Chapter One

It was called many things – that period. Those days.

'That Awful Day', my mother would call it with red eyes, her mouth wide, curling downwards in an ugly cry.

'The Night of The Rape' was how the police liked to call it – the name I'd hear the most, unable to change it, regardless of how mistaken it was.

'Those days' is how the single cop responsible for my case would refer to it, for he knew best: he knew it wasn't about a single day. He had felt that terror, had seen it stretch through time, expand and drip down the clock that could not contain it in mere 24 hours. He had been there.

Soon, however, it would be called nothing at all.

The dreadful memory would fade from their consciousness, the lingering terror disappear from their nights, and all the traces a second-hand trauma could imprint into a third party's mind would dissolve, melting away magically… like therapy says it should.

They'd forget it, without ever really knowing it.

Without knowing it wasn't one evening. It wasn't as bad as they named it. And it was worse than they could have ever imagined.

But if I had to give it a title – a faithful one, to capture all the ins and outs that saw me fall victim to him, unravelling all the events of that one evening… Well, I don't know what words I'd choose. All I know is… I'd certainly not call it a night! It wasn't self-contained like that. It wasn't simple, nor concise. Actually, I wouldn't even know where to start!

Probably, I'd go with that day, some five years ago, when my parents took us on a trip to the mountains, back when they were still together… back when my brother, at once the pride of the family and the prodigal son, still lived with us, for he was just a teenager. A moody, bored teenager who didn't want to look after his baby sisters – who walked too far ahead in the trail, leaving us behind to have our paths crossed by a crazy man in the woods. A man who did something strange to himself while smiling, who showed us what he did with pride, though we were too young to understand.

My mother was furious that night – angry at us, her young girls, for not knowing better – for not knowing how to spot danger or to shout for help, for just standing there watching, as if we wanted to see it. We weren't smart kids, we weren't sharp like her friends' children, and she didn't want to have to tell us everything. She had raised herself. My father had raised himself. My brother never needed his hand held every step of the way, why did we? It was frankly a disappointment to her, to have to teach us certain things.

Still, she did teach us, that very night, as necessity forced her to: 'Stranger danger' she called that lesson. I couldn't remember his face – the preaching we received for not being smart enough was the takeaway of the whole event, for in reality neither I nor my sister were particularly traumatized by what we saw. I don't know how she took it, being younger than me, but I guess I just recalled that lesson – stranger danger - associated with the foggy memory of that man's distorted, bearded, ugly face. I had learned how to jump out of the way of a hobo, or anyone else that looked gnarly and crazy. If greater value than that was imbued, it wasn't efficiently assimilated. I Guess we really weren't that intrinsically smart…

But those memories didn't come to mind often. It certainly didn't come to mind then, during those days that led up to the fateful night. The lesson wasn't there as I walked home from school, sulking, eyes glued to the ground... perhaps only that lingering feeling, that bitter taste in the back of my mouth - of not being smart. If I were, I would have known better than to watch Michael Campbell so closely throughout the semester. After all, why would he, the tallest, coolest boy in my class, ever be interested in me? I still dressed like a child, I wasn't pretty enough, I wasn't girly enough, I was just a messy 14-year-old struggling with how oppressive life had suddenly become! Struggling with discovering I wasn't good enough…

Red had blotched my last report – so Danilo, my best friend, took pleasure in reminding me as we walked home from our very last day of class before autumn break. "No wonder he got himself a new girlfriend…" he taunted cruelly "You're getting sloppier by the day! And dull, too. You don't even talk about anything interesting anymore. But Ah! What will your mother think?"

We labeled ourselves best friends because we fit the criteria: we met in kindergarten and had been inseparable ever since. He was intelligent – 'nerdy', our colleagues would say – and we always paired up together for assignments and projects, we always had the best grades, and Danilo was always the teachers' pet. By default, I was considered nerdy too. No one really took the effort to tell us apart when it came to grades and behavior, we were like one person, or two extensions of the same one… But between us, we were entirely different, and sometimes I could swear we hated each other, like an old bickering couple.

"…She's gonna come pick you up, that's for sure. You're gonna have to move in with her, and I'll have to find some new company among those phony, dumb, annoying people… I'm gonna resent you for that!"

We had this strange thing of thinking we were better than everyone else. We were better, and that's why we didn't fit in too well. Danilo loved that word… 'phony'… he used it to describe everyone who was remotely nice to us, assuming they always had concealed intentions. I got sick of hearing him say it back in the third grade!

"Anyway – Aren't you gonna say anything?!"

"Just shut up…" I jammed my report into my jeans' pocket.

