Dear Reader,

I would just like to take this moment to say that while some events of this story maybe be fiction, at least a good 80 percent of this story is based on facts – my facts. This story had happened to me, about three or four years ago when I was sixth grade. The reason why I am writing about this, is for you not to feel bad about me, it’s for you to see what happens when one girls’ word causes an entire community to go against one another. How, your neighbor you’ve known almost your entire life, seems like a total stranger to you the minute something like this happens. My own personal demons have been following me around for the last few years, reminding me of the past. I had spoken to my social worker at school, and when I had told her of this event, she had suggested that I write about it, and that was exactly what I had decided to do. When I think back to this event, I always wonder to myself what exactly would have happened if maybe my friend hadn’t cried Wolf, if maybe things could possibly be different. Our community was torn apart. Friends became enemies, as you will read in the story, and family members turn to strangers. As two girls’ had to make a choice for one mans life. Sometimes, I lay awake at night wondering when my demons will vanish. My friends and family, and their families, have tried to lock away the skeletons in their closet, but no matter how much any of us try, we will always be reminded of that day. I thought that those months would never end. My friends, my family, my friends family; they all had to take that stand, and revel events of themselves that no one knew about. Their hidden agenda’s were just poured out to the entire community. I had to do that as well. Nothing’s really been the same. This is just more then rape, this is about four girls’, and about how one night can make a huge difference; how two nights can scar a girl for life.

For the protection of my friends, family, their families, and myself, I had changed names, dates, and location. The narrator, Natalie, is truly my sister – though that’s not her name. I had used her to tell the story, because, somehow I couldn’t get myself to tell it from my own point of view. I know this might sound strange, but I had thought that if I could voice myself from someone else’s point of view, even if I had made my own personal character. I still wasn’t able to get myself to do so, because even my character has a difficult time admitting the truth. That Night did truly happen, and so did the night my friend who had claimed rape. I could never be able to recover; I don’t think any of my friends, or any of the other characters in this book. They are all still here, and they all still pretend nothing happened.

I am basically writing this story because sometimes what a person says, can’t always be true, and sometimes we have to do things that we know are wrong but still we do them because we have an unspoken obligation to that person – no matter how much they’ve hurt us. How, we have to look at things through someone else’s eyes, and how sometimes, how a person you’ve known you’re entire life, can truly be someone else. It’s difficult to explain this message I’m trying to give, but I just hope that this might be a lesson learned to all of us. I guess, what I’m trying to say is that sometimes we get lost in what we see, instead of listening when it truly matters. Sometimes, we don’t read between the lines of true words being spoken, and we lose people in the end. Experience is a difficult teacher; she gives the test first and then the lesson. I hope, you can all understand what I’m trying to say. I don’t want any of this to happen to others.

Well, that’s all I’m going to say for the moment. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy this story.

Tomgirl.