Hi, I'm Ana. Charlotte is our cousin on her father's side, and she has graciously allowed me to use her blog to spread the word of what happened to our good friend last year. As you may or may not know, Daisy Coleman recently published the story of her rape in Seventeen magazine, and it inspired our dear friend Carly to share the story of her best friend's assault this time last year. Names have been changed, but the point of our sharing this is to raise awareness about domestic violence and sexual abuse. The following are Carly's words:
I always knew my best friend Paige had a bad relationship with her parents, but I guess I never understood just how bad until she called me one night. She was at Brophy's, a popular senior boy on whom Paige had long harbored a crush, annual post-midterm party. When we scored invites, Paige was psyched. I'm not much of a partier and I just thought it might be fun to drop by for an hour or so before curling up with Pretty Little Liars and a big bowl of popcorn, but when I found out my boyfriend, a college freshmen in another state whom I never get to see, would be in town I decided to bail altogether and spend the night watching a movie with him (and the popcorn.) Around 1:00 in the morning, my boyfriend had left and I was just getting ready to go to bed when Paige called. I could tell she was in tears but all she said was, "Can you come get me?" I immediately woke my little sister Marnie (I have a seizure disorder and am not allowed to drive at certain times during my medicine cycle). We drove to the party and found Paige huddled on the front steps in her short pink dress, missing the moto jacket and scarf she had worn there. She was freezing. It was the middle of January, and I got the impression she had been sitting out there since she called me at least twenty minutes earlier. When she got in the car, she burst into tears and cried for ten straight minutes. Finally, she told me what happened. Brophy's older brother Sean had gotten very drunk at the party and locked her in the bathroom in the dark for half an hour. When he finally returned, his friends, also drunk, duct-taped her mouth shut and pinned her down in the tub while Sean raped her. As soon as she told me this I insisted she call her parents, but she wouldn't. She didn't think they'd believe her. So Marnie and I drove her to the hospital while I called my mom, who waited with us while Paige completed a rape kit. My mom decided to call Paige's parents without telling her, and they were terrified. They were also in Japan. It turned out that her parents, who are both very high up executives for a high-end makeup line that shall remain nameless, were sent to Japan to start a new branch of their company. They were supposed to be gone for two and a half months, eight weeks, and then come back to normal. But something had gone wrong. My best friend's parents had been halfway across the world for almost five months and I had no idea. Paige and her little sister Grace are both in high school (Paige is 17, Grace is 14) and Paige had a job and a car. Their parents were sending them money and trying as hard as they could to get home fast, but somehow the girls and their parents had miscommunicated. Paige and Grace felt truly, completely abandoned. It was awful to see. But they were trapped. Their parents couldn't come home without quitting their jobs. So Paige and Grace moved in with us. Paige started therapy. And a court case.
Sean's family is very wealthy. He was attending his dream school with a stellar future and we knew his parents would do anything to keep him from getting a bad rep that would damage that potential. We never guessed that they would pin it all on Tyler, Paige's ex-boyfriend, who also happened to be at the party. It was no secret from anyone that Paige and Tyler had a nasty split about two months ago, but that was over now. They were fine. Not friends, exactly, but fine. But their bad history meant the judge believed he could have been the rapist. His DNA even came up in the rape kit. No one listened to Paige's insistence that Tyler had nothing to do with it. Finally, the judge made his decision. Tyler was convicted, and Paige had a choice. Let Tyler take the blame and go to juvie, or refuse to press charges and let Sean off the hook completely.
She let him go. Now, a year later, we are trying to reopen the case and get Sean convicted of the crime he committed, but it hasn't been easy. Although we are not asking for money, donations, support, or anything like that we want to spread the word about the way rape cases are treated in the justice system. This is not fair. This is not good. A boy capable of the unspeakable is allowed to roam the campus of college without a care in the world. Please spread this around to raise awareness, and please pray for Paige!
Thank you for reading that. It means so much to Paige to know that her voice is being heard.
Ana
No comments:
Post a Comment