"It's not cool to pretend you don't care! And coming from you… it's actually pretty phony…"

But I did care. Excessively. My bones shook with mild terror: my world was threatened! Neither of my parents could find out about my grades slipping if I wanted to maintain my convenient though unusual situation of living alone with my sister Susie in the old brownstone passed down from my grandparents, from when our family was smaller, tighter, still together.

They got a divorce last year… Dad was having an affair. My mother was so angry when she found out – just angry, not hurt… She wasn't the type to cry or show mild emotions. I guess I never did see her display sadness until… well! She wasn't sad when she found out about the affair. Most of all, she was 'contrite', as she'd call it: she deeply regretted dedicating so much of her time, health and wealth into being a good wife to him and rearing his two kids – she left my brother out of the equation, because he was already a 'self-made man', graduated in engineering and living abroad, so that she couldn't possibly resent the parts of her she had dedicated into rearing such a brilliant child as he was! But resentment was wasteful in itself, and my mother – unlike me and my sister – was too smart to err twice: she enrolled in a university, chased a full-time job in an office and moved downtown to make it possible. Small, one-bedroom apartments were cheaper there, and studying was easier without the burden of kids, so Susie and I had an easy case of standing our grounds and staying behind with my dad, in the brownstone we used to live in before Susie was born, in the same quiet, peaceful little suburbia we had grown up in, where all the neighbors knew us and school was at a walking distance.

Of course, she had to feign some resistance, to pretend she wasn't excited at the prospect of her new life with the child-free bonus. After just a little insisting, she consented, kissed us tenderly in the head as she rarely ever did, and we were allowed to stay behind with the promise she would come around every weekend.

My father had always been a tourist in his own house. Having officialized his relationship with woman number two, he'd spend most nights out, in her place. Sometimes he'd come home after work and stay for a couple of hours, watching TV and asking us random questions or making small talk to put in as much interaction in a limited window of time as he could, as if to fill some social parameter before moving on, saying he'd just see her for a while and say good night. He'd initially come back very late, when we were already asleep, and we'd only see him again in the morning, rushing to work while I made breakfast. Logic dictating that was a pointless effort, soon he'd outright tell us he would spend the night out, until her place was his residence and ours was the house he visited on occasion: an hour or two after work, just to see if we were okay and/or needed anything, then out again. And though we loved him in our own way, we didn't care much for his company – we were never taught to appreciate it –, so he soon realized daily visits weren't really necessary either. Once a week was enough.

After a while, we had gained his trust: I was responsible and self-reliant. Susie was meek and obedient to her sister. So a phone call and dinner every once in a while would do the trick. As for my mother - having skipped one weekend and learning that wasn't the end of the world, her visits didn't happen as often either, and thus we young girls had earned ourselves the freedom of emancipated kids, financially supported by our guilt-ridden parents! And we loved every minute of it!

…but now the ground shook, it threatened to move away from my feet: Six months had passed, and Susie wanted to go live with mom. Nights were too lonely without her, I burned her toast far too many times, she missed the family cat… each night I'd try to talk her out of it she'd present me with an entirely new reason to try and justify her decision.

Wouldn't my life be even better off without a 9-year-old to look after? It sure would! …But my mom wasn't too keen on the idea of separating us. She was practical: If she'd have to make the time and accommodation for one, she'd bring the two at once. Last weekend she came by the house and we discussed it together: I was allowed to outstay Susie in the brownstone due to sheer stubbornness, but nothing was decided yet: My mother would think about it – and by thinking about it, I'm sure she meant assess how much trouble Susie would be on her own. Democratic in nature – or just loving to pretend she was fair – my mother would look for an excuse to deny my appeal. If she saw these grades… well, that would be the best one possible!

And why did I allow my grades to slip as they did? That was the second reason why life had become so overwhelming lately, and if I didn't know how to deal with it then, I knew so even less now: Six months ago the thing I wanted most from life was the new Polly Pocket Doll House, then new year came, and with it, Michael Campbell, two-times repeater, my new 17 year old classmate in 9th grade. It was something weird, actually liking a boy, wanting to go to school to see him, and thinking about him, and wanting to be noticed. Trying to look cool for Michael Campbell is where my semester went, along with my grades, and Danilo knew it. Goody two-shoes as he was, he naturally abhorred the older, failed student for being behind. And he had 'told me so', of course.

"Are you sad? Do you wanna talk about it?" He moaned begrudgingly, as if this was a best-friend type of obligation. "When did you two break up anyway?"

"Shut up, Danilo." I yanked my arm away from him as he tried to hold my shoulder.

