It has been six years since I last saw him, red hair and blue eyes and skin too pale for his ethnicity. I can remember the odd way he talked and the way he moved. Occasionally I smell something that brings me straight back to him and the conflicting emotions inside make me want to vomit.

I went back to reread every story I wrote about him, every journal, diary entry, suicide note. I read the words “I’m a ticking time bomb, ready to explode when he leaves me.” It reminds me that my mom was wise in taking all of the sharp objects from my room. When I reread my letters, I realize I saw him as a god who could do no wrong. He was the one who saw me when no one else did, the one who hugged me, kissed me, made me feel beautiful. I don’t remember it that way anymore. The part of me that has grown wants to go back in time and scream, “Wake up!”

He will never call me because I was a girl in passing. I was something to look at and touch and coerce, nothing more. I will never receive a letter because if he has not forgotten me, I hope to God he feels the guilt as heavily on his shoulders as I felt the shame.

I wonder how thirteen year old me didn’t see it.
“Yeah I guess you could lose a little weight.”
“You don’t have any friends.”
“I’m the only one who loves you.”
“You owe me this.”
“If you don’t talk to me about this, I’m worried I’ll force myself on you.”
“You don’t have a choice, there’s no way you’re waiting until marriage.”
“If you do this, I won’t ask you for more.”
“You’ll never be a good mother.”

Now I’m intentional about talking to every middle school girl I can. I look for the signs. I remember hating my family, losing all of my friends, crying myself to sleep, making so many excuses, lying just to feel something. I could never allow another girl to reach that low.

I realize, reading everything I used to write, that I had blinders on. Everyone just thought it was a phase or a crush, one that I would quickly get over. No one knew about the abuse that shook me to my core and left me sobbing as far from my computer and his words as I could get.

It took me years to realize that what I thought was love was actually abuse. Today I stand tall in the knowledge that my worth is not dependent on the words of a boy who so long ago saw me, coerced me into crossing every line I would ever so hesitatingly cross, but never knew me. He drained the life from me, caused me to feel suicidal after convincing me I was unloved, but here I stand stronger than ever in the power of the God who loved me enough to drag me kicking and screaming from what I thought was “love”.

To the boy who used and abused me,

I am no longer that shell that you turned me into. I am so much more. I am a Sunday School teacher, a missionary. I lived to see high school and so much more, and there are so many people who love me. I’ve dated boys who respected my boundaries and told me, “You are worth every bit of me and more.” I am now defined by the love of Christ I share with every person I meet. I also have a passion to start schools in poverty-stricken areas and I know that God will use my abilities beyond what I alone can comprehend. These scars you left remain, but I’ve turned them into beautiful tapestries on display for everyone to see. I am damaged, but I overcame.

Sincerely,

The girl you never loved