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“We've been over this, Leah," Cole told me for probably the hundredth time. "I'm not about to do that to you.” “But you wouldn't be doing it to me," I argued, determined to convince him of the merits of a long-distance relationship. "You'd be doing it for me." “Go ahead and rationalize, but I can tell you now it's not going to change my mind.” Cole sighed and kissed me on the forehead when he saw I was pouting. “Come on, Lee. We've talked about this. You're gonna go off to college soon, where I'm sure you'll meet a lot of great guys. I don't want you to miss out on anything just because you feel obligated to stay with me.” “It's not like that, though. I want to stay with you. I love you, Cole.” “I love you too, Lee. But trying to maintain a relationship when we're thousands of miles apart… it just isn't feasible.” “Are you afraid I'm going to cheat on you or something? Because I swear I would never-” “Who said anything about cheating,” he asked, confused. “No one, I just… I know that's a common fear people have when it comes to long-distance relationships.” “Not me,” he asserted. “That's the least of my worries.” “You mean you trust me that much,” I asked, touched. “Well, yeah. Of course. But I also just know you don't….” Cole stopped talking suddenly as something occurred to him. “You know I don't what,” I pressed, feeling my heart start to race. “I just… I meant that you… that I know you don't….” Cole looked like he was trying hard to come up with something to say. Though Cole hadn't answered me, the flush in his cheeks and his refusal to meet my gaze told me all I needed to know. “How long have you known,” I asked him quietly. He took a second before responding. “I… have had my suspicions for a while now, but I didn't feel comfortable making that kind of assumption,” he admitted, somewhat sheepishly. I fell silent as I considered how this new information might affect our relationship. It was a long moment before I mustered up the courage to finally ask him my next question. “So… knowing what you do now… that doesn't… change the way you feel about me?” I resisted the urge to cover my ears, afraid of what his answer might be. “I mean, I know there are certain… expectations that come with being in a relationship, and there are, you know… needs that have to be met, and I'm just not sure that I can-” “Don't be ridiculous, Leah.” To my utter confusion, Cole laughed. “This isn't funny,” I told him, irritated. “I'm being serious.” “I know you are. I am too.” “Then why-” “I don't know what it's going to take to get you to believe me, so I guess I'll just keep saying it until you do. I love you, Leah Rose. I love everything about you, and I do mean everything. And I would never, ever pressure you into doing something that you didn't want to do.” The expression on his face was so intense it was almost a little scary. “I need to know you understand that, Leah. Please tell me you do.” “I… I don't….” Much to my dismay, I burst into tears and started sobbing into my hands. “Sweetheart, what's wrong,” Cole demanded, clearly concerned. He wrapped his arms around me in a tight embrace. “Nothing,” I wailed, sobbing into his chest. “So then why are you crying?” It took me a second to compose myself enough to answer him. “Because I'm just so happy right now,” I sniffled, swiping at my eyes. Cole released me then, and I looked up to see that he was smiling and shaking his head at me. “Come here, you.” Before I could react, he pulled me closer, holding me tight against his chest. Cole gently tilted my chin up to kiss me lightly on the forehead.

