Click the above voiceover to hear this chapter read by Walter Rhein of I’d Rather Be Writing.
Trigger warning: memories of a sexual assault are referenced in this chapter
I stared down at the onion-skin pages, ghost-like pencil scratches from decades of note-taking nearly gone, trying to remember just enough to answer his questions, to pretend like I understood or cared. He leaned low over my shoulder smelling like stale drink, jumping on every pause with, “Read it over until it’s memorized; you should know this by now.”
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I traced my pencil along the faded margins in little swirls and scribbles, perfectly illustrating how much it all mattered. Outside, the rest of the world continued on with their paper routes and Tupperware parties, pie auctions and ice cream socials, my small town, with its colorful houses all in a row, not a blade of grass out of place. But I’d opened Pandora’s Box, the scales falling from my eyes.
August 17
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In a place like Fort Benton I couldn’t avoid him—always watching me, peering around the hood of some big-rig grain truck, motionless like a snake in the grass. And even when I changed my route, it was the gas station, the grocery store, the drugstore as I picked up Daddy’s medicine. He seemed to be everywhere at once. And if he smiled in that stupid awkward way he did, I assumed he felt powerful. A wave was to try to gain my trust, to do it all over again. And those damned circles of men outside the bar, smoking cigarettes and laughing. He was there, too. What the hell was so funny? I’d jump across the street, out of earshot from the bragging—how he’d touched me, stripped me naked and seen every inch of my body. What a whore, they’d say, sleeping with men in my father’s church. I’d wanted it, begged. I never heard them say it, but I knew.
Word travels fast in a small town.
August 18
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Then he started coming to church again, and I knew right away he didn’t give a shit about saving his soul. He knew when to open the hymnal, when to stand, when to sit, when to shut his eyes and kneel deep in prayer. He looked innocent enough, but he wasn’t there for forgiveness; he wasn’t done with me. I stared up at Daddy, spouting something about “impurity, idolatry, sorcery, fits of anger...” Spot-on, Daddy. If he only knew. As I sat at the piano and stumbled through “The Old Rugged Cross,” the boy-man undressed me with his eyes, little glances up and down from the pages of his withered Bible, and my fingers slipped across the keys as the sweat ran down my nails. But as scared as I was of him, I felt even more humiliated knowing that everyone here knew, smirking from behind their bulletins. He smirked, too, arms folded, looking hungry.
I stayed close to Mom after the service, keeping her within arm’s reach, which I did a lot now, something she mistook for friendship. And I did love her more, and understood things maybe a little better about life’s harsh truths, the blatant myth of fairy tales; but I didn’t feel like a grown-up anymore. I had horrible nightmares now, and wanted to crawl into bed with her the way I used to when I was a little girl, her stroking my hair and holding a cool glass of water to my lips, shushing the monsters away. But she couldn’t fix these monsters. He was always there, hunting me down dark hallways as I stumbled backward into rooms without doors. I’d scream, begging him to stop, for sure telling him no this time. He’d just laugh and hold me down by my wrists, forcing himself on me over and over again until he was satisfied. And every time he left me in a puddle of blood, the yellow light from the windows burning my eyes, swirling and marbling. And when I woke up screaming and crying, I’d bite the pillow and hope Daddy hadn’t heard me. He always slept soundly after a long night in the chair, but I still listened, twisting the quilt tightly around my chest and trying not to shut my eyes. I could taste blood where I’d chewed on my lips, and try though I might, I would always fall back to sleep.
September 20
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Over the next days and weeks I had so much anxiety that I made myself sick over it, worrying Mom and annoying Daddy, who blamed everything on PMS and washed his hands of the whole thing. I was being “dramatic” if I felt tired or nauseous, and he’d slam me down into a chair with a list of verses about weak women “led on by various impulses.” I tried to do what he wanted so he’d leave me alone, but I had to shut my eyes to stem the vertigo and sickening pain that came in waves. The more I avoided thinking about everything the less I ate, what little I did coming back up in twisting, bitter yellow bile that never seemed to end. The smell of Mom’s cooking sent me flying to the bathroom, and every day I could see the weight lost in my cheeks, the hollows under my eyes and in front of my ears. If I didn’t feel so terrible I wouldn’t have minded much—I could stand to lose a few pounds, but not like this. I knew how pale and awful I looked. Mom worried and checked on me like a child, spending hours on the side of my bed as I slept. Daddy pissed and moaned about the lost attention, growling up the stairs, knowing full well she couldn’t hear him. A mixing bowl on the floor saved me more than a few nights, when I woke from the same terrible nightmares and vomited over the side of my bed. I hated feeling afraid, mixed up and anxious all the time, and I didn’t assume it would ever go away or get better, but maybe this would become normal and I could somehow get used to it. Pain has to hurt less if it’s all the time.
