The Darkest Hours, Part 2

As I sat in my carport, emotionless, unable to process what just happened to me.. Cop car after cop car showed up, one after another.. the lights lit up my entire street.. and sirens began to sound like the most horrific music I’d ever heard.. and it seemed as though it was never ending. I remember just staring at the lights, listening to the sound of the sirens and trying so hard to have a grip on the reality of what was happening. My street was filled with people that were there to help me, but I still felt so helpless.. defeated. Then it came time to tell the police officers what just happen to me, and that is when emotion flooded me.. like I was swept in the undertow, unable to come up for air.. drowning in my own emotions. That’s when the reality sank in.. and I couldn’t handle it. The police officers tried their hardest to calm me down, but I was gasping for air with every breath. Tears streaming down my face, rocking back and forth, having a full blown panic attack.. I vaguely remember the conversations with the officers. The only thing I clearly remember was them telling me it was time to get in the ambulance and go to the hospital. To which my response was “I’ll go after I smoke more cigarettes”.. 3 cigarettes later, and finally somewhat calming down, I got in the ambulance and headed for the hospital by myself.

While I was on the way to the hospital all I could think was “what did I do to deserve this, why am I having to face this alone, what’s going to happen next”.. Meanwhile at my house, there was a phone call happening that changed the entire case. The man that just raped me was calling my boyfriend over and over again. During that phone call my rapist said “Please don’t call the cops, please don’t do this to me”. But the conversation got heated at some point, and the monster admitted to raping me. He said “Now you know how it feels for someone to f**k your b**ch” referencing the last thing I heard him say in my driveway before fleeing the scene.. trying to say that now my boyfriend knows how it feels to have someone else to have “sex” with their girlfriend.. That wasn’t mutual consenting sex that was rape and sodomy. But what the monster didn’t know was the investigator was sitting right beside my boyfriend listening to every single word. And guess what? The lead investigator heard with his own ears my rapist admitting to the crime, making him a key witness in my case. I later found out that the entire phone call was recorded by a body cam, meaning there was documented evidence of admittance to being guilty of the crime, and all interactions with the officers and myself at the scene were also recorded.

I arrived at the hospital, wheeled in on a gurney with a police escort to a private room. They did a rape kit, tested me for STD’s, and gave me the morning after pill. Then the police officer entered the room and I was expected to write my statement, but my hands were shaking too bad and my mind was jumbled. I was still in complete and utter shock. Thankfully the nice officer said that I could do a verbal statement and he wrote it down word for word. I honestly could not do it on my own.. I couldn’t write down what just happened to me because that made it all too real.. too much for my brain to process. After my statement was done, my boyfriend finally arrived at the hospital. My memory becomes kind of foggy after that.. I remember talking to a few investigators but I don’t remember being discharged. I vaguely remember the car ride home. The cops told me that it should be fine to stay at my house, and that they would have a 24 hours watch on my house to ensure he did not return.. Cops were searching for him and he was no where to be found.. Can you imagine? The man that just raped me was on the loose and no one knew his whereabouts.. But the cops told me it was very unlikely that he would return to the scene of the crime. But I knew they also couldn’t find him and I had no idea what to expect.

I distinctly remember arriving at home.. I was flooded with the darkest emotions I have ever felt, filled with fear the moment we pulled onto my street. I remember trembling and being terrified beyond belief. What if he came back? Am I just a sitting duck waiting to have the same thing happen to me again? Will the cops even see him if he come through my backyard? Will he come and try to kill me because I called the cops? I sat outside in my carport and smoked more cigarettes than I can even count. How was I supposed to feel safe in that house.. the place I called my home.. the house that was supposed to be my sanctuary, my peaceful place away from the world.. the house where my worst nightmare had just come true.. The house where my pride and dignity had been stripped from me.. Eventually I made my way inside. I soon realized I couldn’t sleep in my bedroom on the bed I was just raped and sodomized on.. so I tried to sleep on the couch. As I laid there the only thing I could do was replay in my head the worst night of my life, over and over again, until finally I drifted off to sleep..

To be continued..