Ruined by Ruth Everhart

Author:Ruth Everhart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs, RELIGION / Christian Life / Women's Issues
ISBN: 9781496414793
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2016-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

I did end up receiving an invitation to Jim’s wedding. I attended, with Teresa and Sam. It was a foolish thing to do. I was able to remain composed during the ceremony, but the reception was another matter. That celebration was held at the newlyweds’ home, an older house they’d been fixing up with paint and wallpaper. The happy couple opened gifts as people milled around, eating cake and making jokes. The bride and groom both looked at ease, surrounded by friends.

I hung back from the crowd and escaped to the staircase, where I sat down and wept. I told myself I didn’t want any of this. Not the wedding. Not this house. Not this husband. But I was lying to myself, and my shoulders shook with the force of held-back truth. This was exactly what I wanted. This was exactly what I had lost. Married life in a house like this, beside a good man like Jim. Was there a moment when that future was taken from me, or was it my fault? Had I somehow let it slip away? Elbows on knees, I hunched on Jim’s newly carpeted steps, weeping into my closed fists. People stepped around me to get to the upstairs bathroom, but I didn’t look up. I was almost, but not quite, beyond embarrassment.

Eventually I was able to make a dash out the front door and into the sanctuary of my car. Once I was alone, the grief and hopelessness opened me like a faucet. The heart wants what the heart wants. Why would I never have those things? I drove to Anne and Cindy’s apartment through a curtain of tears, then clomped up the stairs in my wedding heels. I kicked off the shoes with sudden fury and dropped onto my mattress on the sleeping porch. In a dehydrated haze, I wondered how my life had come to this. Exactly how had I become a college graduate who slept on her friends’ floor? Who spent all day bent over other people’s manuscripts and all weekend serving eggs? Who had absolutely no plans for the future?

Jim and I never did talk about why things fizzled between us. Maybe I didn’t want to know. I could think of only two possibilities, and both were devastating: either he had never loved me, which meant my feelings were unrequited, or he had loved me, and the rape had ruined me. Either possibility left me desolate, so what was the point of asking?

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.