Out of the Woods
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2,552
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Rape | Sexual Assault | Amnesia | Child Violence
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A girl wakes up in the woods in an incomprehensible scenario and must make her way back home.
The first thing I notice is the itch in my throat. An involuntary cough wrecks my lungs, and I try to pry my eyelids open with no luck.
My fist raises to rub the crust from my eyes, but my knuckle comes back wet. I wipe and wipe at the liquid on my face. Did something drip on me? When I open my eyes, it looks like I’ve been on the Merry-Go-Round too long. I close my eyes back. It feels better.
But… am I in my bed? I’d be warm if I was in my bed. My arms are cold. I grab for the covers, reaching down. And down. And down. Nothing.
I open my eyelids again, blinking over and over to pull that dark curtain of sleep from in front of them. I don’t think my body likes me being awake. My head is getting hit by waves in the ocean and running too hard at soccer practice. I’m so dizzy. My stomach hurts. I think I’m gonna—
I’m still laying flat on my back when my mouth starts watering. I barely manage to turn onto my side before the throw up is coming out. I vomit once, my eyes shut tight, and it tastes awful. My stomach clenches again, throat burning hot. I manage to take a breath. “Mmm—“
I can’t speak. My mouth is too dry, and my throat is on fire. I try again, louder. “Mmaaa—“
Everything hurts. Something sharp is pressing into my elbow. I manage to slowly open my eyes. There’s a liquidy pile of my puke on the ground. I can barely see it with all the rocking, but I force my eyes to focus, to see what can’t be right.
It’s a stick poking into my elbow. And… I threw up onto crunchy brown leaves. I lift my head and survey the trees surrounding me on all sides.
I’m in the woods.
The throwing up made my heart beat fast, but now it’s banging like a drum in one of the fast songs that Ian likes. A flood of questions run through my mind. How did I get here? Where am I? Why can’t I remember? And my legs… why are my legs sticky? Why does everything hurt?
I know that I’m on solid ground, I can feel it underneath me. But in my head, it feels like I’m on a boat. I shouldn’t be here.
I take a deep breath into my lungs and cry out, “Momma?” The sound that leaves my mouth is as loud as I can make. “Ian?” It’s so hard to keep my eyes open. I want to sleep. I want to curl up here and sleep until tomorrow. Maybe I’ll feel better if I do.
No. I think I need to move. I can’t stay here. Where am I? Where am I? I force my lungs to inhale again, and I climb to my feet on shaky legs. At the sight of my legs, I nearly collapse back to the ground.
The insides of my legs are covered in blood. All the way from my inner thighs, over my knees, and down to the ruffle of my socks, streaks of dark red blood stain my pale skin. I touch it with a finger, and it sticks to the tip, leaving a small smudged spot.
What is happening?
I look around as best I can. It’s still light out, but the sun is really low. It’s gonna be dark soon. I need to get out of the woods. I don’t want to be in the woods at night. I need to find someone to help me. I need to go home.
I’m either really off balance, or the ground goes uphill, just a bit. As much as I want to lay flat and let the slope carry me, I don’t see anything downhill. I think I need to go up.
A few steps have my legs crying, and the space between them burning like mad. But I have to move. I can’t stay here any longer, and I don’t think I should go back to sleep. Why was I napping out here? Why in the middle of the day? Where is Ian? Momma never lets me go into the woods by myself. Why can’t I remember? I wish I could remember.
One step at a time. One step. One step. Branches poke my arms as I claw a path through them. They reach for me and scrape and hurt. I steady myself on the thick trunks of trees, trying my best not to trip over mostly flat ground.
My head throbs, forcing my eyes shut, and I lean into the nearest wood. How long have I been walking? How many steps have I taken?
Wrenching my eyes open, I take another step. And another. And another. And another. Another. Another. One more. One more. One more. One more. One. Two. Three. Momma. Four. Five. My legs. Six. Seven…
I barely catch myself on a branch before a biting throb slices through my head, forcing my eyes shut once again. Not bothering to open my eyes, I continue shuffling forward, the burn between my thighs violent. Every look down my legs terrifies me again, forgetting over and over the blood soaking my kneecaps, thighs, and shins. Where did it come from?
