This Will Only Hurt a Little(17)
I was sweaty and gross. I got into the passenger seat and he asked where he should take me.
My voice sounded very small. “To Kendra’s, I guess?”
I was supposed to spend the night at her house. He pulled into her complex and nodded. “K. Talk soon.” Then he drove off.
I walked up to Kendra’s apartment. I could see that there were a bunch of boys inside with her, Dan’s skater friends. I immediately started crying. I reached for the door, but it was locked. When I knocked, Kendra looked out of the shades.
“I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME BACK!” she shouted through the window. “DID YOU HAVE FUN BEING A WHORE WITH TREY??”
“Kendra—” I started to sob. “Please. Please. Let me in.”
“NO! What do you think? I TOLD YOU NOT TO COME BACK. WHORE!”
She was laughing and telling the other boys not to open the door while I just stood there sobbing and bleeding, my underwear stuck to me already, my dress clinging to my back. At some point, Dan came out and said I could call my mom from his apartment. I told her that Kendra and I had a fight and I wanted to come home. Then I waited outside while Kendra and the boys made fun of me through the window. My mom showed up and I got in her car.
“Jesus. Busy,” she said, looking concerned. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Kendra’s a bitch.”
“Well, yeah. Kendra’s an idiot. But are you okay? What happened??”
“Nothing. We’re just in a fight.”
She looked at me. She knew something was really wrong. She knew it. But she wasn’t going to press it. Or she didn’t know how to press it. We got home and I went directly into my bathroom. I peeled off my dress and looked at my back. The skin down my spine had been ripped off and was bleeding. I ran the shower. I peed, and so much blood and cum came out, I was momentarily fascinated. I actually didn’t even know what the cum was. It took me a year to figure it out; I know that seems crazy, but it was just so disgusting and foreign to me. I rinsed my underwear in the sink and threw them in my hamper. I took a super-hot shower but was careful to avoid my vagina, which was swollen and throbbing still, so I got a washcloth and ran it under cold water and gently cleaned myself. Then I cried and got out of the shower and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, I decided that what had happened was what I had wanted. I called Kendra and apologized for being such a bitch and leaving the football game. She was right to be so mad at me.
“What happened with you and Trey?” she asked, relenting.
“Oh,” I said quickly, “we just hung out at a park and hooked up. It was fine.”
I was very careful not to let my mom see my back, but a week or so later she came into my bathroom while I was changing and saw the scab running down my spine.
“Elizabeth! What happened to your back????”
I threw a shirt on.
“Nothing! It’s fine. I was messing around at Kendra’s apartment and she was dragging me around and I got a rug burn.”
The lie was so immediate and came so easily it almost shocked me.
“What?! Honey, how is that possible??? Didn’t you know that she was hurting you?? What’s going on over there?”
“MOM. IT’S FINE! IT’S NOT A BIG DEAL.”
I convinced myself not only that it wasn’t a big deal, but also that it was normal and that’s what sex was and Trey must be super into me. Like, he must want to be my boyfriend! How insane! Clearly he loves me! And I guess I love him, too? That must be what it means when you have sex with someone like that.
Obviously, I know now how ridiculous it was to think that, but I was fourteen, insecure, and painfully inexperienced. Also, I couldn’t change what had happened. Or how it had happened. All I could control was how I decided I felt about it and him. My still-developing fourteen-year-old brain couldn’t handle the trauma of what I had gone through, so I invented a new reality. And for the next few months, I became completely obsessed with him. I would call his number all the time and hang up—and by the way, this wasn’t before caller ID, so he knew how much I was calling. A few times we had what I thought were meaningful conversations. I brought up the sex and said we should probably do it again because it was really uncomfortable and painful for me, and his response was, “Well, what do you think it was like for me? It was like trying to fuck a brick wall.”
I fluctuated between my manic obsession and a deep empty hollowness, lying on the floor of my room and listening to the same songs over and over on repeat and sobbing. Or sometimes I would take a safety pin and scratch at my legs or arms.
“Cut that shit out, Elizabeth!”
That was what my mom said when she saw my arms. Then she made me go to group therapy for teen girls. It was awful. Mostly, I lied in the group and tried to be supportive of the other girls, all while hating them because their problems sucked. I didn’t talk about Trey or any of what had happened. I would just talk about my mom and dad. My sister. How hard school was for me.
Eventually, I told Kendra that I’d had sex with Trey and we were dating. She tried not to be judgmental, but told me that she thought he was a jerk. She was still friends with Jacob, and he said Trey had showed off the scratches on his back to illustrate how hard he’d fucked me and how into it I was, and that I was such a little slut. I laughed it off, then swallowed hard, pushing my rage and sadness down to my stomach. It didn’t exist! I was fine!