In a weathered sedan, the engine hummed a tune of routine as it rolled down the main street, past the familiar rows of shops and faded billboards. Auntie's voice flowed from the front seat, soft and casual, like a breeze that carried more than just the dust of the road. "Have anyone ever touched you?" she asked, glancing back in the rearview mirror.
The car became an island adrift, and time seemed to slow, the hum of the engine now a distant echo. My heart compressed, each thud a drumbeat in a silent chamber, and my gaze fell upon Sissy. Her eyes, usually so vivid with secrets and silent laughter, now held a story we had buried in the unspoken.
"Ahem," I hesitated, my hands clammy as I fumbled with the hem of my dress, feeling the fabric but not really seeing it. Sissy's fingers found my leg in a vice-like grip, a pinch that spoke volumes, begging for silence.
"Someone made me suck their big toe," I stammered out, the words tumbling like clumsy dancers, falling out of step with the rhythm of our lives. A sordid secret we had kept in the shadows, now exposed in the sterile light of day.
"Shush," Sissy hissed, her voice wrapped in fear, a shawl too thin to keep out the cold of reality. "Hush," they had said, voices commanding obedience, not giving room for resistance or question. We, the defenseless, rendered mute, our voices trapped in the cocoon of their threats.
Lured and harassed by a church boy, whose facade of piety hid hands skilled in intimidation, we trembled under his gaze. "Hush, don't tell nobody, “He’d snarl, a guardian of our silence, ensuring our compliance with whispered warnings.
We were scared, confused, and abused, seemingly alone in a twisted game where even the rules were veiled in shadows. "Shush, Sissy, don't speak," I'd implore, feeling the heat rise in my face, the coals of shame glowing hot beneath my skin, my words faltering and dissolving before they could reach my lips.
"Hush, don't tell anyone, “We were cautioned, a stark reminder that the truth had a cost too steep for us to pay. The specter of homelessness loomed, ready to devour the remnants of our stability if we dared to give evidence of our torment.
Now, within the confines of that moving car, as Auntie's question unfolded the dark petals of our history, I found myself unable to speak, breath hitching, throat tight as if woven shut by invisible threads. My mouth, a vault sealed with the fear of retribution, refused to part.
"Shush, don't tell nobody, “The mantra of our burdened journey. Yet, within the whispered plea lay a flicker of hope, a longing for a time when silence would no longer be our keeper.
"Surely, one day you will tell, testify," Sissy would say, gazing into the horizon where justice seemed like a mirage on the asphalt road. Her words, a promise etched into the future, held the quiet power of a vow waiting to be fulfilled.
The car turned a corner, and with it, our path veered subtly towards the inevitable—the day of reckoning, when our hushed voices would rise in a crescendo of truth, unshackling the chains of the past, and breathing life into the silence that had held us captive far too long.
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