For Rachel

There are some days when certain, random memories refuse to stop banging their presence against my cranium. They beg to be turned over and remembered, if only for a few, fleeting seconds. One particular memory has been screaming the loudest, so I'm giving it a voice here.

This memory is not one of my favorite memories. It's not even particular pleasant. In fact, it's a little sad, and even shameful in retrospect.

When I was about eight-years-old we lived in a nice, developed cul de sac in a small Washington town. I loved it there. The formation of the neighborhood forced our backyard to be a triangle and I used to think that made us unique. Who else has a triangle for a backyard? I'd kick my soccer ball against the fence, driving our neighbors nuts. Often times that ball would fly over the fence and I'd have to climb the fence, jump over, and race to grab my ball again before they either caught me, or their dog caught me. It was a great neighborhood for an eight-year-old.

There was a white house, two down from mine, that belonged to the Wilson's. They seemed like a nice family, and lucky for me, they had a girl about my age. I knew the dad was gone most of the time, leaving the mom with her two sons and the younger girl at home. I don't remember how it happened, but this girl, Rachel, and I became good friends. We'd paint our fingernails with white-out while dancing to N'Sync, we figured out how to slalom ski behind her bike (she rode her bike, we tied a jump rope to it, and I held on as I roller-skated down our driveways), she'd tell me how much she hated her older brothers and how mean they were to her, and I'd tell her that she could take my annoying younger sisters. She introduced me to MTV, Britney Spears and this new guy, "M&M". I cut her bangs and put butterfly clips in her hair. It was a great, young friendship.

One day Rachel came over to play at my house, and I noticed that she looked a little different. I couldn't place my finger on it. Did she get a haircut? Was that a new shirt? New shoes? Ignoring this, I asked if she wanted to help me clean out my closet (I was am pretty OCD about clutter.) I started pulling out old shirts and asked if she wanted any. With her back towards me she started to try them on. She lifted her shirt, and I silently gasped; her entire back was covered in bruises. They were thick, purpley-yellow, green and black bruises. They were big and they were small, like... fingerprints.... But they didn't stop there. I saw that they continued across her ribs, down her arms, over her shoulders. There wasn't a spot on her visible body that wasn't covered with a bruise. Horrified, I kept looking, kept staring. What had happened to my friend? Was she sick? Had she fallen down the stairs? As my lips formed the questions, the words stopped in my throat. There weren't just bruises. The more I stared, the more I saw. Thin cut marks, little slices of the flesh mangled her back. Some were more recent than others; I could just make out old scars. At this realization, I was truly scared. I didn't know the questions to ask, and so, to my utter shame, I never did.

It clicked for me then why she had looked different; her eyes were dark. There was absolutely no spark of life.

Some times, in quiet moments this memory launches itself in my vision and I am right there again. Right there in my eight-year-old room, trying desperately to understand something that terrified me. I don't know what happened to Rachel; we lost contact after we moved across town (there wasn't such as thing as Facebook then!) but I never asked her about this. I don't think I really wanted to know. My young mind drew wild conclusions, none of which were rational. It took me a couple more years to start to piece together a logical explanation; logical, yet horrific.

So, to Rachel, I am so sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't be the friend you needed at that time. I hope you're doing well now. I've thought about looking you up, but yet, the eight-year-old in me is still terrified of knowing that my rose-colored childhood was not the same for all my friends. I still don't know if I really want to know, and I'm so, so sorry.