The Book I've Avoided

I signed up for a book club. Not new. I love to read. I love to gather. But the book I began listening to tonight is different and I guess I knew it would be because when I started it I also got to peeling a large bag of apples I’ve ignored for a while on my counter and turn them into a sugar filled apple crisp which I will eat with ice cream…maybe two servings. The book is called Girls Like Us by Rachelle Lloyd. And tonight, I need to listen to the prologue and two chapters to be discussed at Book Club tomorrow. As soon as it starts, I know I’m going to write this piece. It starts off with Rachelle, a seasoned advocate for girls who have been trafficked and exploited, being totally shocked that an 11-year-old has been trafficked. It starts off with me being shocked that this 11-year-old gets what was happening to her, shares it with the author and shares that her 14-year-old and 16-year-old sisters were also being trafficked. I know right away this is going to be tough to get through. And I’m right.

I’ve pushed…pushed…pushed from my mind the terrible…terrible…. terrible thoughts about what most certainly happened to the girls I mentor and to the many girls I’ve met at different functions held by the organization I volunteer with. This book is flaying open those thoughts and I’m very thankful to have the busy work of peeling apples and praying that the sugary dessert I’ll have once it’s done will do it’s job and make me feel satisfied and warm because I’m certainly going to need it. Ahhhhhh, Sugar….my drug of choice. As I listen, I allow myself something very, very, very rare…memories best not remembered. I’m allowing this to bring myself to a reality I have not fully embraced but have had fleeting thoughts about. I am much different than the girls I mentor and serve by being a part of Purchased. As a child trafficked, I was treated rather softly. I was coddled, I was cuddled, I was groomed softly and kindly. I was not beaten; I was not injured. I was threatened with my family being murdered, threated that no one would believe me, threatened that I could be hurt if I said anything…. but really…” what is there to tell?”. “After all we are playing just a game which YOU also like”. These are the words of a groomer, a predator, a professional child rapist. The girls we mentor…most of them have experienced “The Life” something I know little about, something I’ve opened my mind to learn about. Something I’m learning about right now as I listen to this book called Girls Like Us and realize…I am not one of “Us”. I am different in a way that sometimes blinds me or maybe that’s wrong…maybe it’s not blind as much as just numbs me? I haven’t worked that out yet. And I’m back now to the pushing of the terrible thoughts out of my mind. It’s so hard. So hard to think about it. Even now…it brings bile to my throat and pain to my chest and tears to my eyes and I want to retch. These girls…these girls who giggle with me over some silly joke, who love cheap jewelry and baggy shirts and ripped jeans and long pointy fingernails painted bright colors, and cheeseburgers. These girls have experienced rape, assault, terror like I cannot fathom. Violence. Abandonment.

Rachelle, the author, seems intent upon ripping the band-aid off this wound I have been protecting (or numbing with my sugar addiction, or maybe sometimes a few too many cocktails, or just good old-fashion denial?). My reflex is to step away from this pain. I mean seriously…I’m sitting here, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to make it go away. I sort of giggle to myself maniacally at the thought of someone coming along and prying my eyes open and saying….LOOOK at it!!!!! And then of course immediate tears as I do, in fact, begin to look at it. If this surprises you…well join the club. But I had to share, had to say it, had to LOOOK at it. Learning more will only embolden me further to share what I know and to work harder to be an advocate.

Rachelle is the founder and CEO of GEMS (Girls Educational & Mentoring Services) she’s telling me her story now. She’s mentioned being victim to sexual abuse at the age of 3, she is the child of alcoholics, a product of violence. She will go on to move from England to New York and she will lie about her age to work and even though we haven’t quite gotten there I know she will fall prey to the sex industry and she will be called a Teenage Prostitute. And therefore, I am writing this piece. It is to remind you and me that the teenage girl who may seem to “be just fine in making her own decisions” or “knows what she’s doing” is not a teenage prostitute. She (I’ve been remiss) and just as often He is a Teenager.

Did you notice that period there? I did that on purpose. There is no such thing as a teenage prostitute. There is such a thing as a trafficked child and that is what they are. Those girls-really let this sink in-those girls who giggle over a silly joke, who think I’m cool because I can blast Lizzo in my Jeep and know all the words, who worry over their hair and their outfit…just like all teenagers do…those girls are victims, not willing participants. This is not something we can agree to disagree on…this is not debatable.

I will leave you with that. I have more to learn, chapters to go and an apple crisp to devour.