Deception and Manipulation

Jeffrey Curtis Campbell was my best friend for two years. We confided everything in one another. He abused that rare friendship.

One day I was having flashbacks and horrible night terrors and I ran to Jeff for comfort. He was the only one that knew about Jason and the two years of my personal, torturous "living hell." It was easier for me to talk to him, than to go and explain everything to somebody new.

Jeff had a few people over and they were all drinking. He offered me a drink, knowing my past addiction to alcohol. It was only an hour or so before I was completely drunk. Then Jeff offered me to smoke a joint with them. As my judgement and defenses were down, I accepted and tried marijuana for the first time. Being that I am asthmatic, I had an adverse reaction in my lungs. I felt the need to lay down on the couch. Some more people showed up and Jeff told me that it might be quieter if I laid down in his bedroom. It wasn't long after, that he joined me in his bed.

He was telling me about a conversation that I had a couple of months before about him being a player, and leading that lifestyle. I warned him of the dangers when playing with the heart, and told him that basically he needed to choose one woman and spend the rest of his life with her monogomously. He then started to tell me that he realized a little too late that he should be responsible for his choices. He said that he has loved me for the last two years and he never acted upon it because he was afraid of rejection. "You are the one that I want to settle down with." He started touching and kissing me like he never had before. I pushed him away and told him "NO" several times. He didn't want to take "NO" for an answer. And I was no longer strong enough to fight him off, I could barely mumble the words "DON'T" and "NO" out of my mouth. It was as if my muscles were non-existant. I was in an extra slow mode, and couldn't function properly. Jeff asked me if it had ever been special to me, knowing that it hadn't been. In all terms, I was still a virgin of my own free will, and he wanted to make it special and show me what making love was all about. So, he took my womanhood from me when I was too weak to defend myself.

Walking out of the bedroom and on my way home, I was thinking.... "I'm not so much that... Well, what's the difference? How was that so special? I watched the clock for fear that it would never end.... 10:03.... 10:04.... 10:05.... 10:06.... Thank God, he's finished. I could tell, by the look on his face alone, that he was lying through his teeth... saying 'I Love You' really meant 'I'm having an orgasm.' I vow never to live through that experience again. For such great expectations, sex turned out to be a lemon.

Reaching my front steps, my insides began to sizzle and my concious is the frying pan. What was supposed to be special wasn't. What was supposed to mean something, didn't. The true act of love was nothing more than a vial sin. I got undressed and jumped into the shower. How could I sell myself, my body, and my soul? Literally handing it to him on a platter. Yeuck!

Disgust eats away at my brain, as the scalding hot water rots away my flesh, before it falls from my back and into the tub. I felt more of a need to be clean than I ever felt before, even when Jason raped me. But the difference is this WAS my fault and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't wash away my guilt, my own currupted soul, or that feeling of shame.

Then it hit me, when I was getting dressed in front of the mirror. The light glistened off my body as if I was a statue in a museum. It was at that moment I realized what I had done. I knew that I was pregnant. I started to think of how and in what order I was going to be able to tell everyone.

I finally got up the nerve to take myself to a doctor. I found out for sure that I was pregnant the day before my senior year. I immediately went to Jeff's house.

The shock and instant devastation set into him, like I just knocked him upside the head with a brick. It slowly teared away at his face, "Are you sure?" "Well, why would I tell you if I wasn't," showing him the slip I received from the doctor. Jeff sat down and pulled his hands through his thick curly hair, leaving many strands between his fingers. His eyes turned coal black as if to show that he had a heart of stone. Bags pressed against his cheekbones so hard I thought his eyes would pop out of his head. Fighting back the tears I held inside, I kept looking for anything to hold on to. If Jeff wasn't going to be there for me, who was... Definately not his long term girlfriend who was peeking out from the shade at us. Not his neighbors mowing the lawn. And I looked back at the road, not even my friends were there for me. They just sat in the car giggling, as if I was playing some sort of game. When is this game going to end? When do I reach the big white mansion and get paid $20,000 for each child I had along the way.... When does this happen? Not only was this not a game, but I was alone in this. Jeff then said that he didn't blame me and that he would never bail out on me. But I still couldn't trust him, and with good reason.

the next evening the telephone rang. It was Jeff. "I think that, uh.... I'm not sure if.... how to say this.... uh.... to you... well, we are both way too young..... you see... to have to be parents.... and I'm not ready for it... and you aren't either.... so it looks... as though....the only possible choice here.... is to 'get rid of it.'" I hung up on him. That's no answer to anything, except how to run away from my problems. How do I make Jeff understand that I can't and won't go through that. I'm having this child whether he likes it or not.

Starting my senior year was another story. The principal found out that I was pregnant, and tried to harass me into attending night classes to receive my GED. "In order to attend this high school, you have to follow certain standards. And you can understand how bad it looks for every high school student to know that you are pregnant, and they will get pregnant too." I decked him and got myself suspended for the first week of school. By the time that I returned, the whole school knew about my pregnancy. Some didn't believe me and thought that I was lying to trap Jeff into dating me. These people threw things at me, spit at me, would pull my hair while I was walking down the hall. The ones who knew that I wasn't joking practically disowned me. They didn't want to be treated in the same fashion. I was deserted, going from miss popularity to the outcast that everyone made fun of. I know what everyone said about me behind my back.... and Jeff just kept telling people that he would never sleep with me and that I made the whole thing up.

My daughter, October Skie (Toby), was born April 21, 1997. And I graduated from high school with honors May 22, 1997. Needless to say I never spoke to Jeff again. The first year after she was born, I wrote him letter upon letter, to let him know what she was doing, and sending him pictures of her. Until she was 18 months old, I lived two blocks from his house, and not once did he ever come by or call to say hello or meet his baby girl.

It has been four years since Toby was born and things still haven't changed. Jeff has not even seen her. I have raised her completely on my own, and I am proud of the little girl that she is.