All You Need is Love

Sixteen

I look at myself in the mirror. I mean really look at myself. I look at my hair, and how it falls just under my breasts. I look at how it curls naturally. I look at how my face is oval shaped, I have good skin. I always have. I look at my eyes. They're blue right now, I can see a ring of what looks like a combination of gray and gold around my cornea. I look at my figure. I'm tall, lean. Very tiny. I'm fare, and freckles cover my body.

I could be attractive. Pretty, whatever people use to describe women nowadays. I touch my hair, it's soft. I take care of it, my condition does a good job.

I eat a lot. Most of it isn't exactly healthy food but it won't kill me. Yet I'm still tiny. I'm not anorexic, my metabolism is just very quick. I have to forcibly eat a lot actually.

I look myself in the eyes. Why? Why can't you accept yourself? Why don't you like yourself? Why.

It's not difficult. I used to think I was hot, sexy, beautiful.. whatever you call young college students who are smart and beautiful at the same time. Guys gawked at me, I knew I was hot. I never dated guys I didn't have time. I was hot though. Hot enough for a man to forcibly have sex against my consent.

I've never had the chance to actually sit and think about what happened. I always thought about it and then let it go. I was left with these nightmares though, they repeat for me what happened while I'm asleep.

The man made sure I never could walk in the dark alone, that I could never turn a light off in my house, that I always had to lock the doors. Always protecting myself, just so I could feel safe. He made sure I never sleep at night and when I do, I see his face. A reminder that he's been there. He makes sure I can never trust anyone ever again, I am incapable of ever getting remotely close to a man. He makes sure that I don't like myself, disgusted with who I am. He makes sure I'm incapable of feeling some sort of happiness, not being worthy enough of that small pleasure. He makes sure he haunts me for the rest of my life.

I sit down on my bed. I'm tired, I don't sleep. I rarely do, at least through the entire night I don't. He always wakes me up in my sleep, making me aware of him.

I don't feel safe in my own house. You'd think I would've sold it. That I would've boughten new furniture to avoid him and everything that happened that night as much as possible. But I didn't. I stay in my mom's old house, it has meaning to me. I don't quite know what but it's enough for me to stay here.

Hell my own mother thought I was trash enough. Talk about tough love. She never cared enough about me, only surgery.

I go everyday avoiding all men at all costs, facing the inevitable that only 1/4 of the population at the hospital is women and the remaining 3/4 is men. They're good men, they're smart and talented. You can trust them with your life obviously, because they know how to save it too.

And one day I met a man in a coffee shop. A coffee shop I'd never been in before. And then I thought I'd never see him again. Until I walked in their the next time and found him standing behind me. I don't know what compelled me to sit down at a table with him and talk to him.

He's a disarming man, he's protective and caring. Smart and determined. He was raised well. He's the type of man you can always trust to come fix something if it's not working or you're having an emergency. He's dependable.

Derek Shepherd is a good man. He pursued me. What for I don't know, why? An even better question. He cared from the get-go, dying to know my name. When I saw him again, he flirted with me. He bought my drink like a gentleman.

And then we became friends. I told him my life story. I told him things I would never dare tell anyone, let alone a man. Yet I told him. He unnerves me. It throws me into a tailspin, I don't understand my feelings.