She couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she remembered the man who hurt her. She could still feel his hands on her shoulder. This was impossible. She turned over onto her side and curled tighter into a ball. She had run, but he had chased. She hadn’t known for sure. She’d just guessed and been terribly right. She felt awful. The bruises hurt, but her emotions too the most damage. What if he found her again. What if he did the things he yelled at her this time? What if he took this freedom she’d just found with her grandmother and stripped it away from her.
She pulled her knees to her forehead and took shallow breaths. She couldn’t manage a deep one. It was too rough right now. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind for that. She couldn’t stay here. What if he followed her home. What if he already knew where she lived? What if he hurt her grandmother, too? She whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut. She hadn’t done anything.
She was pretty sure she hadn’t done anything, at least. She didn’t think she teased the man or said anything rude. She had just gone out to buy groceries. He had been there. He kept trying to talk to her, but she didn’t know what to say. She wished he’d never seen her. She wished she wasn’t so easy to notice. Maybe she had done something wrong. Maybe she couldn’t remember it right, or maybe it was one of those small things girls did wrong around men that made them her them.
All Lila wanted to do was disappear into her bed and vanish forever. It must have been her fault. It wasn’t the first time men yelled at her or called at her from the streets. She never responded, she always ran. Something was wrong about how she handled them, that had to be it. She had to find out what she was doing wrong and she had to fix it. She couldn’t deal with this much longer, it was all too much for one girl to bear. She had to find an end to the calls and grabbing and tugging. She had to get away from it without bringing it on another person. She had to find the solution on her own.
Tomorrow, she would go on a walk. She wouldn’t come back until she figured things out better. She would come back stronger and she would protect herself and she would protect other people who were being hurt like this. She would make a change for them as best as she could. She would make a change for everyone. All she needed to do was get away and think, just for a little while. That was all it needed to take. She sniffed and rubbed at her nose. She’d made up her mind. She had to go.