I recently wrote (Not) God’s Plan, God’s Will, or Divine Intervention in response to Richard Mourdock’s statement that pregnancy from rape was part of God’s plan.
I talk about the rape in Digging for the Light.
Below is an excerpt from that work, which is looking for an agent and a publishing home…
Pass it along. J
* * *
I had a promising future ahead of me.
My grades in school were well above average.
I was liked by my peers, by adults, and was, basically, a well-rounded teenager.
One night when I was sixteen, I went to a bar with a friend of mine.
We shouldn’t have been there—but we were.
A handsome, older male spent time talking to me and later asked me to go for a walk.
The university was across the street, along with a breathtaking garden area where he proceeded to rape me.
It wasn’t a violent rape, because I didn’t fight or struggle. It happened so fast.
I remember him saying, “Oh, man, you’re a virgin…I told myself I’d never do that again.”
I went back to the bar and straight to the bathroom.
I was scared numb by the bloodstains that spattered the back of my sundress—a white one with petite, pink and pastel-yellow flowers.
My favorite white dress with the sweetest, matching bolero jacket.
The blood, which had also dripped onto my thighs and created spatter marks down my legs, had already started to crust.
I had no idea what to do.
At home I stood in the shower for what felt like forever.
I scrubbed and scrubbed my body.
I shaved the hair around my genital area and scrubbed even harder.
I felt so dirty.
And the harder I scrubbed the dirtier I felt.
* * *
My father and I had always seemed to be at odds, but that night I saw how much he loved me.
As it was, my mom, who was my confidant, was out of town. I had no choice but to talk to my dad.
I don’t recall how the conversation began, but I do remember sitting on a stair step.
After finding out I’d gone to a bar, my dad flatly told me people my age shouldn’t frequent such places, that something bad could happen.
When I replied, “I think it already did,” followed by an explanation, my dad was furious. He wanted to go back to the bar and confront this young man, but we never did.
I wasn’t sure if I could point him out, but I insisted I wouldn’t recognize him if I saw him face-to-face.
I don’t know why I was so adamant.
I was probably afraid.
Of myself.
I’m guessing I believed the whole incident was my fault.
I was the one who was in the wrong place.
I must have done something to deserve the trouble I’d gotten myself into.
Everything was always my fault.
Something was wrong with me.
So I thought.
Dad and I never spoke of it again.
Forget about it.
What’s done is done.
That was the message. And that’s what I tried to do.
My mom didn’t know until years later.
But it stalked me: I couldn’t see it, and I didn’t know what it was, but I could smell it—like a tail-flicking, ears-pointed, hoof-stomping deer.
* * *
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