Page 131 of Worth the Fall

Closed File #713920: Emerson Reeves – Sexual Abuse – 10/23/1997

But I know what it is.

This is me. The old me. The little girl I was and don’t want to be. It’s the past I don’t want to be reminded of, and yet, my file is sitting here—in Grant’s family room—hidden in plain sight so I wouldn’t see it.

These are the answers that could simultaneously cure all the doubt that plagues me and knock me so far down the rabbit hole I might not be able to find my way back.

Fuck having ownership of memories should they come. This is proof. Proof in ways I can’t comprehend. There is no ownership of it now. There is only falling victim to it when I’ve been a victim enough in my life and . . . Oh. My. God.

Shock burns its way into anger. The fuse is so short it’s combustible.

My hands tremble as I throw it down on the table like it’s burning my skin. It hits the wooden edge and falls to the floor, causing a few items to dislodge.

Every part of me screams to turn around and run out of the house while my feet remain rooted. A little voice in my subconscious tells me, “Look at them.”

Trepidation courses through me as I take the dare and bend over to pick up the piece of paper that taunts me.

What am I doing?

I turn it over, and it takes me a few seconds to have the nerve to open my eyes and look. What I see has a sob falling from my mouth as I sink to the floor.

The top of the page is labeled “Child Assessment – Emerson Reeves – Age Eight.” Memories ghost through my mind of when I drew this—the light blue room that was cold, the nice lady with the gentle voice who asked me to draw a picture to show her what happened, my tears hot on my cheeks as I looked around for my mom.

The drawing depicts what I saw through my innocence. Now, I look at it with the knowledge of an adult. Tears well as I take it all in. There is a bed where two stick figures lie, one bigger like an adult with short brown hair and the other smaller with red hair. The red-haired figure, me, has blue dots falling from her eyes and making a puddle on the floor. The brown-haired man, my dad, has his hand over where the legs on my rendition meet. There’s a black L-shaped thing on the top of the bed, a gun, and words line the left side of the page: No, stop, hurt, all my heart, I love you, daddy.

It hurts too much. This hurts too much.

I want to cover my ears and squeeze my eyes shut and block this all out so I can forget that I remember that day.

In haste and with a scattered mind determined to get the drawing out of my sight, I shove the piece of paper under the file’s cover where it is on the floor. I pick it up to put it on the table, and when I do, I see the Polaroid beneath it.

I forget every intention I just had when I’m met with a picture of myself in a hospital gown. There is no smile on my lips. There is no happiness that every eight-year-old should have. Everything about me—my posture, my expression, my eyes—look defeated and scared.

I stare at the little girl in the photo and tell myself I am not her anymore. I will never be her again. But every part of me feels like her right now. Lost. Withdrawn. Petrified.

Betrayed.

A tear drops on the picture, and I realize for the first time that I’m crying. Tear after tear tracks down my cheeks as parts inside me I thought were whole again slowly crumble to rubble.

I tell myself to close the folder because I don’t need to see this. I don’t need to know more details. Don’t I already know them somewhere in my mind?