Rachel-a - Home City- Rough Draft lyrics

Rachel Arthur Rough Draft June 30, 2015 Home City On my thirteenth birthday my life changed. Not the type of change most thirteen year old girls deal with. Most typical thirteen year olds change from a little girl to a woman. Course black hair starts to grow in a place that was once hairless. Dark blood starts coming out of a hole that most thirteen year olds don't even know existed. Applying black mascara and eyeliner with a thin layer of medium beige face powder was almost an everyday thing. I just had one more year before I would be in high school. These were supposed to be the best years of my life, at least that's what people told me. They weren't. Some days I didn't even know if I would make it through the day. I kept a secret locked up in me. I told know one what had been happening to me everyday after school. I was scared to tell this degrading secret of mine. I feared him. I feared what he would do to my siblings or me if I told our secret. I could only escape this secret if I found a way to get far away from him. My secret stayed locked up inside of me for six long and cold years. After six years I got away from him. All the strength I had inside of me went to practicing softball. Softball made me forget about what I was hiding inside. Every night I would take long drives to the batting cages that my dad owned. I would hit for at least two hours, or until my hands were so blistered they would start to bleed. I didn't stop because of the pain from the blisters. I stopped because the blood made my batting gloves smell like a decomposing rabbit that had been lying dead in the heat for a few days. I never really felt physical pain, but I think that is because I had constant blistering pain internally. The only way I could escape that pain was playing softball. My endless hours of practice and full ride scholarship saved me from burning hell that I once called home. At the age of eighteen I found myself in Lincoln, Nebraska. I had a full ride scholarship to play softball for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I had never been to Nebraska before, but it felt like home when I took my first step off the airplane. I felt like I was getting a new start, a new life. I felt clean inside. I was actually smiling for once. I started to forget about the secret that was 1,617 miles in San Francisco. I really felt like I was going to get my life back, the life that was taken from me at age thirteen. “I never want to leave.” Those were the first words I said to my coach when I got to Nebraska, but she gave me a confused look after I said them. I knew she would be the first person I told my secret to. The very first day I got to Nebraska I told her. I peeped my head from around the corner into her office and softly knocked on her door. She was sitting on her red Bosu Ball chair typing out a long email on her desktop computer. She turned around with a surprised look on her face wondering what I was doing there. I never told her I was going to stop by. I was probably the last person she expected knocking on her door. She bounced up off her chair and squeezed her arms tight around me. “Alex! I didn't expect to turn around and see you standing in the doorway,” she said, “I thought you were still in San Francisco?” I gave a soft smile back. Words wouldn't come out of my mouth. My mind went completely blank. My palms and armpits began to sweat. I could feel my face getting hot; it was probably as red as her chair. “Is everything okay? I think you should sit down,” she said. I sat in a light brown wooden chair that was all scratched up on the seat. Must have been from players who wore j**els on their jeans and squirmed around in the chair from nervousness, because I was nervous and I was squirming around. I looked around at all the pictures of former players she had hung up on the white walls of her office. She had a white scroll that was outline in black with Japanese symbols written on it. Looking around her office made me feel comfortable. I knew she truly cared about her players not just as athletes but also as people. The air was abundant of a eucalyptus mint smell because of the candle she had lit. Everything about her made my fears go away. “What's wrong?” Tears because to rush down my cheek, I couldn't speak again. I could taste the salt on my tongue as I said, “I have a secret to tell you.” “I'm listening,” she said. I took a deep breath. “On my thirteenth birthday my stepfather raped me. He's been raping me for six years.” I immediately blacked out after I let those words come out of my body into the world. My secret was out. The first thing I remember after I got my conscious back was waking up on the black leather couch in the clubhouse. I opened my eyes and a bald man in a navy blue suit was standing over me. His eyes were wide open like he just took some kind of drug and staring down deep into my eyes. “Hi Alex, I'm Dr. Stull.” The man was giddy, like little kid after drinking a liter of Mountain Dew. “Hi,” I said. “I am the psychiatrist here at the University. Everything is fine, you just lost consciousness for a few minutes.” We didn't really talk much after that, he told I should get back to my dorm and get some rest and we meet in his office tomorrow morning along with Coach Dekker. When I woke up in the morning I felt like I had a terrible hangover. My head was throbbing and jumped out of bed and sprinted to my trashcan to throw up. I thought telling my secret would makes things better. I was wrong. Way wrong. Each day that went on things go worse. I was looking