"Come on! Don't be so angry about it. It's not like you two were dating dating, right? I mean, you didn't even… do it. You didn't, did you?"

"Of course we did!!" I shouted with vexation, and my face grew hot at that insinuation.

"Wow!" Danilo gasped, childish awe lighting up his face.

I picked up my pace, cheeks and ears burning with embarrassment… and shame.

Shame that it wasn't true.

I had never kissed a boy in my life. I had never even held a boy's hand that wasn't Danilo's clammy, sweaty palms when we used to walk hand-in-hand because we were too young to know what that meant in the adult world. Specially, I had never even been looked upon by Michael Campbell.

But Danilo always criticized me, he always called me sloppy and unfeminine, and he still made fun of me for not realizing earlier that I needed to start wearing a bra. Moved by the horrors of mortification, I found solace in sowing the most elaborate lie about Michael Campbell and me, about our secret relationship and his passionate devotion for me. And I enjoyed adding to it by the day, because whenever I talked about it, it felt real in my brain.

…Such an innocent pleasure lasted until that one fateful field trip where Danilo saw him kissing a High-schooler and I had to exercise my creativity despite being maimed by the new and throbbing ache of a broken heart. Danilo loved the drama of it: 'Cheated on', just like my mother. Indeed, he loved it so much, he had to tell a person or two, and soon the juicy gossip reached the principal's office, who was deeply troubled by the idea of a 17-year-old dating a girl three years younger in his school. Michael Campbell and I were called into his office, and that was the first time our eyes met: when he was being threatened with expulsion because of our forbidden affair. Campbell was furious! He'd never go near a girl like me, he said, and he meant it: he didn't even look at me a second time as he stormed out of that office. And that was the end of my giggly crush on Michael Campbell…

At least Danilo didn't know. He didn't look at me like I was an unfeminine loser anymore… Not being despised in his brotherly eyes did come at the high price of harsh, premature rejection though.

"I hope I never see you again!" I said my early farewell to Danilo as we neared the narrow brownstone.

"Hey, listen…" he stopped me before I went up the three steps to the door. "I know for a fact that you have nothing better to do with your time, so why don't you come with me on Monday?"

'Recreational Recess' is how they called it: Schools were open for the community through half of the autumn break, promoting a series of 'fun' and/or 'educational' activities for the neediest, loneliest children who didn't have better plans for their days. Danilo, who had a lot of siblings and a loud mother, never missed a single activity, every year. I had never attended those, not even once.

"No way! I'm not stepping into that place unless strictly necessary!"

"It's not like that… not like actual school, you know? It's fun! Come on, just this Monday… If you don't like it, you don't need to go again."

"If I don't have to go, then I won't go!" – this was the new me, the 'sloppy', 'lazy' new me Danilo hated.

"Fine then! I hope your mother beats your ass to the moon because of those grades!"

"Fine!" I yelled from my door as I slammed it, and that was our goodbye.

…But just as I had worn my first skirt as a budding teenager when I wanted to look sexy and feminine for my 17-year-old crush, perhaps this too would be a first. I had half a mind to go with Danilo, and I told him so over the phone that Sunday evening. What prompted the change? Watching sundown with Susie on the platform as we waited for the train that would take her to the city, where mom would be waiting. She had finally made up her mind, and I, like a good big sister, carried her two small bags, instructed her on where to jump off, waited for the train with her in that empty old station. It arrived so fast… I placed her safely inside the train, then watched it leave with her sitting by the window, a broken smile on her face and mine. My sweet little Susie was pretty sad to leave me and our incomplete little home behind, but I did my best to look cheerful so as to not burden her with how disappointed I felt. Even though the little brat was probably ruining my emancipation by relinquishing hers, I couldn't bring myself to even ask her to stay: she had such a malleable, gentile little heart, she'd probably be convinced to do so for my sake alone. It made me question if she ever really wanted to stay behind with me in the first place…

The train rolled off just as I was getting tired of seeing my own reflection speed by the windows, and just like that, I was completely alone.

The experience made me feel old, and the suddenness of my empty house made me sad. I took a short trip to the dusty basement, a place we never ventured into. I switched an old light bulb for something that worked, I went through the broken bookshelf with the boxes and bags. Somewhere in there was a photo album… Ah! There it was! A framed picture of us as a family, posing in front of this very same house – my sister a baby in my mother's arms, me a mere head stretching itself into frame, my brother a languid and tall boy, my parents together… A tear rolled down my dusty cheek, and that was my cue to leave that dark hole in the ground. I phoned Danilo, my only friend… In times like these, I knew to value our relationship, however spiky.

"Is the invitation still up?"