She Always Believed Me

The truth was stolen from me when I was in third grade. Pulled over my head with my shirt. The Boy grabbed the fragile hem of my blue butterfly blouse and jerked it towards the sky, in the middle of the playground. My prepubescent body on full display in the middle of the school yard. The giggles that erupted haunted me. When I told the recess monitor—the one person tasked with watching me, protecting me—she confronted him. Good, I thought. He's going to get in trouble, I thought. Instead, he cried and said that he didn't do it. She yelled at me. She told me not to make up stories and try to get Boys in trouble. When she walked away, he stopped crying immediately, a switch was flipped. He glared at me and with cold, dead eyes devoid of remorse told me that when he brought his gun to school, I was at the top of his kill list. It was long before these types of threats were taken seriously. I didn't bother to report him. Anyways, who would believe me?

As the years came and went, the Boys turned to Men. Entitled ones. They took whatever they wanted, when they wanted it. They did not care if the desire was mutual. I didn't bother to report them. Anyways, who would believe me?

By the time I got to college, my walls soared as high as castle turrets, protecting me from the outside. Unlike Rapunzel, I wasn't looking to escape my tower. I wasn't gonna let down my hair so some Man could rip it out trying to reach me. I learned long ago that no one could hurt me, if they couldn't get to me. If no one knew me, no one could use who I was against me. I surrounded myself by lies, created a web of half-truths, and walled myself in with lies of omission. No one at school knew me at all, no one knew anything of my past. Anyways, who wouldn't believe me?

And then I met Her. Somehow she seemed to dance right through the tangled layers I had woven to protect myself. She slipped past my defenses and it was like she was looking into my soul. So, I told Her the truth. I couldn't lie to Her if I tried. She told me many times how she felt about me. My walls were slow to fall. She was the center of my universe, but was trapped in my isolation. I couldn't hide how i felt, but I couldn't say it either. Eventually, I breathed the words out.  "I love you." She merely smiled and replied "I know." She always believed me.