It All Started With Hate

lock | part 1 (e)

His words ran me over like a train, but I didn't remain on the tracks for too long.

Luke wouldn't do that. Luke wouldn't ever do that, no matter what happened between us. A deranged monster wouldn't make me think any differently.

With his back to me, I found my grip on the handle of the knife.

I needed was to get him close, again. He had left his gun in the chair, so all he had was himself. I could work with that.

"I hope you know..." My grip tightened around the handle. "I'm not that same little girl, anymore."

At this, he turned on a slow foot. The amusement made his eyes shine back at me.

"I'm counting on it," he countered, a smile on. "And, so are the others." My wrist moved just enough to avoid the knife getting caught on the material of the couch. My father retook his position, leaning over me until I wanted to throw up at his nasty everything. "I'm not the only man you've pissed off with your actions, Maggie."

My free hand clenched into a fist. "My actions?"

"Your actions," he repeated with malice. "You, Maggie. You lied. You cried to the judge, and to everyone else about how much of a monster I was, when I've known the truth all along..." Leaning closer, he didn't stop until he knew I couldn't avoid his gaze. "You enjoyed every fucking bit of it."

My body went rigid, and for a second, I thought my soul had detached from my body.

There were many things sexual abuse left behind physically, especially for children: the bruises, the bloody sheets, underwear, and thighs, the fatigue, the early physical development, the hot, scorching baths to help the soreness and the raw skin that followed, because no matter how much you scrubbed and washed at the skin they touched, it felt as if you would never be clean.

This, though, it was one of the many emotional aspects a victim was forced to build off of. It was what allowed a lot of abusers to get away with what they'd done, especially with children: the manipulation they leave behind, both mentally and physically.

When confronted, they deny the allegations, while twisting and marking their own lies out as truths to the victims. It was all a mind game, where they were able to make victims feel as if maybe it didn't happen, or maybe they had overreacted, even with literal proof of the crime being done. The abuser knew the words, the tricks and techniques to turn their victim's minds into one that fit their narrative.

It was what what had silenced me for so long as a child. It was what silences a lot of children, especially with a relative: manipulation. Whether it be the abuser coaxing the child with games or gifts, threatening another family member, the victim themself, or a million other things that children, who are most reactive to fear at that age, will listen to.

It was unfair to ask why a victim stayed quiet, especially as a child, who had been taught and coaxed into being that way. It was something that always lit a different type of fire inside of me. Hearing someone blame a victim, rather than the abuser themself.

It's an entirely different thing when you're actually inside of the glass box that others love to observe and judge from. It was a different type of agony that made the glass around you cut skin you were already losing.

My father's taunts were hitting me from either direction, now. As I had for the last fifteen years, I found myself asking if it had really happened, if my mind had made everything up, if I were actually crazy and had overdramatized it, despite there being evidence, physically and mentally. The psychological imprint my father had left behind managed to make it all go to shit, though.