Take a Look At Yourself

Storming into the editor’s office, I slammed my hands on his desk. The portly man looked up and into my eyes. At first, I wondered if he was scared to see me. But then I saw excitement race through his beady eyes. He was exactly like my father and Damian. He was the scum of the earth.

“WHO THE FUCK GAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO LIBEL ME LIKE THIS?” My voice was quiet and loud at the same time. I had never been angry like this, not even after my last rape.

“It’s not libel if it’s true.”

I seethed. My vision turned red for a second. I had never believed that crap about seeing red when you were angry. My anger had always been silent. No one ever saw me break. It was let out slowly through soccer and running. But I had had enough.

My father and someone I thought of as an uncle had raped me for two years. They threatened to kill me. They treated me like I was nothing. But they had always been safe and careful. Their careers would be ruined if they had ever gotten me pregnant. And they never had. I had never aborted. Technically, I was still a virgin.

“This is not me. You can tell from the body type and the hair. That doctor you talked to isn’t even a real doctor. You turned into TMZ because you have some personal vendetta against me. Do you know who my father is?” I tried to never use my father. He was a powerful man, but I rarely needed him.

Everything I had done in my life, I had done by myself. I became the best player in high school by myself. I got into college by myself. I became a national championship three times over by myself. I didn’t need my father, but if this garbage excuse of a man was going to tell people I had had an abortion and put that on my father, he was going to pay the price.

The editor looked me over. I could see him take in my body. I had a nice body, even if it had taken me years to appreciate it. His beady eyes finally looked into my eyes. His face went dead. I think he could see how dead my own eyes were. This wasn’t something I was going to let down. If he thought he could make my life worse than it already was, I was going to make his a fucking nightmare.

“… Should I?”

“Yes, you should.” Pulling my phone out, I took pictures of the article and sent them to my father. It only took a couple of seconds before my phone rang.

I handed it to the editor. “I suggest you talk to him.”

The editor’s hand was shaky as he held onto my cell. “Hello. Mr. Harrison?”

My father’s voice was sinister on the other end. “You will not post that article. You will delete and destroy every single copy. If I so much as catch a whiff of this libel and slander, I will take you to court and ruin every single aspect of your life. You have nothing but lies. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

The editor handed my phone back to me and started going through his computer. I put the phone to my ear. “Why would they write that shit, Carmen?”

I could hear the anger in his voice. When it came to fucking up, it was always on me. “They did this against every major player on the football team, father. Mine just happened to be the most fucked up and the one with the most lies.”

“Do better, Carmen.” He hung up. That about summed up our relationship.

I wrote down my father’s number and email and handed it to the beady-eyed editor. “Don’t you ever fuck with me or my team again.”
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Matt held onto my hand as I walked into my apartment. We hadn’t talked the entire ride back to my apartment. I wasn’t sure if he was still reconciling what my father had done or if he was trying to figure out why I had brought my father in to stop the paper.

“That was kind of hot, Carmen.” Matt licked his lower lip. “Look, I was serious about fighting your father and Damian together. What they did to you is so beyond fucked up. I want to hurt them, but we need to make a plan.”

I bit my lip and stared at the cute dimpled man. “What do you have in mind?”

“It needs to wait until after the season, and it’s going to involve all my friends.”

Notes

Updating... might actually be more frequent with these now.