TW: The following piece documents true events of sexual assault. Please refrain from reading if personally triggering. Disclaimer: The following events have been disclosed with adults and mental health professionals, and the author is not a danger to herself currently. The record does not need to be reported to a guidance counselor, and no concern for the author is necessary. Thank you. :) I washed my sheets by myself for the first time that night. My blood and his cum splattered the center in horrific modern art. Mama never taught me how to get that out of fabric. It was two weeks after my 15th birthday. I'd say I lost my innocence that afternoon, but the bruises had stained my body for months. Every week he wanted more. And the day I'd been dreading had arrived. His ribs pressed against mine. Our sticky skin stuck together. His hands on me. In me. The right on my mouth. The left clutching my throat. He took my muffled screams as moans. Signs to go faster, signs to go harder. As my thighs stained red, he smiled. I used to love his smile. My cries awoke the city that night until his message lit up my phone. “I'm sorry about today. I love you.” followed by a heart a brighter red than the lines grasping my wrists. I weakly smiled. He loves me. He said he was sorry the first time he choked me too. Sorry the first time he recorded my body. Sorry the first time he kissed another girl. Words of forgiveness had tumbled out of my mouth a million times until they were all I knew. I thought monsters were invisible strangers that sneak into your house when you least expect it. He was my best friend. And, as he often reminded me, it had been almost 3 years since the day he asked me to the movies during 7th grade recess. At the very least, I owed him my body. Besides, he was sorry. Right? It took months of purple legs and ringing ears to break me. Sleepless nights and empty bottles holding the bear he bought me for valentines day when we were 12. I've always wondered why I can't scream in my nightmares. Why my voice slips away when the darkness falls. I finally understood that day as the word “no” danced out of my mouth as gently as the tears on my cheeks. I've showered a thousand times since, but I can't seem to get clean. He touched me in the shower too. Touched me in the kitchen. Touched me in our childhood park. On the roof of our high school. But nothing beat the day he touched me in my bed. He left me for his blonde best friend 26 days later. Said I cried too much. It was the day before our 3 year anniversary, and my room was littered with gifts for him. The next day my broken body lay on the cold bathroom tile. My hands turned white, clutching my orange bottles of antidepressants and sleep medication. As 42 pills slid down my throat, I closed my eyes and, for the first time in weeks, his smile didn't appear in the darkness. I awoke in the cold hospital bed to the IV's piercing my veins. By the time I escaped the psych ward another month later, I was more broken than before. I whispered the story for the first time one night. Mama sat silent for a moment before asking what I was wearing. Said she warned me this was gonna happen if my shoulders saw the world. Dad said maybe if I had paid more attention to Jesus and less to boys, I wouldn't be blubbering. I told my friend that weekend. By the arrival of Monday, the whole school knew. Whispers paved my paths down the halls. One boy claimed he heard I had hit my head and had amnesia. Said that's why I was making up crazy stories. Another girl said I lied for attention. “She probably liked it.” Even those who believed me could never understand. Until I met the curly haired girl who whispered “he touched me too” in the bathroom. I always thought monsters hunted from under the bed. Not on it.

I couldn't tell you about the first time it happened, not even if I wanted to. I don't remember. But I can tell you about the nth time it did. It was probably the same setting as the first time; mother sending me to buy something for her from one of the many shops that littered our street, him hearing our front door close from whatever planet he was on at that moment, me walking down the staircase that linked our first floor apartment to the outside world. I almost never make it to the end of the stairs before he materializes as if from thin air. In truth, he always got there before I did, nothing special about what he was except I was at the age when everything seemed to have a magical meaning. There is never any form of verbal greeting, I think we both preferred it that way. It lasts for about ninety seconds, less if there was someone coming our way because the staircase was a two-way street. It linked us to the outside world and them to us, and quite often, people exercised their basic human right of freedom of movement and ventured into our world. This time though, this nth time, I was not in the mood to please anyone or be a good girl as they sometimes called me yet I couldn't say no. He wasn't hurting me, not doing anything I hadn't consented to, even if not in words but in thought. Resisting wasn't even a concept that was an option to me. I should be grateful, I thought. People didn't do these things with people they didn't like. Yes, he wasn't doing anything TO me. He was doing it WITH me. He didn't find me repulsive like everyone else seemed to. I should be grateful. And I was. Very much so. So why did I never talk about it with anyone I knew? Why did I feel dirty when he would zip his trousers up, pat my back and exit without a word? Why did I want it all to end as fast as possible when this time it didn't take ninety seconds but one hundred and fifty-six? Why was I even counting? Why did I fear for the day he would tire of rubbing himself against me and try to go further like his friend once did? My nine year old brain had no answers for me. My teachers said I was a genius but they were wrong. A genius would know how to say no and make it sound like law. A genius would have found some way to make it all stop because they are too intelligent not to. I could not do any of those things. My teachers thought they knew me. They knew nothing. And I knew nothing too.

