On Christmas Eve, Mike invited me to
church with his family. I wore a light pink sweater. I sat in the pews while he
played with the worship band, smiling at him the whole time. When service was
over Mike’s family drove me home and Mike walked me to the door. I turned to
him smiling. He had a frown on his face.
I asked him what was wrong. Nothing, he said, I’m just dating a whore is all.
I looked at him hurt and confused and
asked what he meant.
That
sweater! You just had to wear something to get all the attention, didn’t you?
I just stared blankly at him.
I’ve
read somewhere that girls with green eyes are always looking to hook up.
I looked away from him. Suddenly I was
so ashamed of my bright, green eyes. I asked him what he was asking of me.
I
wish you would just blend in. No one notices girls with dark eyes or clothing…
Why can’t you be like that?
From that day on, I only wore black
clothing. And my eyes were brown.
My parents were the first people during
our relationship to pull me aside and tell me something was up with Mike. Their
calls for help fell on deaf ears, I was too far gone. I was feeling rebellious;
dating a guy my parents thought was dangerous.
I let my hormones and my boyfriend take me over.
I confided in Mike about how my parents
didn’t approve of our relationship. To fight back, he twisted every little
thing my parents said until I was ready to run away and live with him because I
was sure they were the ones abusing me. Mike had me believing that I was only
loved by him; my parents didn’t care, my friends didn’t care, only he cared, and
only he mattered.
In January, I agreed to usher at a Music
Festival at school just to get out of my house. I spent all my time without
Mike at home alone as it was the only way to ensure he wouldn’t accuse me of
cheating on him. I was looking forward to ushering but I didn’t talk to Mike
about it because for once I didn’t want him there. That evening he told me he’d
call me at 5:30, I didn’t forget.
I had returned from dropping some
friends off at their seats in the balcony and was walking back to the doorway
to pick up more programs. As I turned the corner I was pushed hard against the
wall. I looked up and I saw his face, he looked like he was about to hit me. A
feeling of utmost terror filled every little muscle in my body as I watched his
arm tighten, his left hand coiling into a fist. I searched inside my mind for
something to say, he opened his mouth first.
Why
didn’t you call me? I stared at him. I was frantically looking to my side
hoping someone would come down the hallway.
I lied, I said I forgot. I was
afraid to look him in the eye. He had me pressed to the wall with his hands
tense on my shoulders. He was hurting me. He didn’t hear a word I said.
I
called you at 5:30 and your sister told me you were here. I checked my
watch as he faced the stage, it was 5:45. And
I started freaking out because I knew you’d be here with another guy. I was
staring at him, at a complete loss for words.
I opened my mouth to say some sort of
excuse but I never got a word out. His hand hit hard against my face. My skin
started to burn, my eyes water. A man came out of the aisles and down the
hallway. The lights in the theatre dimmed and I started walking away from him.
He yanked me to him by the waist. I started struggling against him and his grip
tightened. I sat down in my seat in the CPA as a bruise on my side formed
underneath his hand.
Over those next few months, he kept
beating me lower and lower into the ground until I didn’t even know who I was
anymore. After he saw how my face swelled when he hit me the first time, he
learned to hit me where it would be hidden. I walked around with a bruised
pelvis for two weeks for spending the night at a girlfriend’s house and not
telling him. I had knuckle-shaped bruises on my ribs for not texting him back
right away. After every hit, I hated myself, I wanted to die, to perish forever
in the grave he was digging for me. It would take weeks for me to gain the
courage to dump him, to finally be rid of him but then, he would apologize,
kiss my battle scars, tell me he loved me, that he’d never do it again.
And I always believed him.
It wasn’t even spring when he first
brought up sex. I always put my foot down, said I wanted to at least be out of
my parents’ house before I ever tried that. Mike always wanted to fool around,
try stuff out and I always said no—most of the time I was too hurt physically
to do anything. The Friday before the Superbowl, Mike presented me with a
silver ring on a silver chain. The silver band was inscribed with “True Love
Waits”—a sign, I thought, that Mike was getting my message. In the hallway
before school started he asked me to marry him something I said yes to out of
both fear and longing. It was a sick attempt to get what he wanted, and it
wasn’t long before “True Love Waits” turned into a million reasons why we
shouldn’t.
That Sunday, Mike and I went to a
Superbowl party at a friend’s house. On the ride over, two days after our
engagement, Mike had beaten me in the back for not “putting out” for the man I
was going to marry. I got down to my friend’s basement and stretched out on the
couch—I was in so much pain.
The couch I was laying on was towards
the back of the basement with the TV and the other party guests far away from
me. At about second quarter, Mike came over and told me he wanted to lay with
me. Rather than lay beside me, however, he positioned himself right on top of
me—pinning me to the couch.
I started to feel his hand crawling
under me, undoing the fly on my jeans. I pressed my pelvis into the couch as
hard as I could to keep him from what he was doing. He was persistent.
Eventually
I was rolling around trying to stop him. He grabbed me by the hair and pulled
my face closer to his whispering “You’re going to like it.”
I was so afraid, so humiliated, I sat
there crying silently while he sexually assaulted me. I looked at the backs of
all of my friends, their faces glued to the football game, and did not cry out.
When he was finished, he held my face in his hand, wiped my tears and told me I
had the most beautiful brown eyes he’d ever seen.
That was the way my life was for eight
months: beatings, sexual assaults, verbal abuse. I figured Mike was so busy
with me I never paid attention to the sort of things he was doing when I was at
home waiting for him.
I got a call one evening in the summer
from a concerned mother, warning me she was pressing charges against Mike for
raping her daughter. More calls came after that, formal charges followed. He
was taken out of school, and placed under house arrest; I was, as it seemed, one of the lucky ones.
It was then that I, finally, took a look
at myself. Really saw myself. I
stared at my face in a mirror and watched my eyes, thinking they were merely a
mirage: two glassy green things, bright and hopeful. They smiled back at me
from a reflection I didn’t recognize.
They were the only things he couldn’t
change, no matter how hard he tried.
My green eyes gave me the courage I
needed to go to my parents. They were my reminder that I was not who he made me
to be; who I let myself become. My parents knew I wanted help, and they gave
it. There were court hearing, orders of protection, police cars parked out
front of my house, and finally restraining orders. I haven’t had to been around
Mike for a long time now.
I forgot how much I love who I am, I
forgot that it’s my own imperfections that make me who I love. I had always
known who I was but it having brown eyes before I ever knew it. If I ever
forget how to love myself, I’ll end up in that place he made for me. And I’ll
never go back there again.
It was not easy, and it still isn’t,
getting over what happened. I am marked with physical and emotional scars that
I deal with every day. I found ways to channel my anger, my hatred.. I talked with
counselors. I learned to accept that things would not always go according to
plan. Mike never saw a day in prison; he went to college, just like me, and is
living his life elsewhere.
I learned to do the one thing Mike never
wanted me to do, move on. I fell in love, and learned that only I could let
people hurt me— and I don’t.
Every now and then, when I have a
particularly hard day, I stand in found of the bathroom mirror and remind
myself being abused was not my fault, that I never did anything to deserve
it—something that gets easier every time.
But, there are still times when all I
want is to see myself in the image Mike made me, and compare it to who I know I
am. I am strong and I love myself, I am exactly who Mike feared most in me. I am Ally, a writer, a musician, and a
survivor of abuse; my eyes are green, they are beautiful, and they will never
change.
