To Audrey

I have this friend......and to protect the innocent, I won't use her real name...

So I'll just call her Audrey.

Audrey and I grew up together. We lived in the same small town, in the same small neighborhood. We played together every day, We went to school together, we did everything together.

I remember, it was our junior year of high school...yes, we were still friends! But, for some reason, she walked home from school this one day by herself. Walking to and from school was a normal thing for us, so this wasn't really out of the ordinary.

But this one day, this van was sort of "following" her...not really driving right behind her, but passing by her every so often. She turns down this one road, close to her house, and this van pulls up beside her. And a guy with a ski mask on jumps out, puts a knife to her throat, and says,"If you scream, I'll kill you", and he throws her in the van. She's being kidnapped.

this guy throws her on the floor, covers her head with something, and drives off. She told me that she tried to pay attention to where they were going, the turns he was making and stuff like that. She said she was scared, but at first, thought it was a joke.....stuff like that doesn't happen around here, this is a small town, not New York city.

So, he's driving around with her, and she can hear him drinking something. And she said she could hear the Rolling Stones playing "Angie"...funny the things you remember, huh? She's trying to look around the van, to remember any little thing that she can. she sees a shotgun under the drivers seat and knows, this is no joke. this is for real.

Now, we live near a lake and a quarry. It's about 20-25 minutes away and lots of kids go there to drink and stuff. But there's cliffs to climb and everything and it's a pretty area. that's where he takes her.

They pull off the road and go down this old abandoned road which leads to the quarry. he turns the van off. she said he pulled her up, and points the shotgun at her and tells her to take off all her clothes. he has on this mask, so she can't see his face.

She takes off her clothes and he proceeds to rape and sodomize her. he does horrible things to her...he was a "biter" so he bites her and cuts her...I'm sure she still has the scars to this day. He does unspeakable things to her, cuz to him, she's just an "object", not a real person. I don't want to go into too much detail, cuz really, it's no one's business...so why am I writing this? I don't know. I was just thinking about her this morning.

So this monster gets done with her, and just throws her out of the van...like she's a bag of garbage or something...he just dumps her in the woods nearby, leaving her for dead, and drives off.

She told me that he took her glasses and her clothes, her class ring (which we had just gotten, cuz it was out junior year)...she she's naked and can't see anything. she eventually found her way to a nearby house and had to go up to the door and ring the bell, hoping someone was home to help her.I remember her saying that a couple of girls were home, and they called a family member to call Audrey's house and tell them what happened, and then they drove her home.

when Audrey got home, the first thing her mom said to her was,
"why'd you get in the van?" No hugs, no nothing...just blaming Audrey for what had happened to her. Now that I really think about it, they were probably in shock too, ya know? But I know that if it was MY daughter, I would have grabbed her and held her....and held her some more....and then when she didn't need to be held anymore, I would have held her just a little bit longer, just to be sure.

They took her to the hospital and they examined her, yada, yada....I remember going with her to the police station and watching her identify the van....the police had found it abandoned in a parking lot...it had been stolen that day from a nearby mall...her clothes were gone, but there was a small newspaper article in there, that she had been holding in her hand when the guy grabbed her. so they knew that she was telling the truth.

She did come back to school after this happened...for a little while anyway. But it got to be too much for her....people were talking and staring at her all the time. the school called in a counselor from the Rape Crisis Team, and they gave a talk on safety and stuff. But most kids saw it as just a way to get out of class.

She left school then, for a while. her mom worked during the day, so Audrey was home alone most of the time. Now, she did have a brother who was married, and her brother and sister in law had a baby, audrey's niece. god, how she loved that baby! she loved being an Aunt, so she babysat her during the day, sometimes. I remember her telling me that she would take her niece outside to play, and then a car would drive down the road, and Audrey would totally freak out, especially if it was a van. she would grab her niece and run to the house, lock all the doors, pull down all the blinds and hide. Her family did get her counseling, but I don't know that it did much good. Her counselor was a quack and had her hooked up to bio-feedback machines and stuff, had her "replay" the whole thing in her head....backwards. What in the heck is THAT supposed to do? I never did get that.

Audrey was never really the same after that.....she had been brutally raped, so who would be, really. She didn't become promiscuous, but she had no self worth by this time. She felt like garbage so she acted like garbage....she thought that the only way to get a guy to like you, to pay any attention to you, was to give him your body....which she did. She let the few guys that she did get involved with, use her horribly. when all she really wanted was for someone to love her and tell her she was beautiful and that they would protect her.

I tried to be there for her, but it was hard. what do you say? do you ask questions, do you "pry"...what do you do? We stayed friends but it was never....the same after that.

I soon lost touch with her. Oh, we were friends for quite awhile afterwards, but it was about 9-10 years ago, she started going to church and became one of those "Jesus Freaks"...and changed her life around. which I am happy for, even tho we really don't talk anymore.

I do know that she got married and had kids, and that she was a great mom. I'm sure that she gives her kids everything that she didn't get as a child, ya know? I did see her a while ago, somewhere, and she had gained quite a bit of weight. why would I say that? cuz I know Audrey, and it's probably a defense mechanism for her. she used to be skinny and even a little bit cute! but now she's sort of....average, I guess. Maybe that's her way of "hiding in the background", so to speak.

Now, I don't want you to think of audrey as a rape victim. Oh no. If she was a "victim", she would still be out there in the wooods somewhere, rotting away like the garbage she thought she was. No. she's not a "victim" at all.

I'm a survivor.