You may have come to this post thinking that I’m going to be writing about an abusive romantic partner.
You’re wrong.
I’m here to write about another man that broke me. My partner will only destroy me emotionally but I don’t know this yet because the future is yet to come.
But this man. He broke me physically, emotionally, spiritually and every which way you can think of.
Have you ever been raped?
I hope to God your answer is no.
Ma warned me, you know. She told me it was a broken marriage of broken minds from the beginning.
But when you have been starved for love nearly all your life and all of a sudden, you come across a man willing to give it to you, there’s only one natural course of action, isn’t there?
Let me be clear. This man was not my husband. He wasn’t my boyfriend. He wasn’t even someone I was attracted to.
He was my best friend. And the first male in my life to show me affection because papa, he left when I was 12.
We met at swim class. I was 16, shy, nerdy. Typical teenager. He was 17, charming, outgoing, with a violent streak that expressed itself through soccer. Typical jock.
We hit it off when he dive-bombed into the pool and I didn’t see it coming. It felt and sounded like a tsunami and I shrieked my lungs out.
He laughed, apologized by pouting and making puppy eyes, and our friendship was born.
How to move on from a relationship that turns abusive when he’s given you your first belly-laughs, your first all-nighter, your first shoulder to cry on, your first feeling of being home with somebody?
You don’t. I didn’t.
I made the classic excuses. It’s just a one-off thing, it’s just hormones, it’s teenager syndrome, blah blah. Blah.
The first time was when we were hanging out in my room and watching a movie. His head was on my lap, like always, and I was stroking his hair absent-mindedly, like always.
Suddenly, he turned and nuzzled my belly. I laughed, a little uncomfortable, and pushed him away. He smiled and came closer. He nuzzled my neck this time and moved up to kiss me.
I gasped and got up quickly. “What are you doing?”
Just like that, his face turned to stone. “Fine,” he said in a low voice. “Nothing.”
He shoved me violently and strode out of the room while I sat on my bed, stunned. It had broken my fall.
Something similar happened a second time and third and fourth and fifth. By now, I had become hugely uncomfortable. What had happened to my friend, the one who had tickled me until I laugh-cried? Why was he behaving in such a monstrous manner?
The last time he had shoved me, I had tasted blood on my tongue. And I began getting the weird feeling he enjoyed hurting me.
But you know what the mind does when it doesn’t want to believe the worst of somebody? It conjures up memories of the good times. So, I remembered only the times when he drove me home from school because it was too far to walk and the bus was icky, when he brought me ice cream during my periods because the cold soothed my aching tummy, when he held my hand tightly under the table at school because the teacher asked me a question I didn’t know the answer to.
What happened to him?
I wish I could tell you what flipped his switch, what brought out the monster in him. Perhaps it had been lurking inside all along and I just never saw it.
Ma did. She repeatedly referred to our friendship as a broken marriage. “He’s no good, Ann,” she’d constantly tell me until I grew tired of her refrain and snapped at her to stop. “I ain’t telling you how to fix a broken marriage because God knows, I tried and it’s impossible. Don’t make my mistake, honey.”
But mum didn’t know him like I did. We weren’t in love. He was just the guardian angel whose tight hugs and soft kisses on the forehead healed the wound my father had left festering.
And then, it happened. All the red flags I had ignored caught up with me that night.
We were lying on the bed, watching a movie. He tried to kiss me again and I pushed him away. Without a word this time, he got up and left the room. He was back in a few minutes, holding two glasses of soda and chips.
“Here.” He offered a glass to me and I took it, glad that he was not behaving weirdly.
In a little while, I began fooling woozy and drowsy. My body went limp and heavy, and I knew I was going to black out.
But I didn’t. He didn’t get the dosing right.
Which made what happened next worse.
He waited a bit and then called my name softly. I couldn’t respond because my mouth was too woolly and my half-lidded eyes wouldn’t open.
When he was sure I had passed out, he methodically proceeded to strip, first himself and then me.
Do you know the worst thing in the world?
Watching someone inflict unimaginable trauma on your body and mind, and not being able to do a single thing about it.
It would have been far better if I had passed out completely, like he had intended.
In a while, it was all over. He dressed me back up and then himself. He seated himself next to me, pressed play on the laptop and continued watching the film like nothing had ever happened.
Like my life hadn’t been upended, like my world hadn’t just ended.
And that’s when the effects began to wear off. He’d timed it perfectly.
“Hey,” he said softly, gently. Concerned, caring.
“You dozed off. All okay?” He took my hand and stroked it softly.
Pre-meditated, perfectly planned rape.
And he clearly planned on doing it over and over again.
I don’t know how to end this. This article and our friendship. Because he still comes over.
And it’s happened seven more times. Every time, the fool that I am, I let it happen.
I accept the soda, the juice, the water and I watch him rape me. Strip me of my dignity, my soul.
Why? Because when you are starved for love, you’ll take it any which way it comes to you.
That’s what happens in trauma. Unless you know how to break free, it will haunt you in different ways, destroying you, eating you up from the inside.
Violently hurting you in the most tender manner in the world.
The red flags in a relationship? They aren’t for me.
Give them to someone who has a chance in hell of healing.
Because today, I don’t.
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