Shattering Inside

Shattering

Inside

By

Lisa Ahne

Shattering
Inside by Lisa Ahne

Copyright © 2011 Lisa Ahne

Smashwords Edition

All Rights Reserved

Cover Image and Design Copyright © 2011 Lisa
Ahne

Sparrow Copyright © 2000 Lisa Ahne

Shattering Inside is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the
author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental and not within the intent of
the author. Any real place or organization is used fictitiously. No
part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
means without the express written permission of the author, except
where permitted by law.

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If
you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not
purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com
and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work
of this author.

This story is dedicated to my husband, Shawn,
who has always been an amazing support to me. It is also for my 6th
grade teacher, Anita Hilger, for believing in the potential of a
child and for pouring encouragement into that child’s heart.

Sarah sat all alone on a hill overlooking a
wide grassy plain. Dark clouds hung low and heavy in the sky,
causing the thick heady smell of rain that was in the air. The wind
blew coolly on her flushed face, lifting her thick hair off of her
neck. She took a deep shuddering breath and raised her eyes to the
angry sky.

Here in the midst of creation she would not
lie to herself. After all, wasn’t nature brutally honest? It was
honest in all of its sweet beauty. It was honest in all of its
unutterable glory. It was honest in its savage wrath. What else
could she do? What could she do when nature was combining its
beauty, glory, and wrath all together in this awesome setting but
be at least honest?

She could still feel it. Oh, God! She had
never stopped feeling it. So, sitting there, she allowed herself to
feel it. She actually wallowed in it. She closed her eyes tight and
let the feelings of anguish and shame wash over her like the rain
that would soon be falling. When the rain did start to fall, she
felt it all over her, everywhere at once, and she let her tears
mingle with the moisture that ran down her face. All the while, she
hoped and she prayed it would do something to wash away the dirt
that was inside of her. Couldn’t anything wash away the hurt and
the shame inside? Wouldn’t anything even come close?

It always comes back to this. Doesn’t it
always come back to this? No matter where life takes her or how far
she comes, she can’t let go. She can fool herself for a short while
into thinking that the past is buried and she’s alright, but it’s
always waiting to rise up and strangle her. The memories were never
going to go away. It was if it had just happened hours ago. She
felt the nausea rising up inside of her. Please, not now. Not
now!

“I love you, Rah-Rah.” She could hear his
voice. “I sure do love you.”

What kind of man would do that to a little
girl? What kind of sick, demented man? Her parents had trusted him.
She had called him uncle, even though he was no relation. He was
Daddy’s best friend. They had grown up together. They had been in
the army together. They were always together. He was always around.
Whenever they had family dinners, he was there. He took her to the
zoo. He bought her ice cream and dried her tears when she skinned
her knees.

Uncle Jeffrey had been the model friend. He
was the longsuffering babysitter. Always there in a pinch. They
thought he was doing favors. How could they be so blind? Didn’t
they know what he was doing to her? Didn’t they care?

She could still feel his every touch, his
every kiss. Even as a child she had known it was wrong. It made her
feel wrong. The places he would touch. The things he would say. She
didn’t want to, but he was too big to tell no. Yet, she couldn’t
help loving him. Did that make her bad? He was so nice to her any
other time. He didn’t mean to hurt her. That was just how grownups
showed their love. Her parents didn’t show their love for her like
that because she was their kid, but it was how they showed their
love for each other. Uncle Jeffrey told her so.

Oh, God, please. How could he hurt her like
that? It did hurt. It hurt physically, but that pain went away. It
hurt her in her head and heart. That pain never went away. It
didn’t stop when he had. It would never stop. It would be there her
whole life. Sometimes she thought it was her life. The cards she
was dealt. The lot she held. It was the center of her thoughts at
most moments.

He had haunted her dreams. Images of him over
her. The feel of his breath on her neck. The tearing pain. So many
nights she woke up in a cold sweat, screaming until she was hoarse,
and her parents couldn’t understand why. Jeffrey had told her not
to tell. It was their special secret. He said that Mommy would
think she was a bad girl. Mommy would not understand, and she did
not want to anger Mommy. It didn’t matter what he said. She would
never have told anyway. Everyone would think that she was
dirty.

Then the bladder infections came. She’d had
three of them. She remembered the burning pain every time she had
to pee. The doctor never gave her a thorough examination. He just
gave her lots of water to make her go. Then she would tell him if
it hurt. Then he pressed on her lower stomach saying, “Is this
where it hurts? How about here?” She was grown when she learned
that bladder infections can sometimes be caused by sexual activity.
However, since that is not the only way cause, no one thought
anything of them. She could just as easily have gotten them from
bubble baths. No one figured it out.

It was a long while before her secret was
discovered.

One night when she was ten, her mother came
into the bathroom for some reason or other while she was taking a
bath. Mommy had gone stark white when she noticed the dark purple
bruises between her child’s legs. At first, Mommy had been
confused. Then her pretty face crumbled in a sick realization.

“Mack!” She screamed for Daddy. There was a
panic in Mommy’s voice that Sarah didn’t understand. Her parents
questioned her for what seemed like all night. How did she get
those bruises?

“This can’t be happening. This is not
happening.” Mommy kept saying.

“We don’t know that anything happened,” Daddy
replied. He was calm and trying to comfort Mommy. “I’m sure there’s
an innocent explanation. Sarah, what happened to your legs? You can
tell us anything, honey.”

