Someone please hear me.  Hear what’s taking place behind this closed door.

The one in front of me has been here since the start, just holding my arms.  I stare into his eyes begging for reprieve.  Occasionally he turns away, unable to look me directly in the face.  Weight shifts and a piece of fabric brushes my bare skin.  It’s new, and so is the pressure on my legs. The shirt tail brushes and brushes.  Then, it stops with a low growl.

His hands release their grip.  He wipes my tears away with his thumb when they aren’t looking.  He places a kiss softly on my cheek as if to ask for forgiveness.  As if saying a quiet “sorry” between us.

Your sorry is no good to me.

As soon as they were there, they were gone.

Three boys.  Three boys who just raped me. For fun.

***

The IV pokes deep into the pale sticky skin on my right forearm. In and out people go. I hear the mumbles on the other side of the door.

A visitor.  She’s young like me, and her face shows sadness.  A tear appears at the corner of her eye.

Oh, please don’t cry for me.  It makes it real.

She’s nice to me as if nothing has happened. She acts like I wasn’t assaulted, but she and I both know I was.  She can see the rips in the fabric that used to be my clothes.  Mascara bleeds across my cheeks, and lipstick smears across my jaw.  My hair sticks up in places when it should be smooth.  The bruises are now noticeable under the harsh hospital lighting.  They track their way across my arms and calves.  I can’t bear to look at the bruises on my thighs.  They brand me.

She’s here for a test, some type of kit, and I drift as she explains it to me.  After it’s done, I realize it violated me more, but I know it was necessary.

I think of Detective Olivia Benson.  And of television shows that portray people caring about what happened to the victim and about who she is as a person.   Where is my Olivia Benson? I’m alone.

A new woman in her mid-forties, evident by the slight wrinkling under her eyes and the grey tint to her hair, steps in and mumbles something to me.  She says she has something to ease the pain.  I calm when the cold liquid rushes through my IV and into my veins.  Drugs.  I like the drugs they administer—a constant flow through the tube.  I’ve never taken drugs recreationally, but I suddenly think to myself, Well, why not?  I sit and float.  For hours, I sit in this room in a trance, and I forget.

***

At first, I am anxious and depressed.

Doctor Prescribed: 1 lorazepam for the anxiety. 1 Zoloft for the depression. Take as needed every 7 hours.

I lay in my bed all day with the covers hiding me from the outside world.  They seem so safe, though just a night before different sheets held me hostage.  Even if I want to venture out, the bruises can be seen, and there is no way to hide them. No amount of foundation can cover up the shame, the hurt.  I can’t face the stares and the questions and the concern.

Stop reminding me.

I let the light white sheets engulf me further. I cry. It’s just me here fighting away the darkness.

No one can know.  No one can see me this way.

***

I wear a burgundy red dress that’s two sizes too small.  It shows the under cheeks of my ass and a decent amount of cleavage.  Heels, as black as the pavement they walk on, cover my feet.  My face is caked with makeup.

He’s just another guy.

To me he is a man who can make me feel wanted and needed.

I don’t feel or think tonight, I just do.  I “do” every night this month.

I spend each one falling asleep in someone else’s bed.  It’s all I know how to do now.

***

“You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” are his first words to me.  For a broken girl like me, this sentence holds so much hope.

How is it that he can see me as beautiful and worthy when all I see myself as is used goods?

I trade all the other guys I’m seeing for him.  I think it will be different with him, that in some way he will save me from myself.

Save me from all the sexual violence and save me from that night.

He hits. Abuser—by definition.  Lindsey, the nurse at the hospital, knows me. My name and the lies I tell every time I’m admitted.  I can’t bring myself to tell them it’s him and what he does.  That he’s the reason I’m here every week.  Excuse after excuse, they know the truth.

Last week I had two broken ribs, a punctured lung, a broken eye socket, and five stitches to my bottom lip.  This isn’t nearly close to his worse.  The hits are a turn on.  Something I have come to enjoy.  In fact, something I come to need.  Being controlled.

Sometimes when I fall asleep next to him, I dream of a better life.