. She had more than enough.

She tossed everything into a duffel bag.

She set her alarm clock to four.

In the morning, she would go downstairs. If anybody would ask, she'd say that she just went for a glass of water. But her bag would be behind the sofa, waiting for her to pick it up. Then, before sunrise, she would be out of the house.

For good.