Chapter 38: Chapter 38

My eyes feels gritty, my body feels like it's made of lead, it's heavy and it hurts, I try to move and it's a bad idea, the pain becomes more intense.

"Daughter," my mother whispers, I open my eyes slowly until I can visualize it somewhat blurred, I blink several times until I can see well, "you woke up," she smiles at me, but her red face and puffy eyes show me she's been crying.

"What's wrong, mom?" I ask without understanding her state, "everything hurts," I complain.

"I know honey, I kno," her broken voice makes me sad, "I'm so sorry." For some reason she apologizes.

"It's okay, mom, I ..." remembering that Kahin would leave, I immediately look for him with my eyes and I don't see him, where is he? "Where's Kahin mom?" My breathing is getting heavy and the control is disappearing.

"Calm down daughter ...calm down, he's outside, you can't get upset" I try to sit up and a heartbreaking pain makes me lie down.

"Aaaauuuussshhh," I squeal out loud, "why does my body hurt so much? What happened to me? Why isn't Kahin here?" My eyes crystallize.

"Here I am Sweet," I hear him, he approaches me and kisses my forehead, he doesn't look better than my mother,"I thought you left me," he whispered, caressing her cheek.

"Good morning," a doctor enters, "how are you feeling Marilí?" I close my eyes for a few seconds.

"Confuse and in pain. What happened to me? Why does my body hurt and especially my parts if I have not been with Kahin?" I open my eyes and look at the doctor, my mind refuses to believe what he thinks.  My mother looks down and Kahin clenches his jaw, the doctor leans closer to me.

"What I'm going to tell you will be very difficult to digest and very hard to overcome, but I want you to know that you can get ahead." I frown, my mother presses my hand and Kahin stays at a distance but not that far, "Marilí they found you in a room naked, beaten and drugged, your condition and all the tests we carried out, in addition to seeing the physical injuries, indicate that you were sexually abused" hearing that leaves me in shock, my heart stops immediately and  my confusion grows.

"That's not true, it's not true ... I don't remember anything!" Who could do something like that to me? The pain I feel in my body does not compare to the emotional pain I have, my crying is heartbreaking and painful, "this can't be happening to me, not to me ..." devastated and feeling helpless for not remembering anything, I try to get up, I don't want to be in that place, I don't want anyone to come near me, I just want to be alone.

"You must calm down Marilí, you can't get up or you will hurt yourself."

"I don't want to be here ... I'd rather die than live with something like that." My mother's cry joins mine.

"I know it's difficult and now you feel wronged because of what I've told you, but you need to try to calm down, the police are here" I'm not paying attention, I don't want to talk to anyone, I don't want them to tell me what happened, no I want to know.

"Good morning" greets one of the policemen, "we are from the National Police Department, we understand that at the moment it is not right, but it is our duty to try to find the whereabouts of the attackers" I look at him through tears.

"Attackers?" I ask in horror.

"Yes, miss, at the scene we found many condom wrappers, which indicates there were more than four people, because the hours that disappeared are not enough for one or two people to use that amount" upon hearing that I breakdown, how could they do this to me? "What's the last thing you remember from last night?" I don't answer, I don't want to do this, I can't.

"Sweet" hearing Kahin's voice makes me cry more, "baby," he comes to touch me and I move away.

"Don't touch me," I yell at him, "don't touch me," I repeat out of control and feeling like trash.

"Daughter please, you must help the gentlemen, only then can we find out who did something like this to you and make him pay" I shake my head, desperate, this is all a nightmare, I try to remember everything that happened to me and it is impossible.

"I was with my friend, " I whisper, "he left me at the bus stop, because his bus arrived before mine, when I waited for a while I decided to walk a bit so that I could wait elsewhere," crying makes it difficult for me to speak.  "A car pulled up next to me and ... And ..." I gasp with difficulty, "they forced me up and I don't know what else happened." The man writes down what I'm saying.

"Did you recognize the car?" The ones who forced you to get on, do you have an inkling of who it could be?" I deny over and over again.

"I don't remember ... I can't say what it was like and I didn't see anyone, they put something on my head and I couldn't see, they covered my mouth ... I don't know who could have been so cruel to do something like that ... No  I know nothing" I say, upset by not being able to remember what happened.

"How did you dress?"  Were you wearing provocative clothes?' Hearing that I look at them.

"Are you implying that if I was wearing provocative clothes, it's my fault? Since when is a woman to blame for being abused just because of how she dresses? How can you ask such a question? That is why every day we are harmed more, they rape us, they murder us and you suppose that we caused that, I cannot believe it."

"Miss please calm down, we just want to help ..."

"Get out! ... I don't want to talk anymore, get out of here, leave me alone, I don't know anything," I cry desperately.

"I'm going to ask you to go out please, she has already said what she knows," I hear Kahin say, the policemen get tiresome but he manages to throw them out.

The tears seem endless, my physical pain is horrible, but it is nothing compared to the emotional pain I feel. How can I be the same as before?  How can I live with a violation that I don't even remember? Perhaps all the women who have gone through the same thing as me would like to forget, but not remembering what happened to you is unmatched, that uncertainty that invades you for wanting to know what happened and how it happened, they do not leave you alone.

"Flaca" I hear my friend say after sometime, when I look at her I don't smile, I'm not happy and I don't move, after her comes Aunt Lourdes and Randon, embarrassed by what happened to me, I look away.

"She doesn't want to talk to anyone," my mother says in a sob, "my daughter is suffering and I can't do anything," her crying only makes me more miserable.

"That was my fault, I should have left her at home and ignored her self-sufficiency," Randon laments

"Yeah, you should have done that, she didn't want me to go after her because she was with you," Kahin growls, "you had to leave her in a safe place or hope she left before you," he yells at him.

"Kahin come on, you must calm down," my friend intervenes as she looks at Kahin, who is in front of Randon and the two look into each other's eyes, Randon looks guilty.

"He was not to blame for what happened to me, this is just my fault," I clarify, "I don't want to hear any more," I say, holding back the urge to cry, "I don't want to talk about it anymore." Being aware of how they look at me, I can't contain it, the tears leap from my eyes, "don't look at me like that, I don't want you to pity me, I don't want your pity disguised as solidarity, don't make me feel worse than I already feel," the pain that my words express are nothing for the suffering that grows in me, I don't want them to look at me differently, I just want to wake up from this nightmare and not feel like dying. My friend approaches me and hugs me, her tears falling on my clothes.