Buradi's Journal

Around the time my uncle started hurting me, I started going to daycare.  At the daycare, I made a friend.  His name was Scott.  He was my best friend.  I told him about my uncle, as it was happening, and he had similar experiences at home with his father.  He was about six years I think older than me.  He was eight years old when I met him.  I was two.  He took care of me when I was at daycare.  This is a horrible area of the city to live in, so there were a lot of "apprentice rapists" or "rapists in training" there.  Scott protected me as much as he could from them.  If he didn't know where I was, he would immediately start looking for me to make sure I was alright.  He often caught one of the older boys trying to get me to touch them.  He usually hit them when he caught them.  If I cried, which I was learning not to do thanks to my uncle and a little thanks to the kids at the daycare, then he would hug me (if I could handle a hug) and tell me that it was okay to cry.  He would explain to me why bad things were bad and why I shouldn't want to do bad things.  He would answer all of my never ending questions the best he could without getting impatient or angry or frustrated.  Unlike everyone else, he didn't yell at me to shut up and stop asking questions.  He told me he was proud of me for wanting to ask questions because he said that meant that I would learn more in my life and enjoy learning.  He calmed me down when I was angry.  He made sure I ate something every day that I was there.  He took care of me.  I came to love him so much that I thought it was the most that someone could love someone.  I loved him like he was my life, which, at the time, he was.  I trusted him with every fiber of my being and he promised and swore with every promise or swear that we knew that he would NEVER hurt me, ESPECIALLY not the way my uncle hurt me.  He PROMISED!  But, one day, he broke all of those promises.  Those were the most important promises he'd made to me.  I needed to feel safe with him.

     The day he hurt me and broke his promise, it was a Friday in the middle of July.  The fact that it was a Friday in the summer meant that it was a swim day at the daycare.  Since I didn't have a bathing suit of my own, the daycare had provided one for me.  A green and blue bikini.  Scott was wearing red swimming trunks.  I remember them clearly.  The playground of the daycare was an L shape except for an extension to the side of the top of the L.  The teachers sat in the bend in the L and the extension was all they couldn't see.  We called it the corner.  When the teachers brought out watermelons in the short line of the L and all of the kids were surrounding them to get their share, Scott told me to follow him and he took me to the corner.  My gut screamed at me not to follow him, to run in the opposite direction, to get away.  But, my heart and my mind said to listen, said he wouldn't, couldn't, hurt us (I had alters by then, I was seven, almost eight), said he'd PROMISED!  I followed him to the corner.  I ended up in the very corner of the corner, the point where the walls met each other, back to the meeting of the walls.  He was in front of me, blocking my way of escape.  My gut screamed that something was off, that he was going to do something horrible.  I couldn't believe it when he told me to take my bathing suit off.  He COULDN'T have said that!  When he started hurting me, I still was trying to deny it was happening.  I kept from screaming as best I could for two reasons.  One, because my uncle had taught me not to.  Two, I didn't want him in trouble.  He was still my best friend.  I still loved him.

     Afterward, I decided to never tell anyone.  He didn't tell me not to.  But I didn't want him in trouble and I didn't want everyone to know what a horrible little girl I was.  It was my fault, I'm the one who listened to him, I'm the one who trusted him, I'm the one who deserved it.  He hurt me!  I kept trying to convince myself that it didn't happen, trying to make it just GO AWAY!!!!  It worked a little at first, but the longer it went on, the harder it was to deny it.  The more I remembered it.  The more I dreamed about it.  The more it KILLED me.  The more it made me feel horrible and bad and like KILLING MYSELF!!!!  I never took him off of the high pedestal I'd put him on.  He's still up there.  I still can't let myself believe that he could have done such a thing.  He broke my trust and made me afraid of everyone.  And I can't handle kiddie pools, bathing suits (especially bikinis and red trunks), watermelons, or sometimes sand.  I still love him.  I feel like I NEED him back!  I NEED him to be my friend again.  Ever since it happened, I've wanted to go back to him and be his friend again, but he wouldn't let me near him.  That killed me.  I figured it was my fault and that he hated me for it and that that was why he wouldn't let me near him.  I want my Scott back, my best friend.  I don't understand it, but I do need and want him back.  It hurts so badly that he would do that to me!  He PROMISED!  I don't believe promises anymore.  No one keeps them.  Except for my uncle when they're bad promises....  But....  WHY????  WHY?????  WHY??????  WHY DID HE DO IT???????  WHAT DID I DO???????  WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME???????