I couldn’t explain to anyone why the sudden illness, and instead pretended to feel better so Mom would relax and go back to helping Daddy with whatever it was he needed. Her normal. But I didn’t feel better, powdering the dark circles under my eyes if and when I came downstairs. Everything inside me felt wrong and I struggled against the knot of never-ending anxiety that had planted itself in my chest. But understanding why I felt the way I did didn’t fix anything, the aching waves never ceasing as my insides sloshed back and forth, tipping me over the edge and back into the bowl. Cold water helped, and I took small sips from the glass Mom left on the nightstand, hoping to get just a few minutes of rest from the pain. But my hands shook, spilling water all down the front of my pajamas.
“Shit.” I rubbed at the damp flannel. Stinging pains shot across my chest and I quickly pulled my hand away, spilling more water. Something really hurt, like I’d been punched or cut, spreading outward from each side of my chest and back toward my armpits. It had been months since he touched me, but I couldn’t think of what else would cause this much pain for no reason.
I stepped into the bathroom, switching on the light and pulling the pajama shirt carefully over my head to inspect the phantom pains. The nausea hit like a sandbag to the stomach and I gripped the countertop waiting for the waves to pass. A minute, two minutes; a deep breath and the world stopped spinning. Staring into the mirror I could see how sick I’d been, my hair limp and colorless, wan skin stretched over my cheekbones. My body didn’t look or feel like me anymore. He’d touched every inch of what had once been mine, grunting and dripping all manner of fluids down my legs. My skin burned. Everything looked different, from the thinness of my arms to the prominent curvature of my hips, thinner now, too, but always the pear. Dark blue veins spiderwebbed across my breasts, crisscrossing up to my throat. And my breasts themselves felt so alien, painful and hot, and almost pulsing under my hands. I didn’t recognize any of it. Something had physically changed the day he raped me, my body ceasing to be itself, now so foreign. I stared down at my breasts, wishing I could cut them off and hide. I should be done with puberty, but everything just kept growing and growing, already so much bigger than my mom.
It shouldn’t hurt this much.
I held tight onto my chest, willing away the pain. The nausea hit again and I sank to my knees, resting my cheek on the cool toilet rim as I retched and coughed, waiting for it to be over so I could just die right there on the bathroom floor. But I didn’t die, and crawled back to the bed still half-naked, sinking into the cool sheets. I was aware of every inch of my body, hypersensitive from the strange pains. Little hairs stuck out on my arms and rubbed sorely against my sides. My toes scratched at the cotton sheets, the bones in my knees bumping against one another. I could actually feel the blood pulsing in my neck and down the insides of my legs. I lay there wishing I could stop being afraid, leave all this crippling anxiety behind and the pain with it. Maybe next time I’d be brave enough to say no or fight back.
Oh God, please don’t let there be a next time.
October 12
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A few weeks later I started to feel better, a lot better; in fact, I was starving. Apparently my body didn’t like being so thin and I ate second helpings of everything in sight, packing on the pounds. Mom was pleased to see me eating heaping plates of fried potatoes and baked ham, the color flowing back into my cheeks as I burgeoned out into the familiar full figure. I’d actually begun to think I’d gotten a little too fat, but felt so good and full of energy it was hard to care. I could almost forget about what had happened to me. Almost.
But I knew he was still watching me, and I’d take the long way home from the drugstore just to avoid the inevitable gaze behind the hood of an old pickup or changing the oil underneath a big blue Pontiac. He showed up at my school once, leaning on the fence and smoking a cigarette. The little pods of high school girls went wild. But he waved only at me, still so sheepish and awkward, and with a little flick of his eyebrows I again knew how powerful he felt. Sometimes he’d whistle softly through his teeth before tossing the butt out into the street as if to say, “Remember me?”
Mm-hm, I remember you. Of course I do.
Eyes down, all I wanted was to humiliate him in front of everyone he cared about, show them what a sick pervert he was. But instead I ducked into the bathroom stall, dark and alone, and waited for the school bell.