forward to practice starting up because softball always made me forget about reality. When I was on the softball field I felt free, like I was in a different world. This stopped happening, I got to the point where I didn't even want to play softball anymore. I began to have flashbacks of him taking me into his room before my mom got home from work. When I was practicing I began to hallucinate. I would see him sitting in the stands watching me. I wanted out, I felt like demons were controlling my life. On the really bad days I would lose track of time, just completely black out for hours. I would come back to reality and forget where I was. This would sometimes even happen when I was in the field. I would just stand still staring into the stands without blinking. My coaches would have to pull me off the field and sit me down in the dugout. I wouldn't have any recollection of what I was doing when I lost track of this time. My life got bad. I had no control over my body and my life seemed to be going in a spiraling direction downward into a black hole. In October the final string was cut loose. I went into a pawnshop and stole a ring. I don't stealing the ring, but I remember voices in my head telling me that if I stole the ring her would leave me along. The ring would represent that I was in a relationship with someone else and he could no longer touch me. He could never hurt me again. The pain I felt inside of me was like someone stabbed me and kept turning the knife over and over again. Dr. Stull couldn't fix me all by himself. I had to leave Nebraska and go back to San Francisco for treatment. I only completed one semester of my freshmen year of college before I suddenly knew I was in deep. I was losing complete control over my mind and body. I didn't know if I would gain complete control over my body again. I thought I was saying goodbye to Nebraska after only six short months of living there. I don't really remember much of treatment because I don't want to remember, but each week I started to more gain control over my body again. I stopped losing track of time and the voices that I was hearing disappeared. I would still have hallucinations of him watching me, but I learned how to make him go away. After a year of treatment, I came back to Nebraska. I thought for sure coach Dekker would pull my scholarship because I didn't even think I was coming back. When I found out I still had my full ride scholarship my insides were filled with a warm feeling. Coach Dekker knew I would be back, and that gave me faith in myself that I would get my life back, softball back. I met someone. Someone who stuck by me the minute I met her. Her name is Allie Leigh Bueak. She was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska and weighed 10.8 pounds when she was born. Her favorite midnight snack is Sour Skittles, she wants to be a math teacher while coaching three school sports, skydiving is number one on her bucket list, she eats Gnocchi like five days out of the week. She was a year younger than me but she was mature. She was always the quietest person in the room. She liked to listen to other people talk. I never saw myself being with a girl but I guess my past might have something to do with it. I admired her, I loved her in a way I had never loved anyone before. I loved her thick brown hair especially when she wore two braids when she played. She's 5'4, two inches shorter than me, so she is always my little spoon. Her eyes are green with a few brown speckles on top, kind of like a pond but a really pretty pond. Allie is the only person that knows every detail about what happened when I was thirteen. She never really asks questions, she just lets me talk, she lets me speak for as long as I want and she listens to ever word that comes out of my mouth. She accepts my imperfections and takes them in as her own. She was the only person that seemed to understand all the pain I went through. I honestly don't know if I would have gotten better if it wasn't for her. I still had four years of eligibility left in softball. I got to play four years playing the sport I loved right next to the person I was in love with. Just happened that she played second base and I played shortstop. After seven long and confusing years my life seemed to be flowing in the right direction, I honestly forgot what it was like to be happy. My last four years of college zoomed by compared to the seven years of what seemed like eternity in hell. Before I knew it I was running out onto Bowling Stadium in my red jersey that had Nebraska written across my chest and number 9 displayed on the back. My metal cleats stuck into the dirt as I sprinted into the wind. I felt free and strong when I ran onto the field. Everything went silent for the last out of the game as I looked over at Allie's two long brown braids and smiled. I don't remember if the game was close or not but I do know we beat Wisconsin. Senior year was the best day of my life. 2,274 crazy Husker fans were packed into the stadium. After the post-game ceremony for the four seniors I pulled a ring from my back pocket, “Allie, will you marry me.” I don't even remember her saying yes, she ran up to me and gave me a kiss. The fans, teammates, and coaches were already crying from the ceremony, but now everyone was crying out of happiness. The majority of the people who came to cheer us on knew bits and pieces of what I had gone through. I was supported. Fans, coaches, teammates, and Allie never left my side when I came back to Nebraska. I gave a hug to coach Dekker and whispered in her ear, “I never want to leave.”