Page 8 of As the Rain Falls
I could hear the relief in this voice.
I could eventaste it.
I am so tight,I thought as time went by so slowly.
The curtains moved, then.
I shifted my gaze from the ceiling to the pink colored walls of my bedroom, watching my neighbor’s house through the window…
Was the light turned on now?
I blinked again.
The air reeked of sweat and blood, and I felt a pinch down there, right between my legs. His finger, dipping inside of me. A quiet, painful sound lodged in my throat. My vision went black, pain shooting up my spine towards my neck.
My brother kept grunting, moving harder, sharper, his neck cracking, the pain of it making him pause before he tilted his head to bury his nose against my hair.
It stopped.
With my tear-stricken face and his eyes widening with horror when I stuttered his name, telling him to get off me.The glint in his eyes dimmed as he pushed himself off me, rushing to put his pants on again. I heard the zipper being pulled up, my skin breaking into goosebumps when Nathaniel looked at me.
I felt like I needed to run, and yet I couldn’t move.
Slowly, I laid back down again, trying to make sense of what just happened to me. I was thirteen, not stupid. I knew everything I needed to know about sex to be able to tell when it happened, and I was even smart enough to guess that I wasn’t supposed to do it with my brother.
My hands started to pat over the bed at first, then over my covered chest and lower between my legs. I touched where it hurt with my fingers, my knuckles twitching with nerves when I felt my flesh wet and sensitive.
It’s my body, I thought.
This wasmybody.
“Jesus,” Nathaniel cursed, disbelief flooding his system.
I rolled over to force myself into a seated position, eyeing the pajamas and my underwear almost falling from the bed, reaching out for my sheets, but the blood was everywhere.
He laughed. “God, I’m so sorry, Cassandra.”
My eyes wandered across the room, looking anywhere but him as my vision blurred. I counted down my teddy bears and Barbie dolls, the gifts I liked to keep on display for my friends to see when they came to my house, the dirty clothes I forgot to put away. My literature paper halfway done, the computer was still lit up displaying some random Wikipedia page. The pink pen I liked to use to underline the words I didn’t understand rolling towards the edge of the table.
Confusion clouded my brain.
I was the stupid emotional girl who put these things there earlier today, but now I was the naked girl staring at these things too. It all happened so fast, and my mind was having a hard time making sense of it all.
Should I organize?
Our parents pulled into the driveway.
The hour had passed.
It lasted an entire hour.
How did I not notice it?
I heard my father’s car running for another minute before it died. He must have parked it next to the house because we didn’t have a garage.Doors were being opened, then closed, then opened again. Walls felt paper-thin, and my mother’s laughter echoed through the front door, a high pitched sound that made me snap out of it.
“Can you…” I tried to swallow my spit, forcing it down. “Can you call her for me?”
Nathaniel watched me and I watched him, until he took a step back, arm reaching out towards the door left half-opened.
