XXXII

SEVENIA SALLIE

I never felt more prone to discouragement than when I laid on the examination table at the hospital after I was assaulted. The grief I felt was even deeper than when I lost my mother and Anna, my best friend, within two months of each other. I didn’t feel this pain for me and the horror I experienced. It was for my attacker. Someone who had expressed his love for me, yet had punched me several times and attempted to deflower me in the most vile, despicable manner.

I believe I will be reunited with Anna and my mom in heaven one day. My mother, despite the grievous sins she committed during her life, repented. She also, as far as possible in her health condition, made restitution to those she wronged.  However the perpetrator of my attack expressed his anger at God and gave me an indication he might harm himself to the point of extinguishing his life.

When they released me from the hospital, I felt really uncomfortable with my distraught dad. Yet he insisted on holding my hand. I resisted the urge to yank it free from his grasp, not wanting to hurt his feelings. I realized he was traumatized in his own right. Yet when we saw Destiny and Lexi in the parking lot, it was a good excuse to break free of his hold and go to them.

After I assured my two crying friends that I was okay, Amy seemed to appear from the shadows with tear rimmed eyes. After I filled my sisters-in-Christ in on the ordeal, I was overcome with fatigue. I just wanted to go home and crawl into my bed.

Ten hours later I awoke to murmuring voices. I could tell by the sunlight streaming in from between the cracks from the window shade that it was early afternoon. I quickly dressed, anxious to see who my dad was talking to, feeling like there was some news. It was, in fact, devastating information. When I opened my bedroom door, six eyes looked at me. Destiny’s eyes looked sad and compassionate. Brock and my father’s eyes looked startled and uncertain.

“Hi, sweetie,” Destiny said.

“Hi,” I squeaked as I stared intently at Brock. “I assume you have some news.”

He looked uneasily at my dad, back to me, and then his mouth opened, but he didn’t say anything.

“Honey,” my dad said hesitantly and then cleared his throat. “He’s dead.”

I fell to my knees sobbing, and a couple seconds later I felt Destiny’s arms go around me. The two men were probably puzzled why I would be so upset over a man who had punched me. He also would have raped me if two things hadn’t hindered his progress.

First my tights, reflecting their namesake, came off with great difficulty. And then after I screamed, Captain Kirk called out and came running toward us, causing my assailant to stumblingly flee as he hiked up his jeans. He saved me and I needed to see my pastor and mentor.

It wasn’t just for the comfort and guidance, but to explain the ordeal to him. I had never seen him look more concerned than when he drove me to the hospital. Yet I couldn’t speak. All I could do is try unsuccessfully to not shake and shiver. He opened his door and looked both relieved and concerned.

“Hi, Captain Crunch,” I said, using my personal nickname for him.

“Hello, Sevenia,” he said with a cautious smile. “How are you?”

“Fine,” I shrugged, trying and failing to be lighthearted. I took a couple quick steps toward him and hugged him as I started sobbing.

“Are you okay, dear one?” he asked gently.

“Yeah,” I croaked. “I stopped by to tell you what happened.”

“You don’t need to do that. I get the gist of your ordeal.”

“I need to tell you for myself as well. I need your wisdom and guidance in processing everything, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind. But if it’s too fresh and painful…”

“No,” I said shaking my head vigorously. “I’ve already told the police, my dad, Amy, Lexi, Destiny, and Brock what happened. Now, just before I came over here, I found out he’s dead.”

“Your attacker?”

“Yes,”

“Did you know him?”

“Yes,” I croaked. “And so do you.”

His furry little eyebrows arched and his pale blue eyes looked frightened. “Who?”

So I composed myself and told him.

It had begun the day before yesterday. Jeremy was back from college and came over to see me. We were talking about this, that and the other thing, and I brought up Branch. I told him about his declaration of love a week earlier. I guess that was the beginning of everything going askew, even though I didn’t realize it in the moment.

Jeremy acted like it was no big deal, you know, that I was contemplating a, um, deeper relationship with Branch. But a half hour after he leaves, he calls me and wants me to meet him at Cotton Creek, a special spot by a circle of pines where the water ripples through the rocks. He said he had a surprise for me.

So I met him there. He was all smiles and happy, but was acting nervous too. After beating around the bush about the surprise, he told me to close my eyes and hold out my hands. I felt him push something on to my left ring finger. I opened my eyes and asked him what he was doing.

“It’s my mom’s engagement ring,” he said.

“Why did you just put it on my finger?” I asked with a frown.

“Because I love you,” he told me.

I was actually quite put off by his presumption of presuming and not asking. Especially when I never gave any inclination that I desired him romantically. At least I think. Of course I thought that about Branch too. Boys and their hormones can be weird, I guess.