Sarah didn’t believe him. She was scared. She
told them she slipped on the merry-go-round at school. She said she
fell and one leg went under the equipment. It was the truth. That’s
exactly what had happened. She did not tell Mommy when she got home
because when she had told a teacher on the playground and that
teacher had been impatient and told her to go play. She had ignored
her. Sarah knew that Mommy would have gone to the school angry.
Sarah did not want that to happen. That would have been
embarrassing.

She told her parents the truth, but they were
not satisfied with her answer. She heard Mommy tell Daddy it was
better to be safe than to be sorry. She told him she had to know
for sure. She had to.

The next day Sarah was in the doctor’s
office. The doctor confirmed her parent’s worst fear. Her hymen was
torn. She had been penetrated. Her parent’s reaction to the news of
her violation frightened her. Mommy broke into wailing sobs, and
Daddy held his stomach like it hurt and stumbled from the room. He
was making strange guttural sounds in his throat. She had never
seen Daddy cry before.

They knew! They knew her terrible secret, and
now they knew what a nasty little girl she was.

Then there were nice people all around her
asking who had touched her in a place she did not want to be
touched. Who had hurt her? She didn’t want to say. She didn’t want
to talk at all. She wanted to go somewhere far away where these
curious strangers would leave her alone. They wouldn’t leave her
be. They kept asking that hateful question.

She broke down. Crying she finally told them.
She could remember snot running down to her lips and how she wished
someone would give her a tissue. She could remember hiccupping over
her words and fighting that catch in her breath that comes from
crying very very hard.

Daddy got to Uncle Jeffrey first. He
shattered Jeffrey’s jaw, and the police had to drag him off of the
man. He told Mommy that he had wanted Jeffrey to die. He said that
Jeffrey was bawling like a baby over how sorry he was and that he
couldn’t help himself.

It was all her fault. She knew it. He’d said
he couldn’t help it, so it had to be because of her. Mommy and
Daddy thought so, too. That’s why they keep looking at her like
that. Like she was a stranger instead of their child. Daddy could
barely look at her. Didn’t they love her anymore? After Jeffrey’s
trial, the subject was never spoken of again.

As the years passed, she got used to Dad’s
distance and Mom’s hovering. She was never exactly close to her
parent’s again, but eventually they had at least a surface comfort
whenever they were together. She wondered sometimes at their
reaction to her. Did they ever think, even for a moment, that she
had liked it? She never asked. She didn’t really want to know. She
was afraid of what their answer may be.

It only got worse as she endured her teen
years. She was not very outgoing, so she didn’t have a lot of
friends. She couldn’t relate to others her age, and they all
thought she was a little strange. She wouldn’t date. She turned
down every boy who ever asked her out. Some thought that she was
cold, and they accused her of being a snob. She obviously thought
that she was better than them. They didn’t realize that she had
always assumed that they were better than her.

High school had been a living hell. She was a
little shy and unsure. She didn’t know that her emotions could be
misconstrued as snobbish. Still, others attributed her lack of
interest in boys to something else. One day she overheard some
other girls talking in the restroom. One of them stated that maybe
she liked girls. After all, one of the best-looking guys in school
had asked her out, and she had turned him down. By the end of the
week her theory was all over school. Complete strangers were
calling out gay jokes in the hallway.

She met Drew her senior year at college. She
had been sitting cross-legged under an extremely large Oak tree,
eating a turkey sandwich and reading her World Civilization text
book when he sat next to her. Without her wish or invitation. She
bit back her annoyance at the intrusion. Since starting at
university three years earlier, she had become a pro at letting
down cute guys easy. She really had no desire to date.

“Hey,” he said. His curly brown hair fell in
his eyes and he shoved it back off his forehead. He smiled at her.
His smile was not arrogant or even flirty. Just a casual smile.

“I hope you don’t mind, but would it be
alright if I sat here for a bit? Do you see that girl over there?”
He asked, nodding toward a blonde girl who looked to be walking
toward the library steps. “She’s my ex-girlfriend. She’s been
hinting at getting back together, even though she dumped me.”

He chuckled.

“I thought that if she glanced over here and
saw me sitting with you, it might cool her down some. I don’t
really see the point in picking up where we left off. You
know?”

Sarah stared at him.

“Okay, okay. She’s not my ex. I don’t even
know that girl. I see you sitting her a lot, and you seem kind of
lonely. I thought maybe you could use a friend. That’s all. I
promise.”

He seemed sincere. He did not seem like he
was trying to flirt or use a line as an excuse to sit next to her.
His blue-green eyes had the look of a guy who was shooting
straight. She sighed. What did she care if he sat there? It was a
free country. She went back to eating her sandwich and writing
notes in the margin of her text book.

“You know,” he said after a few moments, “You
can’t sell the book back to the school if you write in the
margins.”

“I don’t intend to.” She said with a small
shrug. “I want to keep this book.”

They spent the next hour talking about
history and another after that talking about majors, the best place
off campus to eat, and a hundred other things that sprang into
their minds. At one point she thought he was going to ask her out.
She was preparing to turn him down, although part of her was sad at
that prospect. But he didn’t ask her out. He just changed the
subject to how his roommate was a theater major and he was sick to
death of hearing him run lines from Hamlet.