Teen years grief, part two

I felt guily about breaking Val's nose. I sat there in the doctors office and heard this terrible cruching noise as they tried to strighten his nose out. That seemed to make it clear to me that he actually would go through with his threat to tell my secret. (why I only thought of it as my secret and not our secret is so steeped in patriarchal bullshit that it makes me livid!) The only thing that stopped him this time was physical violence. My resolve to leave was crushed.

It finally got to the point where I had to break it off. I was slowly dying here. I was scared shitless about the backlash but couldn't live with constantly pretending to care about someone I now hated. Inside I cringed every time he touched me, outside I was faking responses. He used his power to insist on some very humiliating things.

My parents and younger sister went out of town. My older sister was out with her boyfriend. Val and I were alone at my house. I told him that we were done. He cried and begged me not to go. He said he couln't live without me. I kept saying sorry, no. He used his final threat. I told him I didn't care; he could tell anyone he liked. I could see on his face that he knew I meant it this time. He got angry and started yelling at me. It was then that I got horribly scared. He grabbed me and threw me on the floor. He started kicking me. I curled up in a ball begging him to stop.

He did stop. He bent down and kept saying how sorry he was; how really, really sorry he was that he'd let himself do this. He just couldn't stand the thought of losing me, etc etc. I felt so strongly that if I told him I was still leaving he would go beserk again and kill me then kill himself. I started sobbing and told him we would somehow work it out. He had this totally crazy look in his eye and he said he didn't believe me. Somehow I was able to lie convincingly enough that he somewhat bought what I was saying.

He went over to the stereo and put on the song he had decided was our song. That fucking stupid song "Precious and Few." He came back and started holding me, telling me how much he loved me, appologizing for hurting me... Every molecule in my body screamed for him to go away. I heard my sister and her boyfriend had come home and go into her room. Now I was scared for them too. I thought we'd all be murdered.

He insisted that I prove everying was all right by having sex with him. I tried to talk my way out of it. You know "but my sister's home she could walk in any time." He took my hand and led me into the bathroom and locked the door. He fucked me while silent tears ran down my face. I didn't resist. I was raped that night. When he was done, I finally convinced him to leave saying I would meet him outside the next morning.

I went straight to my sister's room, balling my eyes out and told her what happened and about the abortion. I needed to get out of that house. We left quickly and spent the night at my sister's boyfriends apartment.

I called Val's friend, Greg, and asked him to go the next morning and tell Val that I wasn't going to meet him. Ever.

The rest is a blur. He never did tell anyone that I knew of. He stayed away for a while but since we lived so close I'd see him often. We were both cordial. I was still scared, so I played nice. Greg said Val acted like it wasn't a big deal, that we just broke up.

I got the nerve to ask him why he never carried through with his threat. He looked at me like I was a complete idiot and scathingly said "I never did plan to tell anyone."

To say the least this whole experience has had huge repercussions in my life. I can see some of the twisted ways I deal with things as a result of having this happen to me in my early formative years.

Hopefully, by taking the time now to grieve these things I can start to let it go. I finally told my parents about the abortion myself a year or two ago. They were very supportive. My Dad wanted to kill Val but my Mom and I had to remind him that Val had died in a car accident, running from the police when he was about 22 years old.

It seems that there's more to say. As I'm digging through this, things are being revealed and made more clear. I might share it here and then again I might not.
I sometimes wish my story could get out and that teenage girls, boys and parents could learn from my troubles. If I could save anyone from this type of tragedy I would be very glad.