Stumbling Thru The Dark

I was so alone, confused and scared. I had no one. I couldn't tell my daddy because I was simply afraid that if I did he would go and do something and end up in the very prison I had grown up around. I didn't have my best friend anymore because when I told her she didn't believe me. I managed to stay away from everyone else by locking myself in my room during the day, and since I was scared to be at home alone at night now I spent most of the nights out on the stoop of the apartment building next to me, in the dark.

I was dirty. Ashamed, guilt ridden and embarrassed. There was no amount of soap and water to wash it away. I was drowning in despair. My thinking was based on one thing, the rape. It consumed every thought in my mind. I couldn't sleep or eat and the emotional and physical effects were starting to show. Inside and out. I felt like if anyone saw me, they would know....know my nasty little secret.

I think it was somewhere around a month before I really started to feel good enough to get out and in the world again. I had made friends with my daddy's girlfriends son. That's where I learned about the definition of speed and pot. They were my new best friends, and we had a great relationship. I jumped into the drugs full speed ahead, figuring out that it didn't hurt so bad when I was stoned. So stoned I stayed. This went on for the next several months until things didn't work out with daddy and his new love, and he decided to move us away....back to my Nanny and Daddy Jack.

I was happy again, at least for the most parts. The days were terrific, it was just the nights that always got the better of me. I started in school where I made lots of friends, turned 16, and met him........Rodney! He was the cousin of my new friend. He was handsome, sweet, intelligent, a gentleman and he liked me back. We started doing everything together when I was out of school. He had already graduated and worked with his dad at one of the gas stations that they owned there in town. I was so nervous when he took me to meet his parents. I felt a little inadequate as they had ALOT of money and was in upper society...I was nothin but a simple barefoot girl.