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 Did I think about the ramifications of what I did? That's a very good question. One there is a simple answer to. No. If I had I like to believe I would have done things differently.
It seemed like a good idea at the time but then maybe that was my weakness speaking. My fears winning over the good sense God gave me. I wanted out so bad I was willing to sell my very soul to the devil if that was what to took. Instead I killed an innocent child.
When we were little girls, crowding around a bedroom on a sleepover, we would talk about what we wanted in life. The kids we would have. How they would play together in the backyard while our husbands watched sports in the rec room. Us girls would be in the kitchen making dinner. What perfect lives we carved out for ourselves.
Only we did not count on the evils of life. We never thought that Lucy would kill herself in tenth grade. Or that Tracy would get pregnant and be sent to live in Chicago with her aunt. No we never thought about those things. Just as we never concerned ourselves with details like drinking or drugs.
I often pray at night, when I most crave a hit, that I had never met our perfect little group. That we had never sat for hours planning the life we so wanted. I heard a kid on the street once say 'it's easier to not want what you don't know exists'.
If I had never planned that life, never been one of those kids in the backyard with mom and dad in the house with their friends, never known what a "normal" life was like. Maybe, just maybe, then I would not be at this hole they call a home.
God I'm tired. So tired of this mess. I am writing this from my drug rehab cell. I say it is a cell because to me that's what this place is. Jail. I don't want to be here. I did not ask for this. I just wanted to go home, but I guess I'm skipping ahead.
As part of my rehab I have to write how I got here and am supposed to put into perspective the things I've done. I suspect they think this will make me all better again. I doubt they have any idea what they are talking about because a few sheets of paper with some ink will never make me whole again, but if I want out I have to do this. So I guess I will start with when things started to turn sour for me. Back to a beginning of sorts I suppose.
After Lucy killed herself our little group began to deteriorate. We went from sleepovers to parties in the woods behind the school, from drinking cola to vodka. It was shortly after Tracy was sent away that we began taking drugs. There was only Sandy and myself left from our cozy little group.
I had dated since I was fifteen. The boys I first started to date where the type you met in church. Ones you did not mind bringing home to mom and dad. But that changed too. By the time I was sixteen I was dating wild boys, the wilder the better. They supplied me with drugs and alcohol, and all they wanted in return was my body.
I had so little self-esteem left by the time I met Chris that I was willing to do anything he asked. I was seventeen and he was like the boys from the movies we had watched. He was older, drove a motorcycle. He didn't take crap from anyone and he wanted me to be his girlfriend. I thought I was in heaven. He treated me like a princess, a princess in chains, or so it seemed as time went on.
Chris convinced me to start skipping school. He provided me with all the drugs I wanted. I think that from the moment I met him till I got here I was always high. My parents decided they were going to "do something about me". They started to set down rules. Chris was livid and said we should run away together.
He was my life, I didn't think twice. I grabbed a few clothes and jumped on the back of his bike and we drove off to a future I thought I wanted. We drove through the night and ended up in Toronto. We had no place to sleep, but it was a warm spring night and we found a bench in Queens Park and slept for a few hours.
In the morning Chris said he needed to go see a few people. He left me at a coffee shop with a couple of bucks and said to wait there. I was scared to death. I had never been to such a large city and everyone seemed so different. I sat for five hours in that shop before Chris returned.
He said he had a place for us to live and that I didn't need to worry about anything. He took me to a little one-room apartment. The bathroom was just a curtain around a toilet. It sure wasn't much but it is ours. There were no rules to follow and Chris promised to take care of me.
We went to a lot of parties. We got high every hour of the day. I never questioned where the money came from or how we would pay the rent. Chris took care of everything. One night several weeks after we arrived we went to a party at one of Chris's friends. We were at the party a long time when I noticed Chris was nowhere to be found.
I searched the ground floor rooms with no luck before I started to ask around. One guy, whom I had never seen, said he saw Chris go up stairs with a blonde. He offered to help me find them. He followed me up the stairs. I could feel his eyes all over my body. When we reached the top he placed his hand firmly on my back and directed me down a hall claiming Chris went this way.
At the last door he declared this was the room. He opened the door and pushed me inside. The lights were off and when he closed the door behind us I could see nothing. I searched along the wall for the switch for a moment before I felt the guy's hands covering my breasts. I tried to scream but he pressed me so hard up against the wall the breath was knocked from me.