4 YEARS OF HORROR LIVING A TOXIC LIFE It was still a mystery how something good turned so sour in just a few years. It felt almost like a switch was flipped off and his humanity was automatically turned off, turning him into a monster of the worst kind. How had I endured all of this for so long?? I felt drained and exhausted from constantly checking my actions to avoid any flaws or mistakes that would unleash the demon in him. Being mentally frustrated was not enough to explain how dehumanized I felt; I was practically scared of my own skin and was always wired to bolt from the slightest scare. How could a man drag a woman's pride in the mud, destroy her self esteem, brutalise her personality and still expected her to love him completely ?? What a toxic world I lived in. My name is Neni and I was trapped for four years of my student life. 2015 *** Stepping into my biology class for the first time felt good because it meant I was grown up enough to handle my life and take care of myself. I have been set free from the shackles of my parents and I had the world at my feet and the heavens just above my head. In my euphoric state I was ecstatic and crazy enough to think if I just reached out my hand I could touch the heavens above and make my wishes come true. More like my worst fears came to life. Meeting Simon was not as dramatic as first love's seem to emphasize. He was my lab partner during computer class and we sort of bonded over trivial discussion while I admired how beautifully created he was. He was very funny, goofy, knew how to charm a woman and make her swoon,very persuasive in a romantic way and was as considerate as any first year student could be. We made time to see each other outside of classes which proved difficult because of our different time tables, class schedules, hostel rules and everything beyond but we tried as much as we could to hang out during games in the evenings. He asked me to be his girlfriend on matriculation day and I gleefully accepted with all my immature heart fluttering and goosebumps lining up my arms which sent chills down my spine, making me feel I had found my missing rib. Four year down the line and it still remained the worst decision of my entire adult life. 2016 *** "Simon, have you seen my ATM card"?, I can't find it anywhere. I lamented bitterly because I needed to use the money my parents sent to me to pay off my school debts. "Yes babe" I have it with me and I need to use some of the money to clear up some stuff I got tangled in, he replied casually. What!! Exactly what are you talking about?? How can you even say such a thing. Please hand over my card I said with my hands outstretched. The vibration from the slap I received gave me nosebleeds and I literally fell to the floor. "Don't you ever question my decisions in this relationship ever again" he yelled and stomped out. I sat down on the cold tiled floor in my shorts and bloodstained white tank top feeling like a hammered drunk, dazed and too useless to move. Ladies and Gentlemen, that was the beginning of many more scary abuses to come. I was currently leaving with simon because we couldn't bear to be apart from each other even for a minute and he didn't want the restrictions the hostel presented so I partially moved in with him in my second year. I remember how loving and caring he was during our first year together, how he lavished me with tenderness and love. He holistically adored the ground on which I walked and worshipped at my feet. He loved my body like it was his, he adored every part of me, reverenced my core, bowed before my gates, asked permission before taking charge and took me on a ride of ecstasy and over the edge with a mastery that only he could perfect. We understood each other perfectly well, we didn't envy others and were content with everything we had until he wasn't. Simon became more cranky, lost interest in school, pilfered some money here and there, made excuses for his absences and spent all his time in the gambling den. The days he didn't win were the worst of them all. Full Story Here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/o04shq93hkaftha/4%20YEARS%20OF%20HORROR%20LIVING%20A%20TOXIC%20LIFE.docx?dl=0

If you have the privilege as a woman to never have been sexually abused or assaulted, it might be difficult for you to understand the mixed emotions you might have towards your abuser. Let me explain better. When someone you love or admire assaults you, you might not hate them immediately, heck, you might never hate them at all. It's difficult to go from admiration and love to hate. It's also a very exhausting process. When my favourite person in the world, outside of my nuclear family assaulted me when I was barely 8 years old, I didn't know how to feel. I was pretty close to my mum so I just had to tell her. Before I did, I made her promise to not flair up. I didn't want my abuser to feel ‘bad'. Obviously, she flared up and banished him from visiting or sleeping over. This was very difficult for all of us because we really loved this person. His mum (of blessed memory) was my favourite aunt and my mum's closest sister. My brothers also didn't know what happened at the time so they didn't understand why he was banished. The next time I met him at a family function, I was worried sick that he would hate me. To give context, this man is about 20 years older than me. I remember how relieved I was when he smiled at me. It meant he didn't hate me. It's been about 15 years since this thing happened and although he took the time to apologize to me when I was much older, I almost can't stand him. It was like one day, a switch flipped in my head and I instantly became angry. But even then, sometimes I still admire him. It's really exhausting. While interning in a broadcast outfit when I was 18, I went to get this exclusive interview with a (now dead) well-known