Life was incredibly hard for us. Mom was always working two jobs, but we never had enough money. Then she started doing some small-scale trading on the side. Money started coming in, but we still didn't have a place of our own.
Mom took out a loan for a business venture, but it failed. We lost everything we had and had to move to the countryside to live with Grandma. We rented a small house there. I made a lot of friends. I had just turned 12.
Two years later, a man showed up at our door claiming to be my father. It turned out he had been in prison all this time. I was horrified. I couldn't believe that this strange man covered in tattoos was supposed to be my dad. He asked Mom to sell her room in the communal apartment she still owned, promising to give her twenty thousand for my education. Mom agreed because we were desperate for money. But I told her I didn't want his money, that we could manage without it, and I went to stay with Grandma because I couldn't stand to be around him. Mom had to go away on a business trip, so he stayed on at the house to help out with some chores.
During one of his drinking binges, he got into a fight and stabbed a neighbor to death. He was sent straight back to prison. They gave him 12 years in a maximum-security facility. Now he writes us letters, calling me his daughter, saying I'm in his heart, that he's just a victim of a cruel fate, and he signs off with, "Love, your Father!"
But I refuse to consider that man my father! Even though they say you can't choose your family. I wrote him a letter telling him to leave me alone.
Sometime after that, Grandma let us live in her one-bedroom apartment in town that she used to rent out. On weekends, I'd go with Mom to visit Grandma in the countryside. I still had friends there. People respected me, but I never really got serious with any of the guys. I'd hang out with a boy for a week or so, but nothing more. I wasn't sexually active.
This past summer, something terrible happened to me in the village. One evening, I went out for a walk with a girlfriend. We were hanging out at our usual spot near the store with a group of kids our age, and we stayed out late. A van pulled up, and a guy we knew got out. He suggested we all go swimming in the river. Everyone agreed. He pulled me aside and told me he'd always liked me and wanted us to be together. But I knew his reputation. People said he was a player, a womanizer. I didn't believe him.
Then everything happened so fast. The van turned around and pulled up right next to us. The door slid open, someone grabbed my arms and yanked me towards the cab, and he pushed me from behind, shoving me inside. It was over in seconds. He jumped in after me, and the van tore off. Inside, there were five guys, all older, all drunk. I screamed and tried to fight them off, but they held me down. Then they drove me into the woods. When the van stopped, four of them got out, leaving me alone with him. He beat me and raped me. He grabbed me by the hair and smashed my head against the side of the van.
When he was finished, he got out and called the next one in. The next guy jumped in, already undressed, and he beat me for a long time too. I fought back, but he raped me anyway. After him, a third one climbed in. He started yelling at me and hitting me, but the others outside stopped him from raping me. They were afraid I might die. Then they just threw me out of the van and drove away.
I was so terrified, alone in those woods, half-dressed, barefoot, beaten, and utterly broken. Before they left, they threatened me: if I told anyone, it would be worse for me. They said I wasn't the first, that they had connections and would get away with it, and that I'd never be able to prove anything anyway.
I didn't want to live anymore. But somehow, I managed to get out of those woods. I cried and screamed for a long time, I think I almost lost my mind, but I crawled home. I managed to get the door open quietly; everyone was asleep. I found some of Mom's pills and swallowed them all. Then I went out to the yard, found a shard of glass, climbed up to the attic, and tried to slit my wrists. But I was too weak and exhausted, and I blacked out.
When I woke up, it was already light outside. Mom thought I had stayed out all night without permission and was ready to scold me. But when she saw me and heard what I told her, she ran straight to the police.
They identified those monsters within three hours—after all, I had been taken right in front of witnesses. They arrested them, but not all of them. Just the two who actually raped me. The others were considered witnesses, even though none of them helped me or intervened. They all gave their statements, describing how those two had beaten and raped me. But I heard them standing by the van, laughing. One of them even said not to hit me in the face, so there wouldn't be any bruises.
After that, they put me in a psychiatric hospital. I didn't want to live. I screamed at night, refused to eat, and was terrified of the dark. I spent a month in the hospital. After the treatment and talking with a psychologist, I calmed down a little. Right after me, my mom spent a month in the same ward. Her legs had given out, she couldn't walk.
The investigation dragged on for six months. The trial was in December. They each got four and a half years in a medium-security prison. The first one never admitted his guilt. The second one said he thought I was a prostitute and didn't know I was only 16. The others just played the part of outraged witnesses. And now they're out there living with clear consciences, big strong guys who did nothing to stop it, who didn't protect me, didn't help me.
The prosecutor appealed the sentence, but I was just so tired. All my friends turned their backs on me, except for one. No one wanted to go to the investigator or to the court. They were too scared.
Now I feel so dirty, so defiled. I don't know how to go on living like this. I've learned what it means to be betrayed by your friends. I don't believe there will ever be love in my life, that anyone could ever want me. I've lost all interest in living. The only reason I'm still here is because I feel so sorry for my mom.
A month ago, I had another breakdown. I tried to kill myself. I cut my wrists in the bathtub, hit an artery, and lost a lot of blood. Someone found me in time and rushed me to the hospital. They put me under and stitched up my arm in the ICU. When I woke up, I was so scared. Scared for my mom, for my sister. I don't want to die anymore. But the memories of those guys, they won't let me live. I'm trying so hard to forget.
Right now, I'm finishing high school through a correspondence program and working as a dishwasher at a café to help my mom out. She's really fallen apart, she's sick all the time. I don't have a personal life. I don't go anywhere. I don't trust guys. And I don't have any friends, except for one girl who sees life differently than I do. She still has hope.
Please, help me! I'd like to have some pen pals. Tell me, how do I go on living? How do I forget this nightmare? I want so badly to believe in human kindness and justice.
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