Sister of Silence Read Online Free PDF

wrapping a strand of hair around my finger . “V-i-r-g-i-n. Virgin,” I said solemnly, staring at the judges before me.
    “Intercourse. Your word is ‘intercourse,’” the same voice said.
    “Could I please have the definition?” I whispered.
    The voice was sharp. “You have had sexual ‘intercourse.’ Now no one will ever want you.”
    I felt tears welling up behind my eyes and angrily wiped them away. “Intercourse. I-n-t-e-r-c-o-u-r-s-e,” I choked out.
    In reality, I’d taken first prize that night, but now the words tormented me, the imaginary judges passing judgment on me in a bizarre contest I couldn’t win no matter what I did.
    Hours later, after staring at the darkness, willing myself to block out the images floating around in my mind, of bodies and letters and stern, unsmiling faces, I finally fell asleep.
    The next morning I woke up and looked around the room, feeling like I was going to be smothered by the big purple flowers on the walls. Memories from the previous night came flooding back, sweeping over me in one great, endless wave. I buried my face in my pillow, willing myself to smell nothing but the clean laundry scent of it.
    Then the recollection was gone, and instead I was tracing the ceiling tile. But the memories became twisted and merged with my counting repetitions, and it happened again and again. Over and over. I tore myself away from the thoughts and closed my eyes in anguish.
    I had given myself to a man whom I loved, but it had been wrong, because we weren’t married. I felt soiled, dirty and disgusting.
    I wanted to take a hot shower to wash his touch away, to rid myself of his scent that still clung to me like a spider clings tenaciously to its web.
    After breakfast, I went to the bathroom and stood staring at my reflection. The girl that peered back at me was no longer the same person. I began to tremble as I stood there, and I heard his voice as he placed my hand against his hard skin, remembering.
    “You’re so pretty. If only you weren’t so pretty, you wouldn’t do this to me …Look, you did this to me.”
    I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the memory, wondering how I could have thought I loved him. Oh why, why did it have to happen? Now I’ll never be clean for another man, for the man I would’ve married.
    In that second, I knew what I had to do: I had to marry him, because I was damaged and not fit to be another man’s wife. I had already been used.
    “You have had sexual ‘intercourse’. Now no one will ever want you . . .” The voice from the previous night returned to taunt me.
    The day passed slowly, but it did pass, as did each day after it. I learned to keep a smile on my face, freezing all emotions inside so no one could see them. I began living a lie, because the truth wasn’t something I could face. The truth, I somehow sensed, would destroy me.
     
    The first rape made the subsequent ones no easier; I began avoiding the mirror in the bathroom at home or, if I had to, I would stare at the reflection, daring that girl to tell me how bad I was. Something inside me had snapped, which I didn’t discern until years later. I began hanging out with the girls who had bad reputations, many of whom had boyfriends who were six, seven or even ten years older than they were. I also began smoking with them every morning before school, a short-lived practice that stopped after one pack of cigarettes, when I found I detested the aftertaste they left in my mouth. Other bad habits, like my self-loathing, were harder to break.
    So after the rape, almost overnight, I became something I never had been: a rebellious adolescent who provoked the adults around me. It didn’t last long, but its impact was so intense that the memories remain clearly and painfully imprinted on my mind to this day.
     
    My new crowd, as well as some of the “good girls” who remained loyal friends, decided we were going to break the rules by wearing shorts on the last day of