The Waters of Steel Creek

*Trigger Warning: SA*

The smooth neck of the bottle felt cold and harsh in her hand. As she crawled her knees forwards, rough sawdust scratched and left irregular imprints deep in her skin. The opaque green blurred the floor as she took a deep breath and began to spin. She felt sick. Muffled voices grew, her heartbeat drummed before crashing around her ears. Overjoyed shouts washing over her into a crisp, shrill cheer. She looked up, vision hazy and translucent as the eyes locked with the boy across the circle.

Jackson Daines, an older boy who's caramel skin and full dark hair made her feel all bubbly inside. He smirked as the bottle landed on him, looking up at her with intelligent eyes matching the frosted glass that would decide their fate. He was just the coolest. Her mother's nosey tone echoed in her head, 'from quite the family that Daines boy.'

He was The One.

Her body had lead her half way across the circle, before her thoughts had time to gather. She needed to remember to breathe. Honeyed whisky lips met; sticky-sweet and pillow-like as she sunk into him. She felt his warm hand on the small of her back, and the other gently cupping her face. He tasted like sweet wine and magic. She felt like she was floating, his touch euphoric and secure. Total silence; suspended in slo-motion. Their lips released, naturally parting. She opened her eyes to see him staring into hers. With his friends jeering and hers giggling, the room erupted into applause. His smirk returned and she bashfully retreated back to her space in the circle to 'give someone else a CHANCE,' sneaking glances at him for the rest of the night.

Later he grabbed her hand and lead her to a darker, quieter part of the barn, 'just you and me, just us, no distractions'. The energy was dipping and people were too drunk to decide if they should call their moms or camp out for the night. He had ignored her for hours, but as they were talking, she thought about how lucky she was now, and how jealous all her friends would be when she told them he had asked to take her to the movies the next day after school. Out of all the girls there, he had chosen her.

She couldn't put her finger on when he changed, or how long his nails had been digging into her skin, but when he began reaching up her dress and shocked, she forced out a 'wait…no!' he gripped his hand over her mouth and she watched the kindness drain from his eyes. His rough hands clawing at her body, prizing her legs open as he moved on top of her all blurred into nothingness, and her body was no longer her own. She lay there in numbness for what felt like days. When she finally dragged herself to her feet she saw him disappear back into his circle of friends - a vicious laugh erupting into the room. The girls' judgement searing right through her, then turning away.

They had all been right there.

***

Maybe that's what being loved felt like? Musicians write songs about heartbreak and rejection, and painful moments. Perhaps now she had joined them? Risen through the ranks to a higher purpose. She had something her friends only dreamed of, so why did she feel so…stupid? Somewhere underneath the self-reassurance, the practical self talk and elevation, a smaller, more insidious voice was lurking. It knew that something was really very wrong. Someone had taken something she never meant to give away and now she was accidentally, completely lost. If she knew nothing else, she knew she couldn't go back inside. Tears spilling through stinging lashes she pulled her torn sweater dress back around her shoulders, wiped away the blood now drying at the top of her thighs, and made her way to the road; stumbling through the wheat fields, her bare legs thrashed by the long grass. If she just got home, all of this would be over and the soft folds of blankets would protect her bruised skin. She would be safe - unless someone there knew. She thought of her mother's sad eyes and almost turned back. She would forever be a box marked 'fragile.'

***

As she grew into her body and lent her ear to whispers that travelled the corridors in Ozark High School, she began to understand that that's just what happens in old barns to good girls who don't play by the rules. And that 'no' is a complicated word to process, 'like, what does it even mean…?'

At night she would take back her freedom by bathing in the shallow waters of Steel Creek, scrubbing herself clean until her skin bled; never quite daring to swim into the depths, for fear of being swept away and carried on the current, only to be found naked and alone by some solitary backpacker, treading the Buffalo River Trail.

On weekends she stayed in her room; carefully toeing the line between claustrophobia and comfortability. Posters of famous boys she'd liked long torn down in a night of rage two weeks after she'd left the barn, that now resided dusty and crumpled in the back of her wardrobe. She often overheard her parents asking one another 'why doesn't she have her friends 'round here no more?' and, on the night 'that nice boy and his family came into the diner,' wondered why she walked out on her job without saying a word to them, and made no efforts to get a new one.

They'd be wondering that for a very long time.