11. Delilah
DELILAH
“No! You’re not listening!” I cried out.
My face was damp from all the tears I’d spilled, and my throat felt raw from screaming.
I hadn’t stopped fighting since my parents shuffled me into their car, driving me back to our house located in the center of town.
The police hadn’t even taken two whole minutes to talk to me, and when I asked for a rape kit, they packed up faster than a bullet leaving its chamber, telling me it wasn’t needed.
It sickened me, that this monster was allowed to get away with a literal crime, and an innocent man was taken in his place.
All because one had a better reputation than the other. It was vile and wrong.
We were seated at the kitchen table, my parents and me. They both were clearly pissed to be taken out of work for this and weren’t shy about their feelings. Especially when my dad murmured how much missing work was going to cost and how we couldn’t afford it.
“Hush. You’re going to work yourself up into being sick,” my mother said, reaching for my face.
I reared back from her, still not wanting to be touched. Her face fell, then hardened. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Delilah. You’re hysterical and hurting. Just take some time to rest.”
Snot fell down over my lips, dripping off my chin. “It wasn’t Cain!” I said again more firmly, trying to sound as calm and clear as I could manage. Trying to get them to actually hear me. “It was Pastor John.”
A sharp slap landed across my cheek so hard that my entire head whipped to the side, aggravating my already overstimulated senses.
My cheek burned, and shock vibrated throughout my entire body.
When I righted my head, my vision swam, but my mom’s angry face was clear.
Her dark brows were pulled into a deep frown wrinkling her forehead.
Her lips pursed with such venom it frightened me.
“You watch your mouth, young lady. You can’t just go around accusing people you don’t like of such things. You want to ruin his reputation because you’re failing his class? Oh, he told me all about your struggles and insubordination. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
My mouth opened and closed.
There was a small part of me that thought if I told the truth to my parents that they would believe me.
I should have known better, but parents are supposed to protect and take care of their children.
But my parents? They were loyal to Kingston and Kingston’s ways.
To accuse a man of faith? A man who worked with the church and helped us sinners?
You might as well have accused Jesus himself.
“Give it a rest, Cynthia. The girl is clearly confused and just needs some time to come to terms with reality,” my father said, smacking his hand on the table. I flinched.
The problem, I realized, wasn’t that they weren’t hearing me.
The problem was that they refused to see the world in any other way than the way they decided it was.
In their world, the church and the leaders there, could do no wrong.
They were blessed by God himself to lead us.
And it was our job to follow. I was breaking the rules.
I was challenging that worldview with the truth of what happened to me.
No matter how true it was, they couldn’t accept it.
“Why don’t you go lie down while I talk to your father,” my mother said, as if she hadn’t just slapped me.
I couldn’t get away from the table fast enough, pushing away with such force that the chair toppled behind me. I didn’t stop to pick it up and ran up the stairs into my room, locking the door behind me.
My legs folded beneath me then, and I slid down to the ground feeling engulfed by the scratchy gray carpet of my childhood bedroom.
The same room I’d been kidnapped from when they came to take me to Kingston.
Everyone was dragged there against their will in the middle of the night by a host of masked men.
The respite I sought was out of reach as my body began to shake again. This was the first time I’d been alone since it happened and it came back to me in flashes as I lay there, eyes closed. I could still feel his sweaty hands gripping me. Could still smell the stale coffee on his foul breath.
My heart broke as I fought back a sob, wishing I could erase the whole ordeal from my mind. And Cain. Fuck. They’d taken him into custody, and no one would listen to me. He was paying for another man’s sins, and it made me sick.
The only solace I had was knowing I at least had the time to break apart in private.
Had my parents chosen to leave me at Kingston, I would have been stuck with my bully roommates.
Those three girls reveled in making my life hell, and I could only imagine how insensitive they would be now.
Lauren, Bethany, and Abigail loved to torment me.
I didn’t fit in with them. They were stick-figure thin, and I had curves.
