The Whole Truth: Part II

This post is from a friend who also chose to stay anonymous but I feel like we know exactly who she was as that thirteen year old girl. We get to see the real her, not the girl who was painted by other people. When this came into my inbox I was stunned. Because I didn't expect it and because I felt like I was there with her. And because every time I read it, I wonder if those boys  are haunted by what they did in the same way that she is haunted. I wonder who they are today. I wonder if this one thing became who they are. Did they go on to do it to other girls? Were they ever taught that this is wrong or did the need to fit in outweigh the sense of right and wrong?

There aren't a lot of sexual triggers here but there are a lot of moments that are triggers. This story is a good conversation starter. How do we teach our boys not to be like these boys? How do we teach our girls that they are more than what boys think of them?

                                                                                                                                  

I was kind of an asshole from about 13-15. You know the movie Thirteen with Evan Rachel Wood? The first time I watched that movie as an adult, my stomach sank with the realization that I was that girl. I hitch hiked, I smoked (both, if you know what I mean), I drank, I cursed, I did a little shoplifting, and I began the first of my heavy flirtations with the opposite sex. This story is not about the whole two years that my mother still mourns, but about one incident and some of what followed.

I lived in an idyllic neighborhood in the south that can best be characterized by the nod-and-wave between neighbors, the immaculate landscaping, and the kids roaming the neighborhood. I was often out and about with the only conditions being that I check in every few hours and that I absolutely not go into anybody’s house without a phone call asking permission (providing my mother the opportunity to verify that parents were home).

On one afternoon of lazy bike riding, I stopped in front of a house where boys from school were playing basketball. There were three of them there. There was the class clown character (it was his house), the popular boy (popular because he was so beautiful and from the right people), and then the boy who seemed to always just be around but never really in the forefront. I know you know these characters, as they exist in every middle school in America. I stood straddling my bike to balance it and I played my part as well. I was the eager and awkward girl who had finally started blooming. I’d finally outgrown my elbows and knees stage, was beginning to round out despite my gymnastics involvement, I was wearing contacts. The popular boy liked to tease and I liked to giggle. It was thrilling beyond words.

As I said I had to go home to check in, the popular boy asked and then begged me to stay. “Come play video games with us,” he said. When I explained that I had to check in, he persisted. I remember everything about this boy- his blond hair, his blue eyes, his stocky build, his lean. The teasing tone became more persistent and he reached out and held on to my hand. Maybe I can go in, just for a minute?

Here’s the thing about what followed- it’s not the most important part. The short and light is that the other boys conspired to trap me in that house. I fought once I realized that the innocent kiss with a forceful hand on my breast was scaring me. I was physically carried upstairs. I was ignored when I yelled for help. But that isn’t the part that is important in my memory of that afternoon because, though I was only a girl, I know as a woman that we are stronger than those moments.

But there were moments that stuck with me in a much different way.

When I got home that afternoon, far too late to avoid a confrontation, my guilt was so overwhelming that I lied. I lied to my mother about my whereabouts and held in the panic that was building inside of me. I buried the fear that confronted me every day that I climbed onto the school bus and had to face those three boys. I ignored the sexual innuendo that began to overrun all conversations with me and about me at school.

Then I began to change from a girl who was eager to be liked by boys to a teen who was desperate for male attention. It breaks my heart to look back at the shift in my confidence and the hurt that I held.

The following year, I transferred schools. The popular boy transferred as well but was held back a year (a college prep strategy, not a punishment). Thankfully, I had some space and some buffer that kept my panic attacks isolated to the occasional hallway passes.

That year was going as well as any freshman year can when, slowly, my reputation from the previous year began to surface. Girls began taunting and boys began advancing. I don’t know if you’ve ever been the girl who was a little needier, a little faster. If you have, you know that it can feel impossible to reform. You’re scorned by those you want to befriend and you know the affection from the opposite sex with come at a steep price.

I did confide in a girl on my cheerleading squad. She nodded and sighed and patted my back while I spilled my guts. And then, only days later, she cornered me in a bathroom with an audience and called me a whore. I sobbed, full of shame and an understanding of my value to these people, but this time nobody patted my back.

I had a few more years of behaving Thirteen. At 15 I was suspended for, you guessed it, something sexual and it started to slow pull back to the person I had buried beneath my ache. A few friends emerged from that time who did not judge me. Whose parents had heard the stories about me yet still invested in me. And my poor mother, who still doesn’t know it all, managed to push hard enough to break through my barriers.

It’s been nineteen years since that afternoon in the class clown’s house. I am, amazingly, friends today in a removed sort of way with the girl from the bathroom. I have no idea where the popular boy is or what became of his life (and I will never allow myself to find out). Some of the patterns of that time in my life had crept back and brought havoc in my young adult life, but those things don’t define me.

Today, when I think back, it is as a mother. I probably wish to say the same things my mother would have if I’d only given her the opportunity.

It is NOT your fault.

You will NOT get in trouble for telling.

You are NOT a whore.

This does NOT define you.

She is NOT your friend.

You ARE worth more than you know.