How Did I Get Here?

Chapter 1

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I stood there in total disbelief. It felt like hours but I know only minutes had passed. Time began passing very slowly after the officer told me that I was a victim of a sex crime. A crime against a child. I was thirteen years old and terrified. And at that moment I didn't remember any part of it. I wasn't the victim coming forward. My mother and I knew less than the police. It was a weekday in the beginning of June and my mother had just gotten me from school. When we got home my mother had received a phone call. This phone call turned my entire world upside down and forever changed my life. I was busy in my room listening to music when my mother came in and told me that the police had called and needed us to come to the station. I thought it was a joke, I had never done anything illegal in my life. I was the all American child. But the look in my mothers eyes when she told me "You didn't do anything wrong" made me know that something was very, very wrong. The 5 minutes car ride to the police station was a 10 minute walk from my house, made me feel like I was suffocating. When we arrived a detective was waiting outside the door. He introduced himself and brought us into a conference room. I could feel the stares of the other officers as we walked by. Their faces all with the same sympathetic eyes. As we sat down a women detective joined us. She started with "We have a video of a young girl about your age, this video is evidence in an investigation of child molestation" My mothers eyes began to well with tears and my jaw hit the floor in shock. I wondered to myself who had been molested, I was immediately concerned for my two young nieces that lived with me they were two and four. I immediately asked who the young girl was. They looked at me then to each other and the man spoke. "We are not sure who the young girl is, but we have been told your mother may be able to identify her. I was sad for those little girls, this would not be the first time those young girls have been sexually abused. At their young age they had been to 3 foster homes and lived with a drug addicted mother. Their father, my brother had been in jail for years. The male detective asked my mother to come into another room to view the video.

When they had left the women started asking me questions. "Do you know Stacey Mills?" I nodded my head wondering why she would be bringing up a good friend of mine. "Have you ever been to her house" again I just nodded wondering where she was going with this. She asked me if I had ever met her father, and my eyes began to fill with tears though I still didn't know what she was talking about but I was very scared. She asked me why I was crying and I told her I didn't know but I was really scared. She began asking how many time I had slept over Stacey's house. Right then I thought about a night that Gave me nightmares for months after this day. I told the detective about the one and only night I had ever slept at her house. It was the night of our 8th grade dinner dance I had gone to her house after school. Stacey lived with her father Patrick Ganger. He was a single father. He seemed really great. He picked us up from the dance around 10. We went back to her house and right into her room to gossip about the whole night. He had come in to check on us and bring us some snacks and drinks then told us he was going to bed and not to stay up too late. He left the room and we talked for hours. I wasn't sure what time we had gone to bed, when we woke in the morning Stacey was sleeping on the couch and I was still in her bed. After having breakfast her father brought me home. I told the detective that it was 4 weeks ago.

My mother and the male detective came back into the room, I could tell my mother had been crying. Before the male detective could say anything I began sobbing. He explained that Stacey had come to the police station that morning with a box of videos she had found and when the police looked at those videos it showed her father molesting 12 little girls. I later found out most of those girls were my friends and one was a small niece of the sick bastard. They also told us that they had found some prescription drugs often used for date rape. They then explained that they believe he put the drugs into our drinks and waited for us to fall asleep. He then took out a video camera. I am not sure exactly what was on the video since my mother thought it would be more devastating for me to have the images in my head. Though I still had images, images of what I think could have happened. I wanted to know the details and I thought I deserved to know. It was killing me not to know anything. At that time I didn't even fully understand the magnitude of what was happening. It felt like there was a gaping hole where my heart use to be. That feeling had me grabbing my chest and trying to steady my breathing. On the outside I looked fine, not a tear dropped from my eyes. On the inside was another story, I was completely frantic. I couldn't get my head to stop spinning. I had so many questions and I knew these questions would never be answered. That's the part that was killing me, never knowing why, That was the day that my whole life changed. That was the day a little piece of me had died. What lead to this point was beyond my control, but I still feel like I brought it on myself. The reality of what had happened to me was something that makes your skin crawl, something that brings pain to your heart. They told us they would be in contact and we left the station. Though at this time you cant understand I felt so lucky driving back to my house. Though on the inside I was falling to pieces, on the outside I was barely phased. I felt that somehow it wasn't that bad because I didn't remember. That's when it started to get bad. I had gone to school the next day still consumed with thoughts of what I was told the previous day by the police in my small town.

It was easy to pretend everything was okay, until we had our lunch break. That is when a boy in my grade came to my lunch table and put a newspaper article in front of me. He then proceeded to ask me if I liked it. He went even further to say that I probably did and began calling me names. I was mortified. I hadn't realized there was anything in the newspaper. I should have known it was a much bigger deal than I had thought. Since my friends and I were underage they could not release our names to the newspaper. That didn't stop them from releasing his name. When they did everyone knew without a doubt who the children in question were. Kids can be cruel, instead of understanding what happened they somehow confused the situation and felt it was our fault somehow. I sat through lunch not touching my food and with my head down. I was so ashamed, it felt as though everyone was staring at us. I tried to tell myself that wasn't true, but the reality was that everyone was staring at us from every direction. After lunch I went to the principals office, when I walked in and saw the same sympathetic eyes I had received the officers at the police station I knew he already knew everything. I asked him to call my mother to pick me up because I was not feeling well. It wasn't a lie, I was feeling sick. My mother of course came right away knowing that I was probably in need of some rest. I couldn't sleep the night before. I stayed up all night crying into my pillow, though I tried to cry quietly I could hear my mother walking up and down the hallway and listening at my door. When she would knock, I pretended to be sleeping. This became a normal nightly ritual for the months that followed. I know she just wanted me to talk to her about how I was feeling but I couldn't. how could I talk to her about my feelings when I wasn't even sure how I felt. I know I didn't feel good about any of this, I was a mix of emotions.

The biggest was fear, not knowing where the man who had turned my life upside down was. I didn't feel safe. My mother allowed me to stay home from school for the rest of that week. Seeing as there was only a week left of school I convinced her not to make me go back. I told her that I just couldn't handle it. She told me it was probably a good idea and that this would all blow over during the summer. The week after school got out I was home watching my favorite Saturday night show "America's Most Wanted" My mother and I had been faithful watchers of the show since I could remember. When John Walsh began talking about a story of young girls being drugged and molested I saw the face of a man I had been having nightmares about for weeks. I couldn't believe it was on "America's Most Wanted" This was bad, how was anyone going to forget what happened it they keep having the story replaying on the television. It had also been on the local news since the story broke. That summer I didn't really leave my house. I had a few friends over here and there, but I was in pain. I was having a hard time living my day to day life. After two months my mother received another phone call from the police. They had found him, exposing himself to a small child on the beach. That sick, sick bastard. I began to sleep a little better. Not great since I was still waking with panic attacks. The summer ended quickly and I was not looking forward to the beginning of my first year of high school. I was just praying nobody remembered the events that unfolded. I knew deep in my heart even if they didn't say anything about it they still remembered. I knew all too well how hard it was to forget something like that.

More to come..

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