SHORT STORIES ON MEDIUM
Her (Part Two)
~A fearful chase ~
This is a true story and one I’m penning down not to garner pity but to raise awareness. Nothing extreme happens but I am not the first nor will I ever be the last. Mothers protect your girls as mine did me. Fathers fight for them as mine did me. Enjoy.
Her skin feels prickly and grubby. She reaches for the bath sponge and begins to scrub. But her unblemished arms hold no smear, for the grime she scours is the filth of memories past. And as she squeezes her cocoa eyes shut, she no longer sinks into the cloak of memory. She is forcibly pulled under. The ocean of evocation fastens a boulder to her ankles and she battles the inexorable drop. It’s ineffectual, she knows, and the deeper she goes- the harder she scrubs- the louder that voice becomes. Remember, Stephanie.
And so she does.
She remembers the way Aliza held her up when her story was done. The way Stephianne made light of it when all she wanted was to enshroud herself in its crippling weight. She recalls Jemima’s ire on her behalf. She remembers the concern swimming in Tricia’s eyes. She thanks them for being her sanctuary.
In days following Teacher’s ‘intrepid’ proclamation, she was introduced to the imp, Fear. She shook hands with his parents. She hugged his sisters. Drank with his uncles. Dined with his aunties. Played hide-and-seek with his cousins. Held his nieces and nephews in the arch of her hip. For Teacher became her very own not-so-stealthy stalker.
She cowered at walking alone through the noiseless halls of her alma mater. She had forebodings about hearing his voice or seeing his face. Especially when he made entreaties like, “Can I speak with her alone?”, “Can you come to the music room alone?”. Ah, how she doted on music. But the progression of his brazen demands began to stimulate a zephyr-like odium toward it.
It was a fearful chase. He was where she was. He became her shadow. His gleaming eyes bore into her back, the sweep of his gaze akin to the sensation of fire-ants cocooning her physique. And so her shields doubled down. Her friends would circumscribe her, shield her from his depraved gaze with the mass of their bodies, and steal her away from the jeopardy that was Teacher.
Her parents were irate. But they loaned their fortitude to her lest the reminiscence on a day spent hiding at school haul her below the waters of melancholy and self-loathing.
When she walked the halls, there he was. When she sat to luncheon, there he was. When she stood in the summer camaraderie of innocent gossip, there he was. And when she graced the stage, a dance in her silver heels, a swirl in the rich pool of her evening gown…There. He. Was. Front and center. Staring right at her.
It was a ballroom dance she danced to the tune of ‘He’s a Pirate’. She felt her partner, Gideon’s breath as he leaned in and said, “Teacher watches. Don’t look.” She tensed, searching without ever looking behind her and she felt it again. The telltale signs of those wretched fire-ants. This Shakespearean play would have to cease soon so she could pry her body out of the lustful acidity of his scorching stare.
She remembers Daphney’s arm encircling her waist, a comfort lent, a strength afforded. A protection rendered. Teacher had dared lay his hands on her. He’d paraded behind her like the black of a ghoul and raised his hand to her arm, tracing a path to her back as he glided on the wings of his perversion.
She bathes in the enraged glaze of his eyes at the sight of Daphney’s arm, the one thing hampering his attempt at a devious repetition of his tarnishing action. But try as she might, she could not curb the fury churning low in her belly, igniting the fire of her hatred. And she could not hold in the tears that had been petitioning to fall ever since The Words.
She remembers, with ponderous gratitude, Sir Dylan’s incitement to let higher parties take control. She savors the memory of the pound of her heels on the icy tiles and the sweet succor of honesty as the Tale of Teacher’s Words pours from her supple lips. She laughs as she remembers the shame on his face as he walked out the gates, belongings in hand, and likely a million excuses for his belle at home.
And as she scrubs, relishing the agonizing rouge of her skin, she mourns her exploited passion. She sorrows over the girl that she was before his words and his touch had sparked a chain reaction of equivalently unsettling caresses. She pines after the feel of the stage beneath her feet. The pulse of her rich voice being projected. The crash of violent applause, the screech of chairs rearing back as her audience stands in ovation. But she can never grace the stage again. It’s been tainted. And much as she tries to scrub it clean like she does her skin, his stain reeks of permanence. It reeks of trauma.
And as she sobs from the torture of her scrubbing, she sends silent thanks to Kaizer, to Daniel, to Sammy, to Ella, to Faith, to Favour. To every soul that, wittingly or unwittingly, afforded her courage when she could nurture none.
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