The day I lost my soul to the devil

The evening began with excitement as my cousin came to pick me up from my grandfather's cottage. I had been staying with him for a few weeks during my summer holidays from school. I remember wearing jean shorts and a striped t-shirt and being happy that I would get to see my cousin and hang out.

You see, he had lived with us when I was younger because his parents had some difficulties with him and his behavior, they thought my parents would be able to help and set him straight. He must have been around 16-17 and I around 4 or 5. We would listen to "Achu Breaky Heart" and dance around the living room, Micheal Jackson's BAD album was also one of our favorites! Needless to say, we got along really well and I really enjoyed being around him. He was my favorite cousin.

Fast forward back to that day when he picked me up from my grandfather's for dinner at subway downtown. There wasn't much around in our little village, so subway it was. We drove the 30 minutes it took from the island to town, we ate our subway on a picnic table outside the restaurant and it was already getting dark out. Then he asked if I wanted to drive by my mother's childhood home. I excitedly agreed as I loved that house. It was tall, white, and had lots of forested land around it, it was beautiful.

As we drove closer to the house, I noticed he wasn't stopping at the house to look at it, but kept driving in the wooded area where he finally stopped his jeep and turned on the radio, lit up a cigarette and started to chat. I found it weird and a bit unnerving because when it gets dark in that village, it's DARK! So I was a bit spooked by being alone in the dark woods. But, I was in safe hands with him, right? Wrong.

After he had smoked his cigarette, he looked at me, untied my seat belt, stroked my face gently and said something along the lines of '' I know we both want this''. Naive me asked "want what?" when really, at this point, all I wanted was to run back to my grandfather's. My heart was racing, I no longer felt safe with the one person who always did make me feel safe and I was stuck in the woods...alone...with him. What the fuck do I do now?!

I played stupid but I knew where this was going. He told me we both wanted this as if to convince me that his upcoming actions were justified.

He stroked my face, turned it facing him and I, fighting tears and a panic attack turned to look at him and he began to kiss me. In the very instant that his lips touched mine, I died inside. It's like all the lights I had open in my soul turned off all at once and darkness, emptiness, hurt and pain filled me up. He continued to kill him and I was thinking of a way out of this but, where I'm from, everything is far from everything and I couldn't run back home. Fuck, I was scared of the dark, stuck in the woods and I was about to get rapped.

He decided to pull me on top of him, while we're still in the car and I had no other choice but to obey. So I did. I just wanted this nightmare to end ASAP. He held my arms and started to touch me with the other hand. At this point I'm feeling nauseous but I'm fighting every single urge I have to vomit. I'm fighting every urge to fight back in fear of retaliation. So, I sit still like a perfect little doll and let it happen. I let him crawl his hand up my shirt and feel my breast as he's got this huge grin on his face. I didn't know what to do or what to think except "I can never tell anyone about this".

It didn't end there, he pulled me out of the jeep and made me lay down on leaves and grass where I ended up with at least 100 mosquito bites on my legs. He undressed me and began to force himself on and in me. This was the moment I knew my life and outlook on a lot of this would be changed forever. I was getting rapped by my cousin, in the middle of nowhere, I couldn't fight back and I just...let it happen.

Once he was done, he smiled at me and told me it felt amazing and that it was getting late, maybe he should take me back home. I rapidly agreed, got dressed as fast as I could, jumped in the passenger seat and hoped he would speed on the way back to my grandfather's house. That 10 minutes ride was the most awkward experience I've ever lived. The only thing I could think of was " I hope my mom doesn't find out, she will think I'm gross and disgusting and disown me."

We walked into my grandpa's house, he says goodnight to everyone with a big smile on his face while I'm busy scratching my bug bites, he kisses my cheek and tells me that he hopes to see me again soon, to which I nervously responded, "ya, me too!".

I went to the washroom, cleaned myself up and just sat there, thinking about what had just happened. I couldn't believe it, had I just been raped? by my cousin? In a place that meant a lot to me? I was dumbfounded. I didn't know what to do or how to behave so I took a shower and went straight to bed. My mother and I shared a bed while we were vacationing there and it was one of the most painful nights I've ever experienced and I couldn't let her hear me cry about it, so I held everything in until we go back home to Ontario and when I was alone in my room at night, I would replay the movie in my mind and it would destroy me, little by little.

Years later, after trying to bury this night in the deepest, darkest corners of my mind, my therapist asked me to talk about a few traumatic moments in my childhood and this was the first thing that came out of my mouth. It was like I wasn't even controlling my words, they were just spilling out. We talked about it for some time and after that session, I decided to tell my mom about the night I lost my soul to the Devil.

That night will always haunt me. That moment will always remind me that those closest to you are the ones who will hurt you the most. He sparked a rage in me that I have yet been able to destroy. He wrecked me. He took my happiness away, my trust in the world, my joy of family, my ability to have normal relationships with people, the feeling of safety with those who are meant to keep you safe. He took it all away. He killed me that summer night in Madawaska.