29/4/14

Being sixteen sucked a lot more than I thought it would. I wouldn't recommend it. Or choose to live it again. Even if it was to live it a different way. Being a teenager feels a lot like a form of madness anyway, but add manipulation  into the mix and you get a lifelong nightmare.
My mother is an unintentional, subtle bragger. The kind that openly talks about her children and family to complete strangers. She did the very same thing to her driving instructor; I don't know what she told him, but  she told him enough for me to get invited to go and help out at the drama club he was a part of. I was sixteen. And on a mission to prove to everyone that I wasn't that 4 year old with  the anxiety issues anymore. So I went. Having been convinced by my mother it was a good idea. I willingly got in the car with him, had a conversation and went to the drama club. He was a nice guy, friendly. The kinda person that had a lot of friends, knew a lot of  people in the community and everyone liked him. He specialised in teaching people to drive who were nervous. On paper, this guy was good.
Over time, I learnt he wasn't all that friendly or a good person in the slightest. I was never an average sixteen year old, I was still so young and so naive. And my understanding of what was right and what was wrong  was very little. I never knew that him holding my hand or hugging me or touching my leg  was inappropriate. I completely disregarded it all. I brushed it off as him being  friendly. Gradually, over time, the attention he gave me became unwanted. He would text me several times during the week. It would usually be just general talk, but it was frequent. As if he was purposely making sure he was  present in my life.
He told me I had a problem with saying yes. And he mocked me for it. I immediately hated anyone that made fun of me. I removed them from my life  because they weren't worth the drama. But removing him from my life was more of a challenge than everyone else. I could ignore everyone else and they'd drift out of my life. I couldn't ignore him. He was arrogant, he belittled me, he manipulated the way I thought. I felt obliged to always say yes to him. And saying no just wasn't an option.
Until eventually, he went too far. Little to my knowledge he planned what he was gonna do that night. And maybe all along, everything was planned and I was just blind to it. He picked me up night after night, every week, like clockwork. But he drove a different way  that night. It was a small village, there were backroads and dead ends everywhere. He parked up a dead end, in the pitch black, where even if I ran I wouldn't know where to go. The only sounds were the engine and probably my heartbeat doing overtime with panic. This was the worst possible situation and I've never felt more uncomfortable in my entire life. I couldn't run, I was frozen to the spot. I could barely even breathe thanks to my heartbeat. I played with my phone, head down, making no eye contact for as long as I could. He didn't like that. He didn't like the focus being on something other than him. I guess it frustrated him and he decided to take control. He told me to get in the back of the car and it was the only time I ever said no to him. It was a mumbled, quiet 'no'. But it was said more than once. He stole my first kiss from me, I didn't want him to steal anything else.
The fact that he, a man in his 40's, had (and was) prepared to have sex with a clearly vulnerable sixteen year old girl in the back seat of his car in the middle of no where   makes me want to throw up. I gave no consent and no indication that I ever wanted anything from him. And yet, for months and months after I would search my mind for something that I  must of done wrong. Because as far as I was concerned it was all my fault.
After that, I still went with him to the drama club every week. He still drove me there. And it's like nothing ever happened. He thought I had a problem with saying yes, but I had a problem with saying no. He was mad at me, I could feel it. He didn't get his own way and maybe he wasn't used to that. In a short space of time, we had two arguments. One by text: He decided he was going to drive in on his motorbike and wanted to pick me up on it. Saying no to him was still a huge challenge. I was barely capable of it. He was so good at controlling and manipulating me. It's like he had a higher power over me. Even after I said no to him before. But it was slightly easier over text. And although I said no to him, the texts between us threw me  into complete emotional distress. He ruined me. Without even being there.
I didn't see him for a week or two. And then he had a motorbike accident. I wasn't sorry. I wasn't sad. I wished death on him. I genuinely, wholeheartedly wished he was dead. He broke his knee and couldn't drive for a few weeks. After that, the second argument came. He picked me up as usual and for the life of me,  I cannot remember what we argued about. Something completely irrelevant. It was one of those arguments where everything was building up and it was inevitable it was gonna explode at some point. And it did. He turned the car around sharply and recklessly drove me home. I went home crying and attempted to feed my parents some lies about what had happened.
After that, I never saw him again. And began the hard process of trying to forget what had happened. But failing that, I lived with it. I always considered it to be minor. Because worse things happened to people. We moved out of the area, but no matter where I go, it's always there. xo