63 Days

That night, as we all set our bedrolls up in areas designated for girls and boys to be separate, the counselors filled us in on what was happening with our journals from now on. We were informed that all of our entries were to be read and signed off by a staff member. Even our deep thoughts and fears would be critiqued, their eyes prying into even the smallest ideas of pain and rage, hate and love. Their reign was now part of every breath we took, each step we made, each thought we wrote down. Our bathroom breaks were now to be taken with another person and we had 5 minutes to complete them.

A staff member would come up and take us aside and read what we’d written, and they’d expertly correct any grammatical errors or misspellings we’d made. One particular entry that I wrote said “I don’t want to think about my parents. They still piss me off and I wish they’d just leave me alone” and one of the counselors came over and read mine and rewrote:

“I don’t want to talk about my parents COMMA because they still MAKE ME ANGRY and I WISHED THEY HAD leave me alone.”

Ok so none of that even makes sense. I can’t say “piss”? And what is with the “wished they had” part?

“I don’t want to talk about my parents, because they still make me angry and I wished they had leave me alone.”

…………whatever.

After she left from grading my journal, I heard someone approaching. I knew it was him before he even spoke, and my body tightened up immediately.

“Allison. Lets go have a talk. Bring your blanket, you might get cold.” It was Nick. He was standing next to me. I didn’t move.

“Get up. Now,” he repeated.

I stood and grabbed my blanket. I shook it a bit to get the leaves off of it and folded it over my arm as I walked. We went about 200 yards away from the group and I walked ahead of him as he directed his flashlight on the path ahead of me. Once we got to a clearing around a big rock in a dry river bed, he told me to stop. He took my blanket and threw it on the ground and pushed me against the riverbed wall. He moved in close to me, putting his hand on my waist as he did.

“I brought you somethin,” he said. “Here.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a long needle and some thin twine. I looked at it. I had no idea what exactly to say.

“Its for making necklaces. All of the juniper trees have little berries on them, and in a week or so, they’ll start falling off of the tree and the berry part will be eaten by birds and mice, then you can string the seeds on a necklace. They’re called ghost beads. See?”

He showed me some necklaces he had around his neck. Tiny brown beads that were imperfect and misshapen. They were beautiful and simple, but on him, they only enduced a nearly unbearable bout of nausea. I knew what his neck smelled like, and I wanted no part of those beads.

“The indians out here say they’re mystical and powerful. The beads are believed to fend off evil spirits. Supposedly, they create peace between earth, animal, man and the animals. You should make yourself some. Here,” he reached around his neck and took off one of the necklaces, “keep this one. This shows you how I feel about you.”

As he fastened the strand around my neck, he breathed in close, letting his lips brush against my earlobe and neck. He lingered for a moment, his hands fumbling with the string. As he finished, though, he didn’t move his face away from me. He pressed in even closer to me, bringing his hands to my hips and slowly starting to push his body into mine. He kissed my neck and I felt the first of many hot tears sting my dirty face. His hands wandered under my shirt, down my pants, and he pushed me against the wall over and over again. I lost track of reality somewhere between the time my pants were around my ankles to when I was being pulled to my feet by him.

As he threw my pants at me, I noticed that his countenance changed. He was cold and harsh, ordering me around as if I’d done something wrong. He made me walk quickly back to camp, pushing my shoulder from behind when he thought I’d hesitated too long stepping down off of a rock or fallen tree in my path. When we got back to the others, he told me to go to bed, and tossed my blanket at me. Sand filled my eyes and got in my mouth, my lips now gritty from tears mixed with tiny grains of sandstone. I turned away and as I did, I heard him mutter something under his breath…

I layed down and looked at the sky. The girl, Daisy, she was next to me and she whispered “you got Nick for a personal counselor? You’re lucky…he’s nice. Everyone here thinks he’s good looking. He must like you a lot.”

Yeah, I thought. He likes me a whole lot, lucky me.

As I closed my eyes, the word he’d muttered under his breath filled my brain. I now remembered loud and clear. He’d called me a whore.