Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!
I didn’t write last night. But I had a good reason.
Crystal came over.
Well, all the girls did, but Crystal especially.
She… ummm… needed a big sister, I guess. Beth is her best friend, but not her sister.
Diana and Liz came over too, but Crystal just wanted to talk to me. So we found a quiet place and let them all play games for a while.
It turns out she was with her “boyfriend” by choice… and not by choice. It was pretty complicated. He started out by paying her lots of attention and she really liked it, but he wasn’t a nice person and by the time she figured it out she was in too deep. He… ummm… had pictures, and was threatening to make them public.
But she did like the attention, and… I guess it was complicated for her. When it finally came out she was mad, but… relieved because she knew he wouldn’t be able to hurt her anymore.
And he did hurt her.
Awww.
But she said he was nice in some ways too. He… well, he was, shall we say, “experienced”, and she, well, did like that I guess. I mean, every girl wants a man who knows what he’s doing, right? And, well, he did. So there was that. But it didn’t make up for the other ways he treated her.
I told her she was really irresponsible for getting herself in that position. Of course, it was his fault, but he got the pictures somehow…
She started crying.
So all I could do was hold her.
She told me they had all the evidence they needed and she didn’t need to testify, besides, they don’t make underage victims testify unless they absolutely have to. They have his behavior when he was confronted, they found the pictures (which in itself is enough to put him away for a long time, that’s very illegal), and they got a statement from Crystal saying what he did. She was wondering if she could even go out of the country, but they told her the trial would be in a few months anyway even if they did need her, so have fun. There’s that.
But I’ve rarely seen a girl cry that much. It was like she’d sob, and then gasp, and then sob again, and then gasp again… she was sobbing so hard she could barely take a breath, and it lasted for… quite a while. Poor girl. Poor, poor girl.
So finally I took her back to the room and made her get in her pajamas, and then called for a girlpile. But… Crystal was to be the guest of honor this time. So we all just got into bed with her and let her cry it out. All of us. Finally she fell asleep, and we all just stroked her hair, and were sniffling a bit ourselves.
Poor girl.
We woke up and she seemed a little better, but still morose. Aww.
We went to the mall and bought Crystal a new outfit and lots of chocolate. That… helped more than you’d think. People say women are complicated, but buy us stuff and give us chocolate…
All the girls went back home this afternoon. It was too hot to really do anything anyway. 105 degrees?? Awww!!!
But I’m sad. I’m sad for Crystal. Everything bad seems to happen to her. She’s way too young to have to deal with this stuff.
But on the bright side, the guy didn’t get bail. He’s in jail right now. And they tell me that people like him… don’t have a good time in jail.
Good.
A part of me wishes he could see what he did to her. A part of me wishes we all could hold him down and Crystal could kick him where it hurts. But… none of that will happen. It never does.
Maybe that trip to Japan will help her. I’m not sure how but I feel like it will.
I spent the afternoon after that over at Liz’s house… and frankly… I