* Trigger warning – This story contains content about the rape of a minor, and suicide *
She stepped out into the bitter night air. The wind whipped her hair across her face, stinging her cheeks; much like the slap she’d received earlier had done. The rain beat down onto her bruised body and she shuddered at the thought of what she had to do. She drew her baby closer to her breast.
She thought it might have been different, if she had given it time. That perhaps her family could have accepted it. But she realised sadly, that she should have known better, that no matter what, reputation and pride was more important to her father. It was inevitable that anything less would perforate her from him. She cringed as she recalled her mother’s weak, trembling figure standing dutifully by her father’s side. She remembered her vague hope that she might come to her rescue. Foolish! It all seemed so irrelevant now. They even said it was her fault; that she asked for it, but she couldn’t understand how a fifteen year old girl could possibly do that.
The rain grew heavier now and lightning streaked across the midnight sky, highlighting for a brief instant her ghost-like figure moving through the night. Her baby’s wail was one with the wind and she was tired. So tired.
How did it all start? She could barely remember and didn’t really want to. She had been sent away to boarding school, for a “life-changing Year 9 experience”. Boy were they right! she thought bitterly. From the first day she’d arrived, he had begun visiting her at night. She didn’t like what he did to her, and knew it must be wrong, because he threatened if she ever told anyone, he would kill her. She hated him so much and luckily, when his body was found, they had thought it was a suicide. But still, he had lived on – a new life created inside her.
The infant had no name. She resented it almost as much as she resented its father, but she acknowledged it wasn’t the baby’s fault. People in the town had looked upon her with such pity and disdain, that when she arrived at her parent’s doorstep, she should have expected their disgust too. At first, her mother just cried, while her father shouted names like “whore” and issued her the first of many blows. She smirked as she recalled that before that day, he’d always called her ‘daddy’s little girl’. He demanded that either, she leave or get rid of the child, proclaiming her “a disgrace to the family”. The decision wasn’t hard to make.
In a muted voice, her mother suggested the kindest way, and so the young girl kissed her baby goodbye. The wind howled through the trees and the water lashed against the banks of the river. She looked upwards into the rain and cried to God for forgiveness.
Then threw herself in.
By Sarah ©2017
Prompt: Daily Post Daily Prompt, irrelevant, sting; and also, Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, Saturday Mix, 9 September 2017 – Same Same But Different. Synonyms used: produce – create, puncture – perforate, smile – smirk, young – infant, difficult – hard
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By Sarah 