Cutie With a Booty

30. I Am Changing

Having stayed up with Jace at our old apartment together, I woke up in a discomfort. Jace is beside me in her bed, curled up in a tight ball, hands stuck to her chest. Her hair is splayed out around her and her breathing is even. She's so beautiful, even in her sleep.

I've known her for so long, since we were younger and although I haven't experienced exactly what she went through—the abuse and sexualization from her father—I've been with her throughout most of her journey to finding herself.

When we were younger and in college, she had finally left her home, finally told her mother what her father did to her all those years since she were eleven years old. I asked her why she waited seven years to tell, why she waited until she was legally free to really be free. Jace told me that he always threatened that no one would believe her, that her mother wouldn't care because she loved him, and then she'd be thrown out of the house with nowhere to go.

As a young girl, she really believed that. But as a college student, she lived on campus, there was somewhere for her to live, it didn't matter if her mother didn't believe or if her mother never wanted to see her again. After she told, her mother was mortified and she blamed herself. How could she have not known? How could she have let that man do those things to her only child? Jace's mother wanted to move out of the house afterwards, after she filed a claim to the police, finding those tapes underneath the floorboard.

They were titled odd things like: Jace's First, Jace 2.0, Jace Gets Better, Jace Raw, Jace Unhinged. Jace's mother watched the beginning of a few in complete and utter horror. I always figured it is one thing to know what someone did sickeningly to your child, but it's more terrible to witness it. At the trial, the judge showed the beginnings of the tapes where Jace's father instructs Jace on what to do; not showing what Jace eventually ends up doing. Everyone in the courtroom was perturbed, and I having been there was horrified as well.

He'd talk to her in this soothing and calm voice all the while instructing her on how to do something so terrible to herself while he watched. That in turn manifested Jace into someone trapped in hypersexualization. People don't talk about it much, but it's a realistic thing that plagues many women. Because of the terrible things that happened to her, she only found gratification in acting out in sexual behaviors.

That is why Colton was all wrong for her. She wasn't ready to admit that she didn't know who she was. Jace would drink to get rid of the nightmares, the urges to sleep with people to remove the pain, and to finally have a restless sleep. Even in her dreams her father was there. Colton was just a crutch that wasn't sized in proportion to her body. How can you be in a relationship with someone else when you don't even have a good relationship with yourself?

I'm relieved that she finally has her closure. I'm relieved that she can finally learn that she is more than just a sexual object. Maybe now she will finally get the chance to become the Jace she was always meant to be.

Jace stirred in her sleep and I sat up in the bed, running my hands through my hair. I have tons of things to do today. Number one priority is this new log. Stretching, I stood from the bed, cracking my neck.

"Kasey?" Jace whispered, voice soft and fragile.

"Yes?"

"My father wrote me a letter."

I grew stiff. "What? Why?"

"From jail and I don't know, I guess he was thinking about me." Jace is facing away from me and I wish I could know what she is feeling.

"What did it say?"

"A lot of things."

"Are you okay?"