When I was finally able to speak I pushed at him and told him to leave me alone. I tried to get away from him. But he shoved me to the floor. He covered my mouth with one hand and fumbled with his jeans with the other, pinning me down with his knees. The rest happened rather fast. My skirt was pushed up. He tore away my panties and raped me right there while the party continued down stairs.
I never told Chris. I was so afraid he'd hate me and leave me if he knew how I had let another man touch my body. The moment that guy let go of me I ran for the door, fumbling with the knob. I can still hear his laughter following me down the hall and I flew down the stairs. At the bottom I landed in Chris' arms and begged him to take me home, claiming I had a headache.
The days seemed to flow into weeks after that and then one morning I woke up and was violently ill. I had been losing weight and I thought that maybe I was getting sick. I had not had a period in two months. But Chris assured me that this happens sometimes. I trusted him with everything.
Then, I started to bleed. I got so scared and begged Chris to help me. He dropped me off at a hospital and left me terrified and alone in a city far from home. I had miscarried. I was three months pregnant. The doctors admitted me and called social services. They called my parents and had them come and check me into this place.
When my mother walked through the door to my room I burst into tears. I saw before me the only people that ever loved me. They had offered me the world and I threw it away because I thought I could never have what they had. I had become disillusioned with the world I lived in and with the life of those around me.
I blamed my parents for giving me a normal happy childhood, for not preparing me for the pains of real life. I blamed them for loving me. I blamed them for letting me ruin my life. I blamed them for the fact that I will never be able to have children. I blamed anyone but myself. I set out to destroy all that had been given me, all that my parents had offered.
My parents took me to this place and kissed me goodbye promising to visit on the weekend and that when I was better I could come home. But most of all they wanted me to know they loved me and would do all that was needed to help me put my life back together.
I want to go home. I want to clean up my life and get back into school. Yes I know it all sounds like the typical teenager claiming all the things she will do. And promising under the sun everything and anything and in the next week they are back to the drugs.
Well I am afraid that who ever wrote that in the book all these doctors are reading was dead right, almost too deadly right. I went home in six weeks. I was so happy to be back where people loved and cared about me. I was about to enroll for winter semester and was happy to get back to a normal life.
So why has this story not ended? I wish it were ended. I wish there were no more to tell. But the reality is I screwed up big time. I threw away all of the trust my parents gave me. I wasn't home for three weeks before I saw him again.
Chris was walking in the mall, a new girl on his arm, a beautiful baby in a carriage. I was devastated. I ran up to them screaming at him, hitting him and calling her names. How could he be with another woman, how dare he?
When my rage finally left me I sank to the floor in the middle of the store. The pretty girl with Chris stood there through it all holding her child to her. When I began to sob she handed the baby to Chris and sank down beside me.
She spoke clearly so I would not miss what she said. "I do not know who you are and I don't care to. But Chris and I have been married for over two years. He is a proud father and an honorable husband. I don't know what you are on or what you've been drinking but I do hope you will seek some help for yourself before it is too late."
With that she stood up and they walked off. People gave me a wide berth at first and then forgot I was there. Everyone ignored me, everyone except for the young guy who had watched everything from the music store.
In less then twenty minutes I was high and naked in the back seat of his car out side my parents house. Ten minutes after that the police were knocking at the window of the car door. And it was not long before I was right back here.
My parents have visited twice since I've been back. They cry a lot and don't speak much. My mother looks like she has not slept for weeks, and my father looks like he would like to personally hold me responsible for everything that is wrong with the world.
I just want out. No promises this time. No tears, no begging, they will not do me any good anyway. My parents told the court that they relinquish their rights to me seeing that I will be eighteen before I leave this place. They say they are willing to work with me but that I was no longer welcome in their home. They claim I am a bad example on my sister and brothers.
So it all comes back to that question. The one that everyone seems to be asking as though the answer matters anymore. They ask so often, as if they expect my answer to change from one day to the next. I find it almost amusing now that when I walk into my shrink's office I know what the first words out of his mouth will be.
Did I think about the ramifications of what I did?
liza Magill Late Winter 2000
| I wrote this for a contest I never entered, but I suppose it is a lot like my life or the way it could have been.
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