*trigger warning. Sexual assault, violence, blood(kinda)*
Have you ever felt helpless? No, better yet, have you ever felt defeated? Stripped of your strength, and pride. Left powerless, wounded, incapacitated.
That bitter feeling of losing in the name of someone who has the upper hand. Have you ever faced an injustice so unjust, no prison or death sentence could placate the atrocious effects of it.
Power was a horrible thing. Mankind were horrible people for the way they abused it when they had it.
The worst thing about power is, if you have it and use it, you're a horrible person, but if you don't, you're on the other end of a horrible person. In other words, a horrible predicament. You're the victim.
It's kill or be killed, beat or get beaten. Cause the pain, or suffer it. In a world varying with assholes, narcissists, jackasses, cold-hearted, stone cold beasts, the worst of any of these is a powerful man.
A man with such abundant power that he is far too aware of it. A man that uses every bit of his strength to tear down as many women as he can. Do you know what the pain of it all is?
That women can't do shit about it.
Absolutely nothing.
You are to be the victim, remain the victim, even long after the situation has past. You're first victim of the act, then you're a victim to your own mind. Because you relive every bit of that torturous moment. It tears you down every waking fucking second. It's like a wasp that stings you over and over and over again until the wound eventually becomes numb. You bleed until there's no blood left. You cry tears that wet the ones that had dried on your cheek.
It's pain. It's torture. It's a relentless flame of agony that doesn't stop. You can scream, you can cry, you can smile, you can frown. It doesn't go away. It stays there, and becomes a part of you. Your own imaginery tail that keeps itching and hurting.
Emotions cannot be surgically removed. Jordan wished she could perform an operation of a lifetime to the brains of every woman that was victimized. To take those thoughts away. To rid her of the pain, the guilt, the memory, the imaginery bruises that left her skin but she still sees. To take out the part of her brain that still hears his voice, the part that remembers how much she screamed, how loud, for a help that arrived far too late.
In all honesty, Jordan wishes she had the mental capacity to think like a man. To take his heart and swap it with her own. To make herself as malovent, and vile, so that she returns the favor and privilege called abuse.
If she did she would tear open the skin of every predator to walk the Earth, layer by layer. No, better yet, she would use a scalpel to gauge his eyes out and feed them to him. Or rather she would break every bone in his body, from his phalanges, to his femur, to his spine until he cannot walk, then she would throw him in the middle of the ocean, and wait for every shark species alive to tear him into one million pieces.
If she only had the heart for it. If she only had a mind like his. A mind that sees, not a human, but a mere punching bag, or a sex toy, or an indestructible object made of rubber that should be bounced, or torn, or cut, or stabbed, or thrown around, and it would still remain the same right after.
FUCKING DISGUSTING.
Every single cell in their bodies, every nerve in their hearts, every artery, every vein, even the aorta between the organ they consider a heart. No good man alive could possibly make up for the abomination that was made in their form. No good man could take away and undo the trauma women have faced.
They cannot speak a word about it, and call it a joke. They cannot make comments, or throw looks and refer to it as 'playing around'. Because once upon a time, a man was 'playing around' with a woman at a vacant parking lot, and ended up playing a different game in the backseat of a car, while she let out broken pleas that weren't heeded.
It's not a game unless both parties are having fun. And it's no game if the person winning gets to live on, while his entire being continues to haunt the one who lost every bit of herself.
Jordan was planning on staying at home tonight. She had a page of her assignment done, and had a practical to do the next day. She needed to rest, not to fool around at some stinky party Ian texted her the address to.
She didn't expect for Ian to make an appearance at her house later that night, knocking like he was a cop with a search warrant.
She wasn't going to open the door. But something told her she should. That same thing should've told her to wait until tomorrow, when the next occurrence wouldn't jolt her practically still asleep body awake.
But she opened. And her friend appeared, seemingly panicked, eyes frantic, eyebrows frowning to portray his troubled state.
"I need your help." he said, calmly compared to how he looked.
"I can't right now, Ian. It's late, I have a practical exam tomorrow-"
"Tate is hurt." he cut her off.
At first, she was concerned. She really was. But then she remembered that exam, and also the fact that if she's that hurt the only people that could really help her are paramedics. She was just a student doctor.
"Call a hospital, Ian"
"No, you don't get it..." he releases a breath to calm himself. "It was Derek."
There was a shift in Jordan's posture. She wasn't half asleep anymore. She was too afraid to ask any questions. There was only one question that needs an answer.
"Where is she?"
She left her apartment in her pajamas, something a woman of her sort of status wouldn't even think to do.
