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by Paul Heatley

Jordan Naylor raped me.

It happened at a party. There was alcohol. People said I was drunk, but I wasn’t drunk enough. I watched him do it. I didn’t let him. He put his hands around my throat.

I told anyone that would listen. No one believed me.

At home, I told my parents. They believed me, but my father wouldn’t let me go to the police. He said it had been too long. Nothing could be proven.

I got angry. Asked him what I was supposed to do. Asked him if he thought I should just let Jordan Naylor get away with it, let him go unpunished.

He asked me if I knew how often accused rapists were acquitted. I said he needed to be punished. He nodded sadly, said yes, but he wouldn’t say anything more. It was like he was scared. Scared that I would be called a liar, scared that the blame would be shifted to me. I wasn’t scared. I had already been called a liar. I wanted Jordan Naylor to suffer.

When I calmed, I came round to my father’s view and agreed I would not go to the police. He nodded once, his face very solemn, but still he would say no more on the matter.

But I would not forget what Jordan Naylor had done. I would not shy away from my life because of him. I left my apartment, I went to bars and I went to parties. Sometimes he was there. Eventually I had enough of his arrogance, of the way he smirked at me from across the room. I told him he knew what he had done as well as I did. I did not shout, or scream, I did not cry or hit him or throw a drink over him. My voice was level, my words calm. I let him know I was going nowhere, I would serve as a constant reminder of what he had done, and every time he was with a girl, whether she was consensual or not, he would see my face. Then I left. I walked away with my head held high.

That was the last time I saw Jordan Naylor. A week later he was found dead in his room. He’d hanged himself. There was no note.

I went home and told my parents what had happened. My father said nothing. He wouldn’t look at me.

Paul Heatley’s stories have appeared online and in print for a variety of publications including Thuglit, Near to the Knuckle, Horror Sleaze Trash, Flash Fiction Offensive, and Shotgun Honey. He is also the author of six novellas available for Kindle from Amazon. He lives in the north east of England.