Dear Junior,

When I was a child of fifteen years old, you were a worldly man of twenty. To me, you were intrigue and danger–all the things my parents would hate. At the time, I was motivated only by my need to be loved, living in a family where love played second to the almighty dollar, and perhaps getting back at my parents. I guess that’s a typical teen rebellion, but I took it a step further than most.

I thought you loved me. When you touched my fifteen-year-old virgin body, I felt alive in a way I had never experienced in my sheltered existence, and like a drug, I was hooked, addicted, unable to refuse.

So when things became unbearable at home, you offered me a place to run, and I took you up on that offer. Little did I know once I was ‘yours’ that you would treat me like you owned me. There was no love in your touch any longer. Looking back, I wonder if there ever was. I think maybe I only felt what I wanted to feel, thinking the grass would be greener anywhere other than my loveless parents’ home.

The first time you hit me, I was shocked. The second time, and third, and each time after, not so much. I became numb to the physical blows, excusing your behavior in my mind each time, thinking I could somehow avoid the anger and angry blows in the future. Somehow, I did think it was my fault–not at first, but over time. You beat the fight out of me. You nearly beat the life out of me.

I was so young. You should have known better. You should have… you…

Sigh.

Then, you took care of yourself, but left me alone, days at a time, while you ate at work, played with your friends, and visited your family. I was left alone, locked in a two-room house, where I wasted each day sleeping, because it was the only way to hide from the pain. I didn’t eat, sometimes for days at a time.

Do you remember when your uncle accused me of stealing food from the freezer when he found that foil-wrapped meat under the chair? I did that. I stole it, because I was hungry. I hid it from you, because I knew if I told you, you would beat me. I also knew if I asked for food, you would beat me again, because it would make you look bad, like you couldn’t take care of me.

I remember when I wore my only pair of shoes, that had a hole in the toe of one of them, to your father’s house, and that night, even though I had asked for new shoes, you hit me, repeatedly, with the shoes because I had made you look bad in front of your father, like you couldn’t support me. I had asked you for new shoes, but you seemed to forget that you hit me when I asked, and told me that if I wanted new shoes, I should get a job and work for them.

I was only fifteen. I couldn’t get a job, and you knew that. I was just a kid!

Then, one day, after nearly a year of trying to be all you wanted me to be and failing, you had the audacity to ask me to leave. I’ll never forget the feeling of my heart hitting rock bottom while I stood in the dirt and watched you throw my clothes and shoes at me. When I asked how I was supposed to carry all of my stuff, you threw me a green laundry basket. Why I remember so clearly that it was green, I do not know.

It’s really funny the things a mind remembers. Maybe that’s why I’ve never liked the color green.

When I asked you where I was supposed to go, with tears streaming down my face, begging you to let me stay, screaming, “I gave up my entire life for you!” your response was, “I don’t give a shit what you do.”

You slammed the door in my face.

Over the years, you drifted in and out of my life, disappearing when things got too real. I let you back in once, about a year after this, but it wasn’t long before your lies and anger caught up with you, and this time, I was the one who left you.

A few years later, you came back around, promising me the moon and the stars. I lied to you then. I don’t lie, but I lied to you, because only with the lie was I strong enough to tell you no. I told you I was involved with someone, married, in love, and happy.

I wasn’t.

In fact, it would be a long before I was happy again, before I made my way back home, to me, the core of who I really am.

It took me many years to learn to give my heart fully, to trust again. Sex became nothing more than a tool for me, a means to manipulate men into getting what I wanted, only to be left feeling as though I had given away everything that meant anything to me.

You destroyed that part of me for a long, long time.

Just when life was going in the right direction, just when I began to have a foothold again, 14 years after you threw me away, you show up on my doorstep. I hadn’t heard from you in years, but suddenly, there you were. My heart raced; my pulse pounded in my ears. I could smell the beer on your breath and it made my stomach churn. I looked up into those watery red eyes and wondered what the hell I’d ever seen in you.

I knew then, in that moment, that your anger, your abuse, your degradation… none of it affected me any longer.

I was finally free.

So somewhere inside of me, I have forgiven you for hurting me. I have forgiven you for taking my virginity. I have forgiven you for the lies. I have forgiven you for beating me. I have forgiving you for tossing me away like I was nothing more than a piece of trash.

But I will never, ever forgive you in this lifetime for taking away my innocence.

I’ve let go of my need for revenge, but I have not let go of my demand for justice. When I see you now, I feel somehow justified. The universe has dealt you a horrible blow. If it’s true that we reap what we sow, that we get back multiplied that which we put out into the universe, you are experiencing what you deserve based on the things you’ve done, to me and to others.

May God forgive you for what I cannot divine in myself.

Singed,
No longer your Mikela

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Mikela Thompson is an avid reader and a wannabe writer, who has yet to have anything but this letter published. Quiet and shy, she hopes to venture into some online writing communities soon, and learn how to share all the emotion and passion she has inside her. This letter is her first step to claiming that part of herself.