and loved musician. Apart from the fact that he was loved by the general public, I also really loved his music. The interview took place in an apartment. First, we watched him play his instrument and I videoed the whole thing with a smile plastered on my face. I couldn't wait to show my father. I was watching this man play live! This legend! Throughout my stay there, this entertainer kept looking at me funny and making inappropriate sexual comments. I was starting to get uncomfortable but we were so many in the apartment so I didn't really feel threatened. While trying to leave the apartment, this man rushed behind me, held me behind and groped me. I tried to get away from him but he held me firmly. I almost had to be forced away from his grip after I raised an alarm and I immediately ran outside. I really admired this man. I loved his music but I was highly irritated. When I got home, I still showed my family the video before I dropped the bomb. I went to bed that night watching the videos of the talented musician that I really admired with mixed feelings. The days that followed weren't any better. I had to conduct vox-pops on this man, asking people what they loved about him. I didn't even know how to feel. When he died and I kept seeing the news everywhere, all I could remember was the humiliating incident. My best friend asked me if I was okay, and my mother told me how uncomfortable she felt seeing everyone worship the man and was wondering how I felt about it. How did I feel? Was I glad that he had died? Did I hate him or dislike him? Honestly, no. Do I still think his music is great? Yes. Would I listen to his songs? Maybe. Sometimes I think about these unfortunate experiences and I'm angry with myself for not hating my abusers. I should hate them right? Imagine not knowing how to feel about a terrible thing someone has done to you because you remember all the good that they have done. If you're feeling this way, I just want to let you know that it's okay to feel what you feel. Sometimes you hate them and sometimes you don't. But don't ever beat yourself up about feeling any type of way. If you feel like you can forgive them, it's fine but if you can't forgive them, that's equally okay. I've heard people talk about how it is impossible to heal from abuse if you don't forgive your abuser but I've also read too many articles that say otherwise. People shouldn't tell you how to feel about these things, it's pretty complex so it's okay to heal at your own pace.

It happened to me as a child. I felt no grievance on it until I reached the age when I learned about sex and the cultures that revolved around it. Not just that, really. I discovered how sacred it was in my culture and I had my innocence stripped out from me just like that. My childhood consisted of crying myself to sleep with my mouth pressed against the pillow to contain the wail. Filipinos practice respect through taking an elder's hand to our forehead, and whenever I took my mother's hand every time I came home from school, I kept my head as low as like gluing my chin to my collar bone so that she would not see the breaking of my eyes. My mother saw through me. I could not tell her how it went because I was ashamed—I did not even know how to be ashamed of anything yet but I knew that I was. My mind spun like a dying moth. My mother could not save me because she did not know what was going on in the first place. There was no council nor therapy—we knew nothing about it then. I was a really happy kid so she assumed that perhaps it was only a phase. The one thing that I could remember her telling me was, "keep yourself busy." It was supposed to distract me from recurring thoughts and episodes. So I did. I graduated valedictorian. I got into a prestigious high school that taught me adaptability. I made many friends yet I did not let them in too close to my past. I was welcoming but resistive. I knew there was a mask I carried through which I hid almost all of my childhood away from the world. The person I created myself as was a hustler. I got into college, maintained good grades, and I was everywhere. I directed plays and films, danced, wrote music and performed poetry. All that happened within freshman and sophomore years alone. Yet some days, I found myself sinking in my own stomach. I kept myself busy for the sake of it and the wounds nevertheless persisted. Underneath the victories, I developed all sorts of behaviours and mechanisms. I was easily angered at myself, distracted, and I was impatient and insecure. People did not see my hurt and anxiety because I invested in them. I put my happiness in them. I wanted to cultivate love in relationships because I could not do it to myself. I was aware of how I had become and how tired I was getting yet I also knew that I had to do something about it. But I was in the race and stopping only meant plunging back to the darkest corners of my mind. It took a pandemic to pin me down to my seat. I was once again alone with myself. I tried to recall how that one single incident had led me to so much distress in all the years. He was only a boy, a playmate, who knew enough to sway me into something I did not understand. Its ripples had thrown me as far as the ocean could go and everything good about my life disintegrated in the water. During the quarantine, the topic on sexual harassment trended on Twitter. Experiences of women in my country, including my own friends, surfaced and created a chain of upsetting stories. It broke me to pieces. It broke me because I realised that I was not alone. A lot of them had even gone through worse situations. Some cases happened more recently—by strangers, friends, boyfriends or even their own teachers. Some experienced it when they were still kids as well but with cousins, uncles or family friends. It was horrific to realise that a large number