Another step. Two more. It’s getting harder to see, but… I think there are lights up ahead. The flickering of a floodlight, maybe. Or a lamp in a window. Hope pummels my chest as another throb zigzags through my skull, and I lean my back against a tree. I’m really sweaty, and breathing feels… thicker than normal. Tilting my head back toward the sky, something catches my eye. A branch a few feet over my head. There’s something carved into the bark. A symbol I’ve seen before, that I’ve seen every day of my life, as far back as I can remember. An oval with a line through the center, curling up on both ends, with Ian’s initials in the top half. And mine in the bottom.
Realization punches through me as memory after memory crowds my brain, and I recognize where I am. The lights I see are from my house, from the street I live on. I’m in the woods in my backyard. My heart hammers now, not from confusion, but from hope. Momma and Ian are so close. I’m almost home.
I want desperately to run to the safety and warmth of my house, of Momma’s hugs, but the stinging in my lower half and the ache in my head force me to continue shuffling across the dirt and leaves and sticks. I must look like a zombie. Maybe I am a zombie. Is Mom there waiting for me? Does she know I’m gone?
I walk endlessly, the same distance and path I’ve walked a hundred times. When I’m able, I stare up at the house, my house, moving always uphill, and growing more and more uphill the closer I get. I can see my bedroom window, now. Not many more trees left. I just have to get out of the woods, I have to get past the treeline and into the grass. Keep moving. Keep going. Another step. One more. Rest. Hunch over my knees and heave. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going—
On and on and on I walk until the sun collapses below the horizon, and I reach the base of the back stairs of our deck. I’m so tired. I’m more tired than I’ve ever been before, my legs quaking, my core on fire, and I nearly buckle into the first wooden step. One flight of stairs stands between me and Momma. She’ll help. She’ll know what to do. She’ll know what happened to me. She’ll explain everything.
Tears well in my eyes as I lift my knee, from the pain in my muscles and the picture of Momma, with her brown ponytail and scrunched eyebrows. She always looks so worried when I’m sick. I’m coming, Momma. I’m here.
Two more steps up and the tears reach my chin. I look up the stairs. Nine more steps. I can see the hazy glow of the kitchen light shining onto the deck. I try to yell, but my throat doesn’t work, strangles the sound before it reaches my mouth.
Step after step. Five more. Four. I remove my hands from their iron grip on the railing and lift my knee, dropping it on the next step. Push up. Burn burn burn, everywhere burning—
I collapse onto the flat panes of the upper deck. The stinging scorches my core, my eyes, my thighs, but relief is overpowering, even the pain. I crawl to the back door on all fours, incapable of mustering the strength to stand. A sheen of tears coats my vision, blinding me from seeing inside. I’m too small to reach the handle. Instead, I bang on the glass as hard as I can.
Within seconds, the door slides out where I’d been pressing all of my weight against it, and I collapse inside. Steady hands grip my shoulders and force me upright. I’d recognize those hands blindfolded.
Momma is knelt on the floor at eye level with me, wrapping me in a hug. The tears fly from my eyes as I cry out all of the pain I’ve felt since waking up in those woods, and still feel excruciatingly, into her shoulder.
“I’m here.”
“Momma…”
A hand strokes my hair. “I’m here.” She pulls me to my feet, my face buried in her ribcage, her arms supporting all of my weight.
“Can you stand?” She asks gently, and I nod. I loosen my grip around her waist, and she releases me.
“Mom I—” I breathe the beginning of a sentence when the loudest sound I’ve ever heard shatters my head. I scream but the clapping does not stop. The room is filled with applause, and Momma steps out from in front of me, unobstructing my view.
Our kitchen, which used to have a dining table in the middle, is now filled with Momma’s friends, our neighbors, and my family. They stand in a semi-circle, clothed in white and red-splattered robes, every one of them slapping their palms together, whooping and hollering, all facing me. I can hardly make sense of most of their faces.
