Something Happened

Chapter 3

When I went home after I helped Jennifer clean up, I jumped in the shower. I had been itching to cleanse my dirty skin ever since I got up this morning. My mother hadn't asked me about my night, I didn't expect her to, and she never did, so I don't know why today felt different. I wonder if Derek's parents had asked him about his night.

I don't know when the tears had started again. They must have mixed in with the shower water because when I opened my mouth, the salty liquid found its way onto my tongue. A heaviness placed itself on my body, a crushing weight that etched itself into my bones and onto my skin. This will never be the same skin, these bones will never move the same, my mind will never think the same, my limbs will never function the same. I will never be the same. Between the weight and my thoughts, I just couldn't find the strength to stand any longer. With that, I slide down the wall of the shower, and I sit there under the stream of the burning water. I just sit.

***

Monday had found its way into the present before I had the time to acknowledge that it was even in the future. School seemed unrealistic, a goal meant for the strong and determined. I knew that I no longer had a place in that category. I wasn't strong enough to stop a rape, my own at that, so what makes anyone think that I am strong enough to finish high school? I am not strong, and I am no longer determined.

Spending the rest of my weekend in bed must have set my mind in a permanent slumber. The three cups of coffee that I had was barely enough to show me that I was alive. The caffeine had jump-started my heart just enough that it was beating, just barely. It was a dull rhythm, one meant for the dying and the sick. Am I dying? Will the dull rhythm eventually fade into non-existence?

The whole time I was walking to school I felt jittery and something told me that it wasn't from the coffee. Maybe it was because the chilly wind was nipping at my skin because I had refused a ride from my mom on her way to work so that I wouldn't have to go in early, but I doubt it was that either. When I thought about Jennifer and Sadie I felt a plummet in my chest. That was it. I would have to face all of my friends today as if nothing had happened, as if I am the same me as I had been before the party. I should come up with my own past tense for when I talk about my life or myself before the party. BD- Before Derek. Everyone used BC for the world Before Christ so why can't I use BD for before my own life-changing event. It only seemed fair.

When the soccer team had met at my locker to talk about our last game of the season, I joined the conversation and did my best to act like BD Estelle. I contributed ideas and laughed along with the group, but something lacked. It didn't feel the same and if anyone had picked up on how I felt, they didn't say anything. The soccer girls really are great people and I have known them for years so I don't know why I feel uncomfortable around them. Why won't I tell them? When had my mind locked itself away labeling everyone as untrustworthy?

You never really notice how hard it is to keep a secret until you have one that eats away at your insides. It's as if my secret is a monster, a deadly creature that will eat away at anything and everything until you give it its escape. I don't know who will win first. I don't know what winning will entail. For either of us.

"Estelle Anne-Marie Martin!" My head snaps backward at the mention of my full name. Behind me, Jennifer is running towards me with something in her hands.

"Hey, Jennifer, what's up?"

"You left your clothes at my house. I didn't wash them because I didn't know if you washed the shirt special, so I just put them in my bag so I wouldn' t forget them. I tried calling but you never answered," Jennifer says, handing me the clothes from the party. If my heart was beating before, it's definitely not now.

"Thank you, I am late for class but I will talk to you later," I tell Jennifer as I grab the clothes with sweaty shaky hands. I make my way to the bathroom on the other side of the school. It's quieter on this end. Then I walk in, uncaring of the tears making their way down my face. Inside the bathroom, it's empty, as I suspected. I make my way into a stall and I sink to the floor. The tears drip down my face with a vengeance as the cloth in my hands burn my skin. They shouldn't affect me. They are just clothes. Clothes that still smell like the perfume that I wore that night. Clothes that had been removed from my body with hands that were not my own. Clothes that had given him the wrong idea. Suddenly, the t-shirt that I was wearing didn't cover enough skin. My nails had become claws ripping their way into my skin. Skin, there was too much of it, it needed to disappear.

***

"Why are your arms all red?" Danny asked for the second time since I asked him to borrow his sweater in Advanced Literature.

When I had shown up twenty minutes late for a class that I shared with Danny, the red discoloring of obvious scratch marks had marred the pale flesh that normally lies in its wake.

"It was a stress rash that I wouldn't leave alone. In two days, the last game of the season will be played and we need to win," I was pulling the story completely out of my ass but Danny seemed to believe it because he handed me his sweater.

"Just take it easy, I get that soccer is important to you but take care of yourself first, okay?" I put on the green sweater with a simple nod. Oh Danny, if only you knew.