of women had bottled up their trauma while their perpetrators roamed freely and perhaps had not even fully recognised their actions and the impact they made to the victims. I was angry at why we normalise not telling. I was angry about people's refusal to communicate these problems—especially to kids who cannot fully understand their own actions. Why do institutions turn their faces away and neglect narratives of women that were sexually assaulted, harassed or raped? Why do people continue to try to point the blame on how women dress or behave? It happened to me as a child. No little girl deserves a life lived inside a shell because she fears what people could do. She does not deserve to experience such terrible events in her childhood that could damage her mental stability. No woman deserves to carry wounds for the rest of her life just because men want to pleasure themselves in such a way that results to thieving women's sanity and peace. No teenager deserves the weariness of feeling guilty, ashamed and insecure. Toxic patriarchal cultures still continue. No woman has to repeat herself over and over again about consent and respect. Women had gone too far off the edge and it will always be a valid reason to speak up. This problem exists all over the world and if we do not address issues on women; teenagers; little girls or anybody who falls into the pits of sexual predation, we allow the world to believe it's okay. I have a baby sister. She is three years old. My justice begins with her.

Here is the beautiful book cover that Friesen press created for Viktor. Isn't it awesome?! I love it! I hope you like it too!

Today, I read a small introduction to a webinar I am taking through Friesen Press and it told me that I am an Authorpreneur. The term is very unique to me and it made me feel like my life long writing career has become just that, a legitimized career. I have been an Entrepreneur since the age of four with my first lemonade stand out side my parents house. I've always known I was a business minded person and today my writing career has really solidified it's position in my life. I am so overjoyed because the job part finally feels real and to be so open to the world is such an amazing and overwhelming feeling. I am humbled by this new experience. This is truly an amazing moment. In the next post, I'll have some examples of my work for You. My exciting novel "Viktor, Into the Light" will be coming out in the summer of 2020 and my Thanks goes to Friesen Press for making this lifelong dream come true. Viktor, called an "epic" good versus evil story by Friesen Press excites me to tell you about it. He's sexy and moral. He discovers a few things about his family and longs for one of his own. Look for it in the Friesen Press bookstore or eBooks and give a copy to your staff, friends, mother, sister, or your aunties. Viktor is a satisfying read for anyone 14+. Well, I'll post some examples of my work for you now. See you in the next post. Julie Ann

My son was 17 when Dr. Christine Blasey Ford accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. I was busy in the kitchen when my son bustled down the stairs yelling, “Mom! Where are you?” Finding me at the stove, he asked if I was aware of the accusations. Elated he was up-to-date on current events, I turned to give him full attention. “Can you believe this woman is accusing him of sexual abuse that supposedly happened 30 years ago? Why did she wait until now? I think some women want attention by accusing men when they get famous.” I was incensed. I wanted to confront my son with statistics- to throw every scholarly article on sexual assault in his face. But I knew if I did, I would not only close the door on further discussions but slam it in his face. His words triggered deep wounds. I was also 17 when my gym teacher sexually assaulted me. He told me not to tell anyone, and quite frankly, I was afraid of him. He had all the power. When my parents found a letter to my friend detailing the assault, they contacted the school. Called to the principal's office, I encountered two angry men who stood by the coach's denial and accused me of lying. It was his word against mine-I had no proof. The coach was not fired and remained at the school. It is traumatic to be sexually assaulted, but to be shamed and called a liar compounds the trauma. False reports of sexual abuse are rare. Unfortunately, there is a cognitive dissonance that occurs when we hear about sexual assault, making it difficult for people to believe that it can be true- especially when the accused is famous, well-respected, or influential. I didn't know how to help my son understand this dynamic, but the silence was no longer an option. I had only one choice, and it would require a vulnerability my son had not seen from me. During a relaxing family trip to the mountains, my son and I were sitting on the deck of the log cabin enveloped by the gentle winds, the cacophony of birdsong, and the smell of the musty forest floor. Reluctantly, my voice quivering, my stomach full of bumblebees, I told my story. I shared what it feels like as a victim of sexual abuse; how hard it is to tell someone; how demoralizing it is to be discounted, shamed, and silenced. His gaze intense, I could see anger, pain, and compassion. It would have been easier to keep my secret, to share facts, figures, and scholarly research in the hope my son would see the issue from a different angle, but it would have eliminated the human component of a sexual assault. It is one thing to read about it; it's another to know the victim. Recently, my son asked for my abuser's name as I hadn't revealed this. When I asked him why it was so important, he said, “Because I want to hunt him down.” I guess our next conversation will focus on nonviolent activism, but for now, I have to remember he is 17 and loves his mama.