Then someone called my name and approached us. It was Branch. I hadn’t had time to process what was going on, or to remove the ring and tell Jeremy he was moving way to fast and aggressively. I was stunned because something like this from Jeremy was not like him. Branch looked at my hand with the engagement ring on it and froze. Then he quickly and calmly composed himself.

“Sorry, your dad said you came her to the creek,” Branch explained to me uneasily. “I thought you were by yourself. Hello, Jeremy.”

Jeremy nodded at Branch with a grim expression.

“So what’s going on?” Branch asked with a noticeable quiver in his voice. So unlike his calm, subtly macho demeanor.

“Sevenia and I were having a special moment together,” the typically timid Jeremy said boldly. “A private moment.”

Was I in the twilight zone?

“Is that right?” Branch asked and then looked at me with desperation in his eyes.

I couldn’t speak. I wanted to tell them both that this was all a misunderstanding. I wanted to tell them both that I wanted to be celibate for the rest of my life and just move on. Why did either of them want to be more than friends anyway?

“Fine, sorry to interrupt,” Branch said with what seemed like ominous calm.

Before I could think of something to say, Branch walked briskly away. As I watched him disappear into the trees, Jeremy took hold of my hand and gently, yet firmly pulled me toward him and tried to kiss me. That was when there was no mistaking the smell of alcohol on his breath.

“Have you been drinking, Jeremy?”

“A little,” he shrugged. “I was nervous about proposing marriage.”

“Where was the proposal? It was more like a demand.” I said, yanking off the ring and handing it to him. “And what’s with the drinking? I’ve never known you to drink before.”

“I started drinking a little bit at college,” he said with a shrug and a pained expression.  “I’m sorry. I went about this all wrong. It’s just, when you told me about you and Branch, it made me panic about how right I know you are for me. I can’t lose you.”

“Lose me?”

“I’ve always kinda thought of you as my girlfriend.”

“We have always just been friends, Jeremy. We’ve never so much as held hands, and we’ve hardly been in contact since you’ve been away at school. How can you say you viewed me as a girlfriend?”

“School isn’t what I thought it would be, it’s just been…” he gasped and covered his face for a long moment. “I better go!”

Jeremy dashed off faster than Branch. I went home and decided to call Branch to explain what happened. Yet I wasn’t sure myself. I rehearsed what I might say. When I about had it a little bit sorted out, I got a text from Jeremy.

“I’ve got some stuff I’m dealing with. I can’t handle it. I think I need to end it all.”

It felt like electricity surged through my body. I texted him back some encouragement, but also told him he needed to stop drinking. He replied that he wanted to meet me at Cotton Creek again to talk and watch the sunset. I agreed and went back to talk to him.

As I got out of my car and began walking to the creek, Branch called. Although I was praying sporadically, I wasn’t watching very good either. I wasn’t diligent. Like a fool, I told Branch exactly where I was and who I was talking to. He mumbled have a nice life and hung up. I looked at my phone with clenched teeth. Why did my two good friends have to flip out at the same time?

The first thing I discovered with Jeremy was that he hadn’t stopped drinking. He increased. I know little about substance abuse. Although Jeremy was probably legally drunk, he wasn’t falling down drunk. He wasn’t quite slurring either. But he was all the way belligerent, and that wasn’t like him. When I first got there, he just glared at me like I was his worst enemy. This made me mad, so I folded my arms and attempted to glare back. He snorted a sarcastic laugh and shook his head.

“What?” was all I could think to say.

“Hostility doesn’t suit you well.”

“I could say the same for you.”

“Could ya?” he barked.

“Jeremy, what’s your problem? I know since we have become friends you’ve struggled with depression and anxiety, but self-medicating isn’t the answer.”

“Oh and what is, God?” He asked with such bitterness, I flinched.

I opened my mouth to reply, but he cut me off. He then proceeded to poor out his heart, mind, and soul for the next ten or fifteen minutes. His anger dissipated, and was replaced by anguish and sadness, so I patiently listened.

He told me in detail about what happened with his uncle. His mother’s younger sister’s husband. Before I just simply knew he was sexually abused by a relative from the time he was twelve, until he was sixteen. Then he told me about becoming friends with a young man at college, and how it evolved into an intimate relationship.

Who knew I would be meeting this same young man six days later at Jeremy’s funeral? I would actually learn more about Jeremy’s secrets from him than Jeremy himself. Jeremy finished his tirade with a few derogatory slang words for homosexuality. Then he lashed out at me.

“It’s your fault,” he said with gritted teeth.

This took me by surprise. I felt my mouth drop open, and my eyebrows arch upward. “Huh?”

“Don’t huh me,” he said stepping closer and then did air quotes as he started to speak again. “All those great spiritual conversations we had. All the times I subtly mentioned sexual desires. And you! You always pointed out Bible verses like sensual having NOT the spirit. How you were never gonna marry. How you were gonna be celibate, and be married to God. What a joke!”