A fact that they liked to use against me, calling me fat and making pig noises behind my back.
I tried not to let it bother me, but there was only so much a person could endure before it started to ebb away at their self-worth.
And mine had been hanging on by a thread.
Now, I felt broken, used, and dejected. The longer I laid on the ground, the angrier I became.
My parents’ voices were coming through the door, raised high enough that I could hear the words, ‘God’s plan,’ said a few times.
Those words made me nauseous. How was this God’s plan?
He planned for me to be raped? For Cain to be arrested? What kind of a God plans that?
Fully disgusted and vibrating with rage, I pushed off the ground and wobbled into my en-suite bathroom.
What greeted me in the mirror shocked me.
My blonde hair was askew and chunks of it were matted down around my face.
My blue-ish, gray eyes were rimmed red and swollen and my nose was bright pink.
But the part that shocked me the most was the smattering of bruises that lay around my throat in small, fingerprint-like circles. He’d marked me. He’d fucking marked me.
Before I knew what I was doing, my fist met the mirror and the glass shattered, cracking my reflection in half. It felt like an omen. Blood coated my knuckles, but I didn’t care. Couldn’t care about anything but feeding this feeling of rage that had bubbled up inside me.
I stepped into the shower, fully clothed and turned the water on.
Icy cold droplets pelted my body, soaking me instantly.
I welcomed the sensation if only to feel something other than desperately broken.
My clothes clung to my frame, weighing me down and I couldn’t take the pressure of them on me anymore.
The wet fabric was difficult to rip off at first but, eventually my nails dug hard enough that it gave way.
I tossed them into a wet pile on the floor and began to scrub my body.
I needed the feel of him off me, but no matter how hard I ran my soap over my skin, I could still feel him there as if he’d stitched himself to me.
In frustration, I crumpled to the bottom of the shower sobbing.
My parents didn’t believe me. The police. The school.
No one fucking believed me, and that monster would walk free. Free to inflict himself on me again, I realized. Or someone else. How would he react once he knew I told on him?
I sat there, staring off into the void long enough that the water heated, then cooled, then sputtered.
It wasn’t until I heard a knock on the door that I managed to numbly turn off the water and emerge.
My reflection showed that my lips had turned a concerning shade of blue and my skin was peppered with goosebumps and dark bruises.
The towels were folded in a neat pile next to the shower, and I grabbed the top one aggressively, making the others fall to the ground.
I didn’t pick them up. Instead, I stepped over them while I wrapped myself up in the white terrycloth and ambled to my bedroom door.
My mother’s eager face awaited me when I pried it open. We looked so similar, her and I, only her face had wrinkles, and her hair was speckled with a few gray wisps around her temples. She held a teacup in her hands with the bag still steeping inside.
Her eyes that were the same shade as mine, took in my wet hair and skirted back up to my face when they found the bruises.
“Delilah, how about some tea? We could talk?”
My lips formed into a hard line. I could tell she regretted hitting me, though she would never apologize. But I wasn’t interested in talking to someone who didn’t believe a word I said.
“No thanks,” I said, going to close the door.
Her foot wedged between it as I went to close it, halting my progress.
“Delilah, I really think we need to talk. There are things that might transpire because of what happened and I need you to be prepared for it.” Her tone was firm and I knew from experience that there was no denying her.
As much as I wanted to slam the door in her face, I had no strength left to argue.
All I wanted was to fall asleep and erase the last few hours from my brain.
“Fine,” I said, stalking off to my bed.
She swept into the space, towering above me as I sat on my plush comforter. Rivulets of water sluiced down my legs as I waited for her to speak.
“Well,” she cleared her throat and held onto the teacup tight enough that her knuckles blanched. “After that display downstairs, I would normally ground you, however, you’ve been through an—” she searched for the right word to use,
“—ordeal and your father and I think it’s best we pray for you and give you some space to heal from that boy.”
I flinched from her words, wanting to correct her, but she continued.