I was so angry at God! I just couldn’t believe this was real. All my life church and God had been my peace, my safety place. If He was my safety why would He allow this to happen? I felt like I had no control of anything in my life. The one thing I thought I was able to control all those years growing up was my body and who was allowed to come near or touch it. This one thing I had control over was just ripped away from me too. I thought I had been in control but really I hadn’t. Someone had come near my body, touched me and I had no control over it. I can’t think of words to describe how mad at God I was for allowing this to happen. I was working 4-6 days, normally closing the restaurant. After we closed the manager and kitchen crew would crank up some music for clean up, I would go out to mop the dining room and I would cry and cry while I mopped. Assuming because they were so indulged in their work and music they wouldn’t notice the crazy girl having a melt down while she mopped in the dining room. About Christmas break I made a decision. I had decided if the God I served would allow this to happen to me then I was not serving Him anymore! And being the only reason I had turned down several offers in high school was because God commanded no premarital sex, the first guy who came along and wanted me was gonna get me, I had nothing left to save for marriage anyhow now. My purity had been stolen away from me and there was nothing to save anymore.
My boss, a 42 year old married man with two teenagers and two toddlers, was sweet to me. He apparently noticed my melt downs. He would ask if I was ok. He also gave me a ride back to the college because it was 11:00 p.m. when we got done and he didn’t want me walking alone that late. It seemed like he was protecting me. It seemed like he cared. He got me to open up and let me talk about life. I didn’t tell him about the dreams/memories. But about how the summer boyfriend was no longer taking my calls or sending letters. He dumped me apparently. How I felt my family abandoned me. They didn’t care about me, so I thought. I told him all the teenage girl stuff that you deal with in your first year of college away from home. It didn’t take him long to start telling me he cared and was always there for me. Soon it turned into, he is the only one who cares for me. Super Bowl Sunday 1995, he and I wound up the only closers because everyone else wanted to watch the game. And sure enough he was the first one who wanted my body and he got it that night for the first time.
He came over to my dorm a few days later; he started the conversation with “Don’t ever provoke me. I have sat in jail for beating women before and have no problem sitting in jail again if it means you are lying in a hospital for provoking me.” I was taken back to say the least and asked what he meant by “provoke”? He looked me in the eye and said, “Just don’t do it!” I, being the youngest of the four tough mean farm kids that I was, stood a little taller and puffed my chest a bit as if to say really little man, and he said, “don’t think you can take me little girl!” Now he was a little man, no taller than me and maybe 140 pounds at the most. Looking back and knowing how strong I was at the time from working with my dad I probably could have taken him if I needed to, but with my state of mind, I just shrunk back down and allowed him to do whatever he wanted. I was so depressed and broken, I just couldn’t function. I had no fight left in me. It became the norm that he would come over to my dorm before he went to work. I was instructed to leave my door unlocked because he felt weird standing in the hall waiting for me to open it.