My Parents

I know I said I’d write about the ER today, but I feel like I need to put in a post about my wonderful parents first. I promise to write about the ER tomorrow.

I was living with my mom and dad at the time the rape happened. I had left the house that day telling my mom that I was going out to lunch with a friend and then I was going shopping. I told her I planned to be home in time for dinner.

Well, dinner time came along and I of course wasn’t there. So my mom called me. I happened to be in and out of consciousness at the time. She called again. Still, unbeknownst to her, I was in and out of consciousness. So she called again and again. I was completely unaware at the time that she was calling me.

As soon as I drove off from Mike’s apartment, I looked at my phone and realized that I had missed several calls all from my parents. I listened to my voicemails. The first one was my mom sweetly saying, “Caitlin, it’s mom. Just wondering where you are. Thought you’d be home by now.” The next message was my mom again, getting a little angry, but still fairly calm, “Caitlin, it’s mom. Where ARE you? This is not like you to just not call us. Call me back.” The next message was one of desperation. “CAITLIN, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?! YOUR FATHER AND I ARE WORRIED SICK.” I never thought I’d be so happy to have my mom yell at me. It just felt so good that she loved me enough to know there was something wrong.

When I got home my parents yelled at me again asking why I didn’t call. Now something you have to realize, I was 23. They really didn’t expect me to actually be home for dinner, but if I was not going to show up for dinner I was to call them just so they didn’t worry about me. At the moment they started yelling and asking where I was I couldn’t even talk. I felt so overwhelmingly loved by them and I was still in so much shock as to what happened that all I could do was cry. Of course this upset my parents even more. Finally I caught my breath and told them that the guy I was with took advantage of me.

I will never in my life forget my dad’s face after I said that. It was a mixture of shock, sadness and rage all in one. The next question was, “Did he rape you.” I was so confused and I was crying and I wasn’t sure. My mom took my phone from me, called Mike and left him a voicemail saying that we are going to the ER and that he WILL be reported. I told my mom that I didn’t want to go to the ER. She told me we had to. I asked if I could at least take a shower and remove my blood covered pants. The answer again was no. We all got in the car and headed to the ER.