“Jeremy, Lis…”

“Don’t Jeremy me! I’m attracted to men on some level, okay! Before I met you, I looked at porn and masturbated daily. Then you and me became friends, and you know what? I found you attractive. At first I thought it was because you were like a cute boy. But no, I found your girlish ways appealing. I started thinking about kissing those soft silky lips of yours and imagined…”

“Jeremy, stop!”

“Stop what!” He barked as he stepped toward me and clutched my upper arms tightly. He reeked from alcohol, and it gagged me. “Are you afraid of real truth on planet earth?”

“Let go of me,” I said as I was about to kick him in the shin. But he let go of me and started to cry.

“I loved you,” he croaked. “And I thought if I gave you space, you might love me. I hoped we could marry and I would be delivered from sexual desires I both hate, yet ironically can’t get enough of. We could have two or three kids, the white picket fence and…”

He started sobbing, sat on a rock, and put his face in his hands. I just watched him and silently prayed until he quieted a couple minutes later.

“It’s okay,” I said quietly.

“Is it okay?” he growled as he shot up from the rock. “Maybe for you. Patience is a virtue, they say. So I patiently wait for you. I come back from school, and my sister tells me Branch Cromwell attends church with you almost every week. I brush it off thinking, surely a big good looking stud like Branch wouldn’t have romantic interests in a nerdy little Amish looking girl like Sevenia. I mean he can have his pick of girls, or even me. But then you and I talk, and low and behold you inform me Branch has put a claim of love on my sweet little Sevenia. And although she acts indifferent, I can tell she’s interested. But you know what? Maybe you didn’t know it, but I claimed you first.”

He clutched me by my upper arms again so hard and pressed his lips to mine so fast, I had a difficult time comprehending what was happening. I pushed away from him, stepped backward and stumbled over a rock. I fell on my back side, and before I could move, he was on top of me. He jammed his tongue in my mouth. Between that and his toxic breath, I threw up a little. He pulled back instantly.

“You…” he growled, calling me the slang word for a female dog. Then he punched me in the eye. I now see why cartoons have stars floating around the head of a character receiving a head wound. As I tried to focus, I felt a  tugging underneath me. I lifted my head and watched Jeremy pull my skirt over my shoes.

I was momentarily free, and attempted to rise and scramble away. But he quickly tackled me. We wrestled for a minute, but although he was slight for a man, I was slight for woman. It didn’t take him long to pin me. After he did, he struck me again. This time he struck on the temple. Everything went blurry and my head plopped onto prickly grass. He now began to work my tights off. I subtly shifted my legs back and forth, and it made his task difficult. When he realized what I was doing, he hit me again. I momentarily blacked out. When I opened my eyes, I was naked from the waist down. Jeremy had used the legs of my tights to tie my arms behind my head and to a tree. His own pants were down and he was just inches away from violating me.

“Father forgive him,” I said calmly, although my head was buzzing from pain and fuzzy of vision. “For he knows not what he is doing.”

In the dim light of twilight, I saw Jeremy go completely still. Then in my peripheral vision, I saw a light come on in the sanctuary. I screamed as loud as I could. Jeremy called me a female dog again and punched me in the stomach. Then the back door of the church burst open and Captain Kirk’s thumped in the direction of the creek as his voice called out. Jeremy hiked up his pants and fled.

“I believe you know the rest,” I told the pastor. His pale blue eyes looked at me with such understanding and compassion as a lone tear trickled out of an eye. I loved this old man immensely. So I couldn’t leave out the part that I knew was gonna make him cry. “One more thing, Crunch Berry.”

He chuckled with a deep rumble. I’d only called him Captain Crunch to that point.

“Okay, Coco Puff,” he replied.

We both laughed and I proceeded to tell him. Only as I started to speak, the lighthearted element I tried to bring disappeared. My lower lip quivered as I spoke and my voice became high pitched. “I know I was freaked out and couldn’t speak when you took me to the hospital. But when you said ‘I’m here dear one, you’re gonna be okay,’ words have never been more comforting to me in my life.”

This gallant man of God, who had comforted thousands of hurting people in his lifetime, didn’t make a big deal of it as I wept. He simply took my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Then my phone blinged with a new text.

It was Branch, he said he was sorry about Jeremy and wanted to know if he could see me. I said okay. He texted back when and where? I knew the pastor would wig out if he knew the text I returned. My dad and Brock would strangle me. But I needed to know I could trust him. Because I think I did in fact love him. Plus like the old saying. If you fall off a horse, you need to get right back in the saddle. Stupid thinking, I know. But I texted back, and I instructed him to meet me at the site of my worst nightmare.

‘Cotton Creek by the pines in a half hour’.