I skip into the hotel room before he does, excited about what comes next. Maybe we’ll be able to play some board games. I had heard of girls going up to a hotel with their boyfriends, and when they come back from their night with their boyfriends, they become new girls. I’m only a sophomore in high school, and don’t know what girls do in hotels with their boyfriends, but from the seniors girls I’d heard you have lots of fun. He comes in as I squirm around on the nice cushioned bed. He smirks at me and stands in the doorway.

“I’m so glad that you have such enthusiasm for this,” he says.

“Yea, Pantera, I’m up for whatever you throw at me,” I reply with confidence.

He closes the door behind him, begins to unbuckle his belt, and lays his belt on the bed. He comes closer to me and begins to kiss all over me. I say “no” and “stop.” I don’t want to go there. He won’t listen. Just as he’s about to pull down his pants, I wake up from my dream all sweaty.

“He would never do it again, Sarah. It was only a nightmare,” I think.

I feel really parched. I have probably sweated out all my liquids. I was thinking about asking my older brother, Gen for some water, but I just remembered that he’s still at that house party. I could have gone too, but I didn’t want to. I’m just not a party girl anymore.
My former best friend Ophelia says, “I’m so glad I don’t have to pick you up from the back of the bar, puking out your guts. I’m glad you’re not hanging around us anymore. You can’t handle your liquor. You’re just no fun.”
“I just realized that the real world isn’t all fun and games. There are people who are starving, abused, ill, dying, and much more. I don’t have time for your games. I need to be going out into this unknown world. I want to make this world better, so I’m going to take struggle and oppression by the horns and ride its back to freedom,” I reply.
I wasn’t right in my mind after Pantera raped me. He wasn’t the man I thought he was. I had to go to a rehab clinic for a while because I couldn’t trust any man. I didn’t know which man was a rapist and which were just normal men. There’s no way of telling them apart. There’s not a huge flashing sign that says, “BEWARE I AM A RAPIST!” in big bold letters or they don’t dress down. They dress as any decent man would dress.
I’m a goody goody two shoes girl now. Trying to get myself on the right road. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a girly girl. I took up boxing and wrestling in freshmen year with my ex-boyfriend, Pantera.
I lazily get out of bed, basically fall down the stairs, and get myself a glass of milk. All of a sudden, I hear a knock at the door and decide to go answer. God is the only one who knows I don’t want to open the door, but a girl has to do what he has to do.
I’m standing at the door, make the decision to open the door, and speak of the devil. Pantera is outside my door, drenched from head to toe. His blue eyes are looking in my eyes as if looking for sympathy. He smells of Axe; it was my favorite perfume that he use to wear when we dated. He has roses in his hands, but the red delicate flowers are drooping. I’m so embarrassed. He’s dressed all up while I’m in my brother’s college football jersey and my underwear.
  
“Hey, Sarah. Can I come in?” he asks.
  
“No. Gen told you not to bring your butt back around me.”

“I just to talk to you for a sec.”

“You can talk outside.”

“No. You can stand right there.”

“You know I’m going off to college out of town real soon. So shouldn’t you give me a have fun in college present?” he says.

“Well, you’ll have to get your gift from someone else because I’m not doing anything.”

“What wrong with you?”

“You.”

“I understand if you don’t want to trust me anymore, but please at least give me a chance to love you again.”

“Maybe I don’t need your love. I have God, who loved me before you ever did. God doesn’t hurt me and doesn’t love me less when I do wrong.”

“Sorry, please just give me another chance. I’ll change for you. I promise. I will never hurt you again. Earlier this morning I was watching my father and my Uncle Eric talking so pervertedly about my sister, Genesis, that I thought I would never be so monstrous, but I already knew I was more than monstrous towards you.”

He comes closer to me and tries to hug me, but I push him away from me.

“May I?”

“No. You’ve hurt me and there’s no way I can allow you back into my life.”

“I know, but a guy can try to be forgiven.”

“Oh I forgive you, but I’m not going to deal with you.”

“But Sar....”

I slam the door in his face and walk back upstairs by myself, lonely. I crawl back into my wide open spaced bed. I wish he have never harmed me and I would never have gotten hurt. We would still be together, happy, not suffering from not having each other’s company. I fall asleep with that and soon wake up several hours later. I hear my alarm clock going off, and just as I was about to turn it off, someone else turns it off. I look around to see Gen right above me.

“Hey, little sis’. I heard from Kanye that Pantera stopped by. I told him not to come back around you or I would kick his ass. He should never touch you ever again, not after what he did to you,” Gen says angrily. I can see how much it hurts my brother to bring up, Pantera. I still remember how upset my brother was when he barged in the room to the hotel to see sheets stained with blood, my clothes scattered everywhere, and him naked on top of me while I whimper and beg for him to get off. “If dad was alive, he would have shot him and buried him six feet under.”

“Don’t worry, brother, I’m alright. I’m a big girl now. I can handle myself.”

I feel as though Pantera is wrong for what he has done for me, but in a way he helped me become somebody new. Somebody I thought I would never be. I think it was all a part of God’s plan to create me more in his image, and I thank him for the new me. I want Pantera in my life, but I don’t want the man who raped me. I want the man I use to know. I’m not going back to the old me.