I’d planned to go to college the next fall to study music and spent most of my free time on the library computers researching universities, taking practice tests, and reading up on complicated theory. Mrs. Dixon, the librarian, had always been so kind to me, and either hadn’t heard any of the rumors, or was in fact a decent person who didn’t believe them, or didn’t care either way.
“What are you looking for today, dearie?” She called everyone “dearie.” She knew every shelf, every subject, every Dewey Decimal, and if I needed anything she could find it, from taxonomy, to combustion, to the dreaded solfege.
“I don’t know. I just want something fun to read.” She led me over to a rotating display and pulled out a small paperback, mauve with a puckish full-figured woman on the front. I recoiled. “Oh, no thank you, no romance. Maybe some true crime.” She pointed me to a section in the back corner labeled “mysteries and crime,” leaving me to browse. I grabbed something about H.H. Holmes, and a few titles with interesting covers, and carried the stack over to a faded blue wing-backed chair by the window. One at a time I shuffled through introductions and the opening bits, shifting uncomfortably in the old chair. My pants didn’t fit well lately thanks to all the extra helpings of Mom’s ham.
I sat forward in the chair sticking one thumb into the waistband and giving them a tug. They were so tight it made sitting almost painful as the denim cut into my hips. A consequence, I supposed. I stood up and adjusted with a wiggle and some more tugging, peeking around to make sure no one noticed. But when I sat back down I heard a small popping sound as the button snapped off my pants, flying through the air and disappearing under one of the shelves.
“Shit.” I grabbed my fly and pinched it together, embarrassed, but the zipper collapsed open and no amount of tugging would help without the button. Red welts wound around my waist and I pulled my sweater low hoping everything would stay put until I got home, abandoning the books and stopping off at the restroom to get a better look at the damage. The bathroom had three stalls, thankfully all empty, and I locked the door behind me. I pulled up my sweater—my pants looked exhausted, hanging open in a wide V around my well-fed belly, now happily relaxing out over the top of the underpants Daddy had bought for me. I tried to zip the pants halfway but they refused, gasping open again. I wiggled and hopped, pulling at the waistband, trying in vain to suck everything in, and ashamed as I realized how much I’d been eating. My stomach didn’t move and I gave it an encouraging rub. An odd, familiar feeling washed over me, as it had only a few times since I’d first gotten sick. Not pain anymore, just that nagging feeling that something was off. Grabbing the colorless, flaccid skin I could see how much I’d overdone it, the mottled fat thick like tapioca between my fingers. But it had felt so good to feel good again. I grimaced, giving my gut a squeeze and pressing hard in one last effort to stuff everything back in. Beneath the layers I could feel a firmness between my hips, probably the abdominal muscles I never used.
In the bathroom mirror my face, now round and dimpled, looked bright and almost pretty. I even appreciated the blush in my cheeks, and my lips were nice and red all on their own today. Something about this chubby new me felt safer, untouchable. I stopped to twist a lock of the mousy hair, my stomach still hanging out like a slab of melted butter, when the bathroom door opened and in walked Mrs. Dixon.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, fumbling with the sweater, “I thought I locked it.” I tried to cover the gaping trousers, tugging in every direction.
“What’s the matter, dearie?” She stared awkwardly past my face.
“I - I ripped my pants.”
“I see that.” She lowered her gaze, still past me. “Are you...okay?” I didn’t know what she meant, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable.
“I’m fine,” I said, pushing past her and out of the bathroom. I ran down the steps and onto the sidewalk, hitching up my pants with one hand. My fingers brushed against my clammy, puffy stomach as I looked for a quiet place to be alone. I walked a little faster, trying to shake that same odd feeling, turning right down the alley behind the coffee shop. Over the weeks and months I’d gotten really good at blocking everything that had happened to me, but now I felt it creeping up again, reminding me that this wasn’t over. Inside my chest the anxiety felt like a stone, heavy and reminding me not to breathe. I stopped and leaned against the building, closing my eyes and trying to shut out the thoughts. Inside my head I could see the red puddle against the floorboards again. I could see blood dripping from my legs. I imagined scrubbing at it like some desperate Lady Macbeth, tearing at my skin and hoping it would disappear, that I could disappear. But it wasn’t real, just my imagination now. The blood had all dried up a very long time ago.
I opened my eyes.
I knew what he’d done.
Copyright© 2025 Eleanor Leonard All Rights Reserved
Ellie is an author, editor, and owner of Red Pencil Transcripts, and works with filmmakers, podcasts, and journalists all over the world. She lives with her family just outside of New York City.
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