I Don't Need a Metaphor - COMPLETED

eight

"No, it's okay. I went through it alone in the first place, so I'm gonna do this alone, too."

Some nights, I can't go to bed. I stay up silently crying with my plush dark blue blanket wrapped around me tight.

Some nights, I wake every hour, almost on the dot. My body jolts awake as I search my dark room for any unknown figures before I allow myself to fall back asleep after the adrenaline washes away from my blood.

Some nights, I jolt awake to figureless, unknown hands on my body that feel all too familiar. I try to scratch away the feeling of fingertips on my skin. I cry and cry and cry myself to sleep, if I'm lucky. Most nights like this, I end up in the burning hot shower until it runs cold and chills my bones.

Everyday, there is always something to remind me. Usually, I see it in a white Chevy Malibu. I think it was a 2014. For two years after the fact, I felt like I had to relive every second of the 11 month long incident at the tiniest glimpse of a white car. I hated driving.

Everyday on my way home, I see the same road he used to take me down. I can still remember all too well his hand in between my legs as I say "No, no, no." I can still remember the shorts I was wearing. I can still remember the underwear. I threw away the underwear after I left him, and I have yet to put those shorts back on. It's been four years now.

I carry a knife with me everywhere I go. I feel safe. I started a collection. I have one that I leave in my truck that can also cut a seatbelt and break the window, if need be. I like to take my sharpest one with me when I go out drinking or to a party.

The one time I didn't, I was too drunk and unconscious to defend myself. I barely remember feeling him in between my legs, waking up, and grabbing him by the throat and telling him to never put his hands on me again, or I'll gut him like a pig. I keep a blanket in my truck in case I need to sleep there now.

I find myself reliving incidences I don't even remember while in the bed of someone I loved. His teeth graze my ear. I cry. I don't even know it, and he would stop. He would hold me and ask what was wrong. I would say that I don't know and that I have no clue where this came from.

Years pass, I still can't find the memories that make me cry like this.

It took me three years to ever tell anyone about the Chevy Malibu. I first told my boyfriend at the time. The one who would ask what was wrong. I trusted him. I wanted to marry him. I bawled my eyes out to him for the first time since we had been together for over two years. I could barely breathe. He told me if I wasn't his girlfriend, he wouldn't care because it wasn't as bad as his friend who was held down and raped at her work.

When I left him, I brought that up, and he said he thought he apologized for what he had said. He never did.

I told my best friend in the parking lot of our favorite coffee shop. She had never seen me break down like this before. She held me. She wiped my tears. She told me about what happened to her when she was a child. She reassured me that one day, it'll be better. She was right.

I met up with the ex who assaulted me almost everyday for 11 months. I told him about how what he did affected me. He cried. He told me that everyday he regrets it. He told me that he wanted to reach out and apologize because he finally realized how wrong it was, but he was afraid of what I would do.

I stopped hating him. The nights got easier to deal with, for the most part.

I see the 17 year old boy who tried to take advantage of my intoxicated, sleeping body in the can of a Four Loko and the bottle of Tequila Rose.

I saw him for the first time in a year at the corner store I frequent. I thought, maybe, he won't recognize me. I no longer dawned long blonde hair. Instead, it was short and black. I had two new tattoos and a red truck even my ex had yet to be familiar with.

But the boy stuck his head out of the car window and shouted a greeting to get my attention. Anxiety and adrenaline shot through my veins as I tried to keep a poker face and barely give him a neutral glance.

The wind stung my skin as I tried to fall my truck up with gas and prayed that maybe the pump will work faster this one time. One hand gripped the knife in my pocket, and I still regret not having one that night.

Now, I love driving. I'm no longer nearly heading into the ditch as my body locks up and my mind heads back to being inside that white Malibu.

I still flinch when a one night stand grazes my ear with their teeth, but I don't cry anymore.

I start sobering up early, well before the party ends, so I can go home.

I'm not healed. My wounds may never heal. But, I am better. I am broken. I may never be fixed. But, I am better.