My knees hit the hardwood floor and I moan from the searing pain in my head, and the burning between my thighs. After at least a full minute of ear and mind splitting sound, these strangers finally stop and sit down.
I look up at them through my eyelashes, on all fours, stomach rolling, eyes glazed and eyelids heavy. Please, I try to communicate with my eyes. Please help me. Our next-door neighbour, Mr. Lou, stands from his seat, clearing his throat. Everyone is happy except Mr. Lou. Momma crouches beside me and grips my hand, forcing me to hold my weight with just the right. She wears the biggest smile I’ve ever seen.
Mr. Lou wrings his cap between his hands while he speaks to the room, addressing me, “sorry I had to do that to you, honey. I asked if someone else could do it but… they said I didn’t have a choice. Said it’d be better if it’s someone you’re familiar with. It was this or…” Mr. Lou frowns. “I can’t ever go through that again. I won’t— I won’t let you, or anyone else, ever go through that, if I can help it. This is better. I swear it.”
My legs quake. I think I’m gonna throw up again. “Momma I’m gonna—”
Momma throws a trash can underneath my mouth, so fast I barely see her move. She rubs soothing circles on my back, pulling my matted hair away from where it sticks to my cheeks. Tears sneak out my eyes as my stomach clenches over and over, nothing left inside me.
“What do you remember, sweetie?” Momma asks, right behind my head.
My head is still pounding, and everything still hurts. The dried blood on my thighs itches and flakes. It’s the same color and feel as the crusties I scratched off my face, that now coat the underside of my fingernails. Can’t they see that everything hurts? Don’t they see me?
I do my best to answer from where I’m bent over my knees on the floor, “I woke up in the woods. Why–” I stop to moan “--why was I there?”
Mr. Lou and Momma glance at each other. “Might be a blessing she don’t remember,” Mr. Lou says.
“They don’t usually forget until they’re older. But you did have to knock her out, didn’t you, Lou?”
“I guess I hit her pretty hard, she was out a couple hours. I didn’t mean to hit her that hard. She just wouldn’t stop screaming. She was shrieking like a banshee, I was worried she’d tear her vocal cords. I did it for her sake more than mine. You understand that, right, Mrs. P? You understand why I had to knock her out, don’t you?”
Momma just smiles bigger and drops my hand, rising to her feet. “All that matters is that my baby is strong. Her body is strong. She made it back to me.” At this, she clutches her hands over her heart, tears welling in her eyes, and the room bursts into another round of applause, this time yelling their congratulations at Momma.
Momma bends at the waist and says, right into my ear, just for me to hear, “after this, nothing’s ever gonna hurt you again. When I turned eleven, I had to feel exactly what you’re feeling now, too. And all of your girl friends at school experience the same on their eleventh birthday. Remember your friend Tasha? She turned eleven a few months ago. But she wasn’t strong, like you. This is why she hasn’t been at school. She didn’t handle the tradition like you did. Her body was weak.”
I look around at each of their faces, and my eyes meet Ian’s. He’s looking right back at me, smile broad, dimples full and cheeks round. He gives me a thumbs up and mouths something I don’t understand. My teacher at school, Mr. Harris, sits a few chairs down. He nods his approval.
Another moan pries itself from my body, and the room rumbles with laughter.
My head is shaking back and forth, I can’t control it, can’t control anything happening in me or around me. I moan and cry as much as my tumbling brain allows. Momma sighs deeply. “It’s a shame you don’t remember it. One day, you’ll appreciate this experience.” She kisses my forehead and places her hands on the sides of my face, wrenching me up to meet her eyes. “I’m so proud of you.”
Momma drops my face and stands. Everyone is laughing and smiling as conversation starts up in little groups all around the room. Momma lights eleven candles sticking out of a three-tiered cake and cuts it into pieces with a butcher knife, licking some of the frosting off her thumb. She hands out a slice to everyone but me.
