gift box

I suppose it's time I tell a story. The story about a girl who was driven out of her own mind and self.

High school is the place where you make lifelong friends, find first love perhaps, or go to your first party and experiment with substances like alcohol and drugs for the first time.

She was fourteen when she had her first kiss—sloppy, yet eager—with her first proper boyfriend. Fourteen when she was invited by the "cool kids" to a house party. Fourteen when she had her first shot and first draw that hit her virgin tolerance a little too hard. Fourteen when she drunk called her first proper boyfriend to pick her up and take her home. Fourteen when she never made it home that night but woke up in his car the next morning with an ache between her thighs.

Fourteen when her boyfriend raped her. //

He was like an older brother to her. It took a long time for her to finally accept his advances. She came to care for him, her first love. And he cared for her too. So when she woke up that early morning, confused, hungover, in the back seat of his car, it didn't occur to her that he had raped her. And he too said "we're in a relationship so it was going to happen sooner or later." But from then on, he had changed. He wasn't the sweet, caring boyfriend anymore but a demanding, controlling, and menacing giant who had spun a web around her in the palm of his hand. He scared her. Anytime she had some free time he would demand something physical of her. He said, "we've already done it so what's the big deal." Her class attendance dropped and she started hanging out with the wrong crowd. The crowd that would give her a little medicinal puff to relieve her stress.
He had a personal issue against smoking. His grandfather had passed away with lung cancer. She hadn't known of this until one afternoon, after hanging with the crowd a little too long, he came searching for her. He could smell the crowd from a mile away and there, she met face to face with a cold, hard slap and his back walking away from her. In her naive, lost state, all she knew was that he wouldn't come after her body if she had any lingering scent of weed. She would take a slap or two any day if it meant she didn't have to give him what he desired. But as her acceptance of his physical outbursts lingered, his violent tendencies grew. He would be rough with her. He'd grip her arm, leaving it black and blue. She started wearing long sleeves and hoodies in any weather, season or temperature. Why didn't she just leave? Report him?
He would threaten her. Threaten her that if she left he'd kill himself because he was nothing without her. He would manipulate her emotions with his hot vs. cold treatment and tone. And she was only fourteen. She was lost, alone and had no clue what to do.

Rumors spread quickly in high school. And the people who create them have so much power. She did not move schools because she was a slut, an alcoholic, a drug addict. She moved schools because she begged her parents to help her escape the sight of the boy whom she had once cared for but who had turned into a monster. //

And this is why you mean that much more to me.
After everything that I had been through, you didn't see me as tainted or broken. You saw me for me and you let someone like me fall in love with you and steal your heart from another. We cared for each other as two people, then as two best friends. There was never a day that went by without us speaking. You knew me inside and out, more than anyone else in this world. You saw through every unspoken word of mine and coaxed it out of me. And when you finally became mine, you made us both wait because you knew that was what I needed. The me that automatically assumed that my body would be yours first was startled when you seized my heart and person in those first months. My much anticipated first kiss with you would be close to three months late. And on your birthday I told you I was ready. In your dimly-lit bedroom I thought, "this is what the so-called 'magical' first time is supposed to be like." You rebuilt my whole being from scratch. You filled me up with so much light and happiness, not by touch, but through your words, your gestures, and your care. So when our relationship began crumbling and you disappeared, I was completely lost. I was not me without you anymore. I was no one. Even now, the distance between us is still so great and it grows with every passing day. But it's okay because you mean more to me than the pain that this empty void creates. I just hope you know that I'll always be here holding our memories from our time before. //