(UNKNOWN)
She lied on the bed, her knees shaking as she watched him pull down his pants and grab his member. It was too much and every part of her body screamed at her to run away but she stayed there limp and confused. It was help, help that no one could give to her except for him but it felt wrong in many ways. She bit of the back of her hand to stop the loud sobs that threatened to come out but it wasn't enough to stop the falling tears and the repeatedly tugging of her heart. At 15, she was loosing her virginity to a man old enough to be her grandfather and no matter how much she tried to chug the bad thought at the back of her mind, they came as a pile of dirt suffocating all parts of her, inside and out.
It had started when the doctor accused her of being pregnant after a week of being sick and not going to school. He had refused giving her a pregnancy test no matter how much she had protested her innocence. His answer remained the same, she was pregnant and there was no cure for that. She sat there trying to convince her mother who looked at her with eyes filled with disbelief and doubt. There was no way to convince her parents and so she sought help from the one person who she knew could get her out of the situation. He always did.
At first, he said it was a virginity test and only the could he convince her parents that she was innocent, but she was never to tell anyone. Young, foolish and blind, she had accepted the test, knowing it was her only way out and the only way she was not going to kicked out of her home with nothing to live on. He had made her lie on her back and inserted one finger first and then another and it was enough to send her vomiting after. "It's the only way" she chanted to herself until she was told she could get dressed again.
She had not expected it to happen the second time, after knowing that her innocence had been proved, but she was called a few weeks later.
"I need to make sure, it is the only way you will not fall out of God's favor. And if you don't do it, you will loose everything and everyone. You will live to regret it for the rest of you life."
And she undressed and did what was right. It was all for the best and there was nothing wrong with it. 'It is only help' she told herself again and again. But the claws of guilt sunk deep into her, going deeper every single day until she knew she could not take it anymore. It was too late to turn back now and whenever she tried fighting him, he would win, threatening her will all the things she cared about and telling her it was his word against hers.
The cycle continued and she would leave the room, plaster a smile on her face and only give praise to the man that was slowly tearing her apart. She cried many times begging him to stop but somehow in the end it turned out to be her fault and she would apologize for hurting him. There was no way out.
It was after getting married that she told the first person, her husband. He had believed her without a doubt and promised to leave with her and never come back. They talked and planned for the future, finally leaving the lies and everything behind. What had happened to his wife was enough to push him over the edge.
But after a few weeks of speaking to the Reverend, he began to change, twisting everything and making it her fault. She spent countless days trying to convince him that she only spoke of the truth, and it was the final blow when he told her "you let in happen to you, and now you want to pretend you are innocent."
Days went by in a blur as she spent each of them crying, and for some reason the tears were always there. 'Liar' they had called her. Each and every word feeling like stab to heart and a tug towards an empty pit of loneliness. Within a month, everyone had turned their backs on her, even her husband looked at her with cold eyes, as if she was nothing but filth. He shouted, kicking everything in his path saying the food was not warm enough, she was waking up too late, she was selfish and evil, useless and of no use to anyone, a shame to human kind and to women. She was alone and the bitter truth of it all left her with no fight within herself.
He left the house after reminding her each and everyday of her uselessness, and went to attend to other woman. When she stayed behind making sure everything was perfect when he came back, he warmed the beds of others. And when years after, she still wore the clothes she left home with, now torn and tattered, her husband spent their last money spoiling someone else.
And maybe if she had known of his infidelity, she would have left him right there and then and taken their newly born child with her. Or she wouldn't have. She would have just stayed, because she had let him break her, break her soul until she didn't love herself enough to know that she deserved better than he could ever give.
People deal with pain and situations differently. And while others choose to fight and risk it all till their death, others choose to cower, turn a blind eye and live with it. She was the latter. Some may argue that some situations leave us with no choices, but some say no matter how grave the other choice may be, that it seems to be not a choice at all, it is in fact still a choice. And so she stayed, when her husband, family, friends and everyone turned against her. She stayed and endured it all.
YOU ARE READING
Unmask
Non-Fiction"You trust me, don't you?" he says with a smile, that smile. It had fooled everyone, even me at some point, and for the first time I want to scream with rage and shake the earth to the core. "Give me a hug," he says pulling me out of the chair that...