Don't blame yourself. No one sees it at first. She's a fifteen-year-old girl on that frozen park bench, sitting on her hands to keep them from getting just as cold as her nose. Your eyes catch sight of the way her hair is dampened and unkempt. Her clothes are torn, hanging off of her body to reveal the story on her skin that she wished no one would ever read. And her face...it's covered in the grime of the city's malice. Did she fall? No one sees it. Her heart is cracked and bloody. The red consequence that pours from it is becoming frozen in these conditions. If she were to tell you that she is growing cold, you would reply you were too. It is, indeed, time for the leaves to take their last leap from the arms of the near-barren trees. Clouds should soon stop crying and instead begin to throw fistfuls of white during their seasonal temper tantrums. But then she'd take you by surprise. She would correct you and say, “No, from the inside. It isn't the outside world causing frost upon my skin. It's my heart, a glacial virus causing my light to fade out into an eternal darkness.” It's all happening so fast in front of everyone's eyes, and still, no one sees it. She didn't fall as once presumed. She was pushed. No one saw it. You didn't either. Not at first. Not until her heart - which had been freezing since he'd first laid a hand on her - cracked. Not until it made a sound so deafening that no one was able to hear another. It was as if lightening struck the ground directly in front of you, and finally, you stopped to pay attention. You were alert. You were looking around for an answer to the question no one has understood: "Why?" And finally, you had the morality to focus on investigating what lay beneath the silence that had followed the explosion of ice from her heart. You realized that she was alone. No mother. No father. No sibling in sight. When you approached her, feet crunching atop the chunks of ice that had flown from her insides like daggers - warnings to stay away - you saw the dirty tears staining her cheeks. You were left to wonder what had happened. Why was she so cold? Maybe she didn't fall. She didn't just stumble because she was clumsy. She was shoved into the calloused, tainted hands of the world. And now you stand in front of her. She sits still on the bench, staring straight ahead with no life left in her eyes. Your chest is level with her face. She doesn't move. You could tell that whoever this girl was is no longer here. A person once known is now a person someone knew. The tears are taking turns rolling down the flushed, red tinted hills named cheeks, but her face is becalmed. A snowflake fallen from the sky lands on her cheek and turns to ice instead of melting away. In a whisper, you ask her what's wrong. She emotionlessly makes eye contact. Your heart clenches and your stomach drops at the visible vacancy inside of her. “I wandered too far,” she replies. “Mother told me the streets weren't safe. She told me not to cross the bridge...I did. I crossed." She looks away again. "I can't go back.” You ask her why. You offer to walk home with her. She could get cleaned up. All better. She'll be fine tomorrow once she gets a new pair of socks and a warm bath. But she rejects you, pushes you away. She says she knows now that strangers are not to be trusted. She can't cross the bridge. For if she does, she will let the wind push her off. She will beg the breeze to be strong enough to cause the ground to disappear from underneath her. She will hit the ground and fall into a pile of beautiful crushed bones and pain. It sounds beautiful to her, anyway. Don't blame yourself. No one sees it at first. Not even you. Maybe you were distracted or just wished to mind your own business. But if you held the candle a little closer, you could see that what she really yearned for was a hand to hold. She was manhandled. Used. Who she used to be was shattered into a thousand pieces and brushed under the rug for no person to ever see again. If they would just look a little closer, they'd see that she is crying out for help. She is not begging to be looked at. She is not begging for the eyes of those around her. She is begging for someone to pull her up from the top before it's too late. She is screaming for someone to toss the rope down before she's stuck in The Pit forever, all alone as she grows colder and colder from the inside out. All alone until she becomes absolutely nothing.