Tate was in a car, a black city golf. It wasn't Ian's, she would enquire who it belonged to at a later stage. In the back seat of the vehicle, she laid with blood covering her face, frail and weak.
When Jordan was younger, and she held Bianca for the first time, her tiny body in her arms, with tiny legs and tiny arms. She'd held her small hand with a single finger, kissed her small nose with just the tip of her lips. She'd looked at her, in her delicate state, and not once did she think to harm her. She was so capable of doing so. It wouldn't be too hard. Even to this day, Bianca was no match for her. Bianca was far too small compared to her, she had no physical capacity to fight back.
Just as Jordan knew for a fact she could cause alot of damage to her tiny sister if she wanted to, Derek knew the same with Tatum. Now why was it that he could so easily do it without a thought?
"He hit her." she whispered out of shock, to herself more than anyone.
"Please just do something." Ian begged.
He did more than just hit her. He's exceeded the lengths of 'hitting'. This was what the court of law would call an attempted murder.
Jordan got into the car, on the ground next to the seats Tatum occupied. She couldn't bring her hands to touch her, she felt as though the girl would break if she did. She placed her index and middle finger against her neck, checking for a pulse, just to be sure. It wasn't until she felt it that she noticed that the girl's chest was rising and falling. She was breathing. Of course she was, other wise Ian would be alot more scared.
Jordan sniffed, although, she didn't know she'd been crying. Then she cleared her throat to recover from the shock of seeing someone she knew in such a state.
"Okay." she took Tate's shirt off, her doctor mode kicking in. She turned to her friend, who stood worried outside the car. "Ian, I need you to drive this car to the hospital."
"Is she okay?"
Jordan looks back at the girl, observing the state she was in, then back to her best friend. "She's fine, buddy."
He nods, and as if suddenly alot more hopeful, gets into the drivers seat and starts the car. Jordan wondered if he was afraid she might be dead. That was why he took her to her first. To get clarity before the doctors abruptly drop the news themselves.
As the car drove, Jordan observed the bruises on Tate's body, the muscle contusions in her arms, and legs. From the bruises in her stomach, it would take even a nurse to know that she's torn the organ. Her ribs were definitely fractured, and her face...Jordan could barely look at it. She's seen things but this was far worst than any tumor removal.
"Why did he do it?" she asked.
"You were right, he's an asshole." Ian said instead of answering.
"Tell me." Jordan pried.
He let out a shaky breath. "Apparently, he was hitting on her and she rejected him."
"Fucking hell." she mumbled.
Broken ribs and torn organs over a fucking 'no'.
"I'm sorry." Ian blurted.
"Can we not apologize right now?"
"I just wa-"
"It's not going to fix this fucking mess, Ian! Nothing you fucking say is going to undo any of this."
"I know!" he yelled, voice cracking the way it used to when he was a teen. "I fucking know, and it's my fault." he leaned against his seat, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. "I should've never brought her, dude. He said he wanted to meet her, and I thought he was just being a fucking good friend."
Jordan's never seen Ian cry. Something about it made the situation feel ten times worst. Like there was nothing left to do but drown in agonizing tears of sorrow.
She looked down at Tatum again. Her heart crushed at the memory of her in a church dress. She should've complimented her, told her how beautiful she looked.
She took Tate's hand, the hand she reluctantly shook that day. It was cold compared to then. She looked down at her bruised body. Even after she was treated for her wounds, Jordan found it impossible to ever unsee her in such a condition. A thought arose, or rather a worry.
"Ian, did he touch her?"
He immediately knew what she meant by her question. Physically, he did touch her, obviously. The question was referring to sexually.
He was taking too long to respond, but Jordan didn't ask again. She wasn't brave enough to. She hoped, instead that he would give her the answer. That the silence would make him.
But he didn't. His answer didn't come, despite Jordan's patience. She took a deep breath. A part of her knew the response, but God did she hope it wasn't what she thought.
"Ian, please."
Something about admitting it made Ian feel weak. Like he could've done more to protect her.
He should not have left her alone. He should've followed her to the bathroom and made sure she'd locked it. He should not have allowed Derek out of his sight. He should've paid attention the whole night, got his eyes out of the video game twenty minutes earlier. But by the time he noticed she was gone for too long, as was Derek, it was too late. By the time he decided to turn off Eminem's loud voice from the speakers, she had stopped screaming, and only Derek's grunts were heard from the bathroom.
By the time he got to her, he could do nothing to harm Derek, because the only concern was making sure she was okay. The only concern was getting help. It was getting her out of the house as soon as possible, as fast as possible.
"I'm sorry."
The words were implied for Tatum. Because regardless of the fact that Derek was the one that caused her harm, he felt like the person who was really at fault was himself.