After the Silence

Six months ago...

Naomi: PLEEEAAAASE come Sienna, you never come to parties anymore! We only have a year and a half left of school. Please!

Naomi is my best friend. Has been since we were kids, i love her, but god. She can be insufferable.

Sienna: Fine, Naomi. I'll go, but only because i have that cute new dress to wear! Pick me up at 8<3

I start getting ready, curling my long dark hair and doing my makeup, (my lash extensions were already on, bronzer, blush, concealer and clear lipgloss) and then i change into my new dress. It's a cute white mid thigh length skater dress, it has a square neckline showing just the right amount of cleavage, and is tight up until my hips where it flares out. I love it! For once... i might actually be excited about going out. You know the saying, look good feel good. And right now? oh i look GOOD.

At 8:10 pm, Naomi shows up. "SIENNA!" Naomi knocks loudly "OPEN UPPPPPP-" She's cut off when my mom opens the door, looking amused.

"Naomi, darling you know you can just walk in, you're practically family"

She heads up to my room, ranting about me being late but stops the minute she sees me. "SIENNA! you look GORGEOUS! cmon lets go quick"

We leave, walking to the house the party's in.... Eric Johnson's House. Eric Johnson. I'd never spoken to him before, but everyone knew who he was. Captain of the football team. Loud. Popular. The kind of boy who always seemed surrounded by people.

After we arrive at the party, Naomi goes to get us drinks. I spot Eric staring at me, but i ignore it. Not interested. As Naomi returns she brings some... guy with her, and for the next few hours we have drinks and dance and play games, take loads of photos... like, far too many, and make new friends. It hits 00:40, almost 1am, when Naomi disappears upstairs to a random room with the guy she was talking to, i think his names Preston? Irrelevant. What IS relevant is now i'm alone... and tipsy... in a random guy's house, and pretty pissed that she left me alone anyways. Especially given she's staying at mine tonight to cover her tracks with her parents, so I cant even go home till she's back. I'm sitting there myself sipping away at my vodka lemonade when Eric makes his way over... offering me a new drink. I decline at first, but he insists over and over and i figure it's easier to just take it and get rid of him than argue and keep him around longer.

WRONG. CHOICE.

I black out.

Hours pass.

I wake up sore, naked, in a random bedroom alone.

I'm scared.

I get up and find my dress. My new, gorgeous dress that i felt so beautiful in, ripped on the floor.

The doors locked.

Eric comes back in, sees i'm awake and flips.

And that, is the last thing i remember.

I wake up.... this time, in a hospital. Apparently, my parents tracked my phone... and found me naked, outside Eric's house. I'm surrounded by people, family, doctors, machines, police. Everyone wants to know what happened. I want to know what happened. How am i supposed to answer questions i don't know the answer to? How am i supposed to speak when i feel so silenced? How am i supposed to accept the facts they're giving me? raped? drugged? hit? knocked out? rape kit? evidence? clothes? TRIAL?

I need... everything to slow down. I'm scared, I feel broken, I feel like i'll never be ME again.

My dress.... my pretty new dress.

Walking out the hospital doors didn't feel exciting, it felt like i was walking away from every part of myself that was still in there on life support.

I spend weeks, no, months, on autopilot. Barely eating, barely sleeping. Just staring at the ceiling. I shower twice a day minimum... I scrub, and scrub, and scrub until my skin is red and broken and my wrists are cramped and hurting but it's never enough. I can still feel it.

I can still feel him.

My Mom decides we're moving. We need a fresh start, she's been amazing through it all. I'm not sure i could've done it without her. I still have the trauma, the therapy. I still have the panic attacks, I still got put on anxiety medication. I still get weird looks everywhere I go, pity, or disbelief. I still get the whispers and the critics and the comments about what i was wearing, or whether i was drunk or not. I still lost my best friend, Naomi. As it turns out, she knew. She saw him carry me upstairs. She knew what he was doing to me and she left with the guy she met at the party anyways. I just.... I needed to get away. To somewhere no one knew me, to somewhere i wasn't just the girl that got raped. To somewhere people truly cared about ME. I needed to start over.

I needed to gain my voice back. I needed to stop letting what happened to me silence me. I needed to relearn who i was.

Because somewhere between the police statements, the whispered rumours, and the sleepless nights, I'd become a stranger to myself.

The girl who used to laugh until her stomach hurt had disappeared.

The girl who never second-guessed herself had been replaced by someone who flinched at unexpected footsteps and checked every lock twice before bed.

Someone who couldn't drink anything unless she saw it being made.

People always say time heals everything.

They're wrong.

Time doesn't heal. It just keeps moving, whether you're ready or not.

Healing is choosing to get out of bed on the mornings when the memories are louder than your alarm.

It's walking into crowded rooms even when every instinct tells you to turn around.

It's learning that what happened to you was never your fault, even if your mind still tries to convince you otherwise.

I wasn't moving because I'd forgotten.

I was moving because I deserved the chance to remember who I was before the world tried to convince me I was nothing more than the worst thing that had ever happened to me.

I was moving because... I was finally ready to start healing.

Maybe this city wouldn't fix me.

Maybe this school wouldn't erase the past.

Maybe I'd still wake up some nights gasping for air, haunted by memories I'd spent months trying to bury.

But for the first time in a long time, there was something I hadn't felt before.

Hope.

Small. Fragile. Easy to lose.

But hope all the same.