((TW// Alcohol mention, Sexual trauma recount))
I was a girl, newly 15, not yet a woman
I didn't know then I never would be one
It was the day they got married
A happy day to break up the endless string of lows and highs
I think back to what I wore constantly
The dress my Tia bought me
The tights
The flat-bottomed shoes I wore to my cousin's Quince earlier that year
My hair tied back in the half-up-half-down my mother used to do
I had done my makeup that day
Maybe I was too confident
Maybe it was because I had a new bra that made me feel older than I was
I blame it on how low-cut the front of the dress was
The dress I never wore again
Maybe I felt like the girl they always wanted me to be
Back when I still hid behind clothes and that veil of ignorance I constructed
On the way home, you put your hand on my thigh and I didn't say anything
I was scared
I let it happen
You said I wanted it
Was this real?
Was I imagining things again?
Did my paranoia finally drive me so insane that I actually believed you would betray me too?
My father
Technically my second one
The one I credited for raising me
You, who was there when we didn't have electricity or food
You, who took care of us when our mother left to live the life she never got to
Who took my brother and I in the red wagon every day of the summer
Back before you didn't have a car and we lived in homes that weren't ours
Not you
I remembered months before when you'd held me too long
You tightened your grip when I tried to pull away
Just like the others had before
I thought these same things then too
When we got home you were already drunk
You said you tried to save me a few drinks at the reception
But I was off talking to that girl who I wasn't related to, but knew through the marriage that had transpired earlier that day
We talked all night by ourselves
I never saw her again
I told you I wanted to drink now
I knew where you kept the liquor
In the pantry at the top
I'd stolen from it several times, hoping you didn't notice
You opened a bottle of red wine
My little brother kept coming out of the room you both slept in to see what was going on
Maybe he sensed it more than I could
I can't remember how much I had
I just remember I felt loose
Like I could forget earlier again and discard it to just imagining things
You said I didn't dance with you at the wedding
I felt bad and offered to dance in the living room
I still remember the song
"Hey now, Hey now, Don't dream it's over"
The rest starts to blur
It's you, pulling my bra strap
It's you, your lips pressed to mine
I pretended to be tired
I convinced you it was just that
You relented and went to sleep
Next, I'm running out of the apartment
Out of the complex
Sitting on the rock with my phone to my ear, beginning to sober up
Scared
This was too real
The police come
I'm sitting in the back of the police car now
I'm watching them talk to you at the door
I'm driving to the hospital
They didn't put me in cuffs this time
My abuela is there and I tell her everything
I call my aunt, and for the first time I cry because someone doesn't believe me
Little did I know, they never would
You got out of jail the next day, even though you confessed to everything I accused you of
They drop the case
I can never tell the whole story
But it gets misconstrued through the mouths of the people I call family
Tia
Tio
Aunt
Uncle
Abuelo
Abuela
Mother
Brother
I can never tell the whole story
But I'll never forget any of it