The Girl with the Ocean Eyes

There are people who happen to the world and people who let the world happen to them. She was the ladder. It was a cold November night, the kind of cold that made you ask the people around you if they had a jacket, but not the kind that made you think to grab your own before you left. She bought a dress the week before; loose at the knees, tight at the waist, and hugged her figure in the most flattering of ways. She'd grown up ashamed, told to cover up, told to stop being so perverse, that girls like her were simply asking for it. But she wasn’t asking for a thing. All she was asking for was a meaningful connection; it’s not her fault that this was synonymous with “easy” in the minds of teenage boys. She was waiting, waiting for the right guy to make her feel special and sweep her off her feet and buy her flowers when she didn’t even ask for flowers, he was the type that just knew. But these men only exist in fairytales, in the imagined fantasies of little girls in sparkly princess dresses, not at parties, and definitely not when alcohol is present. One sip of that elixir of sensual temptation and men lose their morals, if they had any in the first place. These charming princes quickly transform into knights on their next conquest, slashing the hopes and dreams of the damsels they set out to save, erasing their sense of protection, violating their childlike innocence. She was blind, she did not know the difference. She did not understand that their shining armor was a façade, for it made no girl feel safe. The party was filled to the brim with vile creatures, with princesses high atop in castles, with knights and princes and monsters and friends and foes and all walks of life. It was overwhelming, so many people she did not know, how was she to decipher the villains from the heroes at the ripe age of 16? Unassuming, that’s what she was. No knowledge of the evil that prowled about the world around her, as she had never been faced with its ugly head. “Want a drink?” A faded red solo cup filled with a mystery liquid sloshed in his hand as he offered it out to her, grin smeared across his face. He was big, worked out often, and played on the football team. Six foot four, muscular, somewhat-attractive guy. He was nothing to gawk at, not the man that the girls fell to the floor in adoration of, but not innocent. They never were. She was intrigued; this type of attention from a guy was not something she was familiar with, and a wave of validation and fascination came over her as she stared into his chocolate brown eyes and said “Sure.” They got to talking, and she quickly realized he was not the knight she had been wanting to sweep her off her feet. He reeked of alcohol, it stunk on his breath, on his clothes. Conversation centered on him in a sloppy, unfiltered manner as words came tumbling out of his mouth in a mismatched, inappropriate manner. He drew her in, grabbed her by the hips, tried to whisper little tidbits of information into her ear, but she pulled away. He gestured to her in a way that made her feel violated by his gaze. Her intrigue quickly turned to discomfort, and she recognized this. Upon trying to leave, his grip tightened. She shook, she fought his arms, but he was stronger than she was. He guided her into a room upstairs. Never once did his hand leave her waist, and never once did she stop resisting his hold. Her efforts were wasted; she was trapped in a cage of iron steel, the cold, hard metal clanking along the edges as she tried to escape. It’s been three months since and she still will not talk to me. She called me that night, asked where I was, and I said home. She shared her location and I drove her to my house. I sat on my living room couch as she sobbed into my chest, cried tears and fought sporadic breaths into the throw pillows. I wish I could say she was the first, and that she would be the last. That night she didn’t speak a word, and I didn’t ask a single question. In a way I already knew, the way her dress was sluggishly pulled over her shoulders, the way her hair was ragged and disheveled, that dead, cold, colorless look in her usually vibrant blue eyes. Those eyes. They were beautiful, all the teachers in school always told her how stunning their color was, like a crystallizing light. I found them enchanting. I often found myself staring into them, searching for a flaw, for the slightest hint of dimness, and never did. Until now. Looking into her over the next few days at school was like knocking on an empty house. “No one’s home”, the wind echoes back in the absence of welcoming spirit. The light had faded from their foamy ocean hues into ghostly shades of grey. It took a while before I saw the color return; I don’t know if they will ever have their innocent, pure luster again. He took that from her. He does not intend to give it back. But I watch her try to heal. And I, too, try to heal, rather than condemn he who killed the soul of a girl so naïve. But I can’t say that the thought of these men, these boys, does not send me into a rage. Of what they did, of what they are capable of doing to others, to my loved ones, to me. It takes the breath from my lungs and sends me into shock. It brings me right back to that night, to my living room couch, to blank but sympathetic stare at this broken human being revolted by the thought of returning to her life, who wanted nothing more than to sob and sob and never stop sobbing and never let go and to feel and feel. Who never wanted another hand placed on her again. Who never wanted the heinous brown eyes to follow her ever again. Who never wanted a single soul to see her as something they could conquer. The world revolved, it threw turmoil and tumultuous rain and hail and storm. The world happened. And she was in its path. She was victim to the world, and now she will always be tormented by its ability to destroy what was once so sacred. The world happened to her, and she will never forget its betrayal.