ME TOO

From across the room Sarah recognized the young woman sitting with him at a table in a dimly-it corner of the restaurant. She knew she would find him here, but didn’t expect to see the girl whom she had often wondered about during her absence—wondered if she or others, known and unknown, were being exploited, controlled, and abused, as she had been. Two years had passed since she had seen either one of them. He was the reason she had left town, and now, the reason she had returned, with a capacity she did not have as a child of seven years old when it all began--courage.

She sat calmly at first, strengthened by the knowledge that something was to be done, something she had set into motion that would expose him. So many thoughts, feelings and fears filled her mind and heart. But anger was the motivator that would transform into courage to take action. The fire of anger building over years of humiliation, shame, confusion and despair was now now the burning courage to confront him, and to save her friend if she could. 

Now she stood fueled with that courage and walked over to the corner table. She wanted to scream, to rage, but being in a public place, part of her strategy, and having prepared for so long for this moment, she knew that she must act and speak out of that center of courage, of certainty to stand her ground. The calm of utter certainty expressed in her whole being was what was needed  to free finally free herself, and her friend and maybe others. She took a deep breath, determined to moderate at least her voice, though her eyes belied the calm when she looked upon the face of the predetor, the thief who stole her childhood.

"I remember you."  He was startled at the interuption and did not recognize her at first.  “Doing the same thing to her that you did to me?” Then to her young friend, whose face was inscrutibly blank, and not quite present--almost in a trance-like state. “Come, let' go for a walk now, and you will be safe, I promise.” 

“Who are you?” You have no business...." he spoke, as if she were a stranger, but his eyes and his nervous gestures also revealed that he knew exactly who she was and that he would, for the first time in his life be accountable.

“Sarah, what are you doing here? Where have you been?” the younger woman seemed to awaken in that moment to her friend who had disappeared without a word of why or a goodbye.

“You’d better leave right now, or I’ll call the police,” he demanded, but already the young woman had gotten up to stand beside her long-lost friend who put an arm around her shoulder. It was the first time in her life she had felt someone saw, knew and would protect and defend her. 

"Oh, they have already been called." and the case is in the works, so go home alone, and wait for all the others to come forward who also remember who and what you are and have done to them."

The two women looked at each other deep and long in silence, with the knowledge of what the other had experienced. They felt an unfamiliar strength in the invisible bond now forged between them—and a bridge formed to somewhere else that they would cross together. 

“You too?” the young woman asked, now in tears.

“Me too.” But no more! We are free now."

“Sit back down,” he commanded the young woman, but already his power had shattered the illusion that her fate was sealed. Never again would he be able to control either of the women he had manipulated and abused, but, nevertheless would endure the life-long effects of what what they had experienced. Still, now there was a way toward healing, recovey--and  most of all no longer captives.

“We are in a public place now, not like when we were kids and you could get away with it.” Sarah, reeling and feeling faint to think of the past and of how many others, and for how many years. 

“You have a great imagination it seems, or maybe your fantasies? I don’t even know who you are.” 

“Well, we know who and what you are.  "No, not my imagination or fantasy, but yours--now exposed. Now it is out in the light of day and there will be a reckoning. It's over."

Sarah gently pulled the young woman closer to her, guiding her away from the table, and wondered how many others would come forward with the investigation that was well underway, but she couldn’t think about that now. It was time to turn away from the past and cross that long bridge--one step at a time.

The younger woman began to cry, at first softly, then as if gasping for breath. When they emerged into the clear night air, her whole body convulsed in waves of cold pain and dark shame. Walking along the tree-lined street. Sarah, also in tears looked to the stars peeking through the black branches silhouetted against the sky, clouds at the horizon luminous as the full moon bared its face behind them--silver linings against the dark heavens.

The sobs subsided into quiet breathing. Together the woman felt the promise of calm after a storm--and a feeling of light and warmth that might slowly, if never fully, eclipse the dark and cold and now--something completely new—something never before known or even imagined: HOPE.