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I try to shift my weight to my left leg, but that knee buckles.
There’s just enough time for me to let go of my jacket and stretch my hands out in front of me, bracing for the fall.
My left knee hits first, then both of my palms, then my other knee.
Pain ricochets up through my limbs.
The sharp sting is immediate, and I hold still, afraid to move just yet. Everything hurts––my body, my pride––but I don’t think I broke any skin.
I wait until the pain morphs into a throb before I shift my weight to look.
A piece of gravel grates against my palm, like the preverbal salt in the wound. “Shit!” I try to shout the word, in a sad attempt to dispel the emotion clawing against the back of my eyes. But it comes out as a croak.
“Shit,” I repeat, this time with a voice barely louder than a whisper.
Carefully, I get myself back up to standing. Glad that no one else seems to be around to witness my clumsiness. And extra glad that, unlike my jacket, I’d managed to zip my purse shut. The bag is dirty from the fall, but all the contents remain inside.
I blink down at the state of myself. My pant leg isn’t torn, which is a miracle in itself; and my wet palms are tinged gray from the sidewalk dirt, but not freely bleeding.
It’s nothing.
This is nothing.
You’re tougher than this.
You’ll get through this too.
It’s just a bad day.
I sniff. My throat constricting as that familiar hopelessness digs deeper into my chest.
This is nothing,I tell myself.
“You’re nothing!”An old but vivid voice shouts back.
My eyes squeeze closed. I hate that his voice still echoes in my head. Hate that he has any effect on me at all.
I’m not nothing.
My chest shakes as I pull in a lungful of air.
I’m not nothing.
I force my eyes open.
Today may have put me on the edge of a mental breakdown, but I’m not letting Arthur get one more tear out of me. He ruined my home. Ruined whatever relationship I may have had with my mom. He tried to…
I breathe through the horror of that last memory and remind myself that I got away.
But hasn’t he been controlling your life ever since?
Anger rolls through me.
I want to snap at my inner voice that they’re wrong. That all of my choices are my own. But deep down, I know that’s a lie. One simple word is all it takes to remind me how deep my trauma goes.
Virginity.
It’s a constant reminder of what I’ve been too afraid to let go of.
