(This is a true story, however it is important to mention that this is something that happened years ago.)
I could show you a photo of the log-shaped bruise on my upper right thigh. You’d be able to see how I stood in my underwear, in front of the cracked full-length mirror angled on the floor, and held up my cell phone, trying to capture my reflection. You’d see the serious look on my face.
It’s pathetic.
I was documenting my complicity with silence.
Click. Click.
I could show you his finger prints on my upper arm, three dark ovals that I didn’t notice myself, until the next day when I got out of the shower and looked in the bathroom mirror at my defeated body with my defiant eyes.
I gathered that evidence, too.
Click.
And never showed anyone.
Instead I’ll show you the undershirt, the one with the tiny tear just below the shoulder, where he* grabbed me and yanked me down.
Notice also, it is the back of the undershirt.
I was running away.
I didn’t keep the shirt I had been wearing on top, the thick thermal hoodie. I didn’t need to remind myself of how much anger and force it must have taken to put a single four-inch hole directly across the back of that piece of clothing. I didn’t need to remind myself how much stronger he was than me. How much more he could have hurt me if I hadn’t been pulled to the ground, and been pinned there while he yelled at my face. At my face, because my brain had long fled.
No, that shirt I threw away immediately.
But, the undershirt.
The undershirt I kept. Maybe just because it is so small. And fragile.
Of course, it tore.
It is the layer that no one sees, hidden underneath. It was the fabric closest to my skin, the part he tore after he tore through my sweatshirt. The part that never heals. Maybe that’s why I kept it. I’m waiting for the day I take it out of my drawer and it is miraculously whole.
Maybe I kept it because it looks like the undershirt a little girl would wear. A little girl who had been hit by her stepfather**; slapped in the face, punched in the stomach, kicked in the back while she was curled into a fetal position having been dropped to the ground by his initial blow.
But I don’t have those photos. I don’t have any evidence of that, from then, of him, except this.
Except this one ripped undershirt. That’s why I save it. Because one day I won’t need any evidence.
And that will be the day I am whole again.
Karen
March 3, 2021 - 1:38 am ·I swear to you that if I knew the man who did that to you he’d be sorry he ever met me. I know that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but memories only fade, they never disappear. I’m so very sorry 😩😩
Wendy
March 3, 2021 - 2:26 am ·Nora I am speechless.
My first thought was I wished you were here and I could hug you .
So thankful you have writing as an outlet .
You never cease to amaze me .
❤️ Wendy
Anne L Broyles
March 3, 2021 - 3:31 am ·As always, I am amazed by how you show your strength and vulnerability at the same time.
Gae Polisner
March 3, 2021 - 1:44 pm ·So, we write. We write.
Love you.
Madeline Facundes
March 3, 2021 - 1:50 pm ·Your strength and resilience amaze me. Your writing brings me to tears but I am encouraged to know that you made it through and are the beautiful woman I knew as a young girl.
Julie Stokes
March 3, 2021 - 4:45 pm ·I wish we could go to a time where I could hug that little girl. Assure her that it was never her fault. And promise her she will get out. And she will be someone who makes a difference in this world with just her words. That she becomes a super hero.
Thank you! Thank you for hanging on. For being you. For being real.
Dave Donelson
March 4, 2021 - 3:27 pm ·I made the mistake of reading this just before bedtime and the images haunted me all night. You didn’t describe the crime–the aftermath tells the terrible story. What you left unwritten is as real as the words you put in print.
Susan Gilbert
March 5, 2021 - 12:18 pm ·Nora, your vulnerability and strength always shine through with your writing. Keep writing, keep blogging.
Gabi Coatsworth
March 7, 2021 - 3:04 pm ·Keep writing. Not only because hopefully, it helps you, but because I’m certain it helps others. X
amado
September 15, 2021 - 2:34 pm ·wow I feel so bad for you
amado
September 15, 2021 - 2:34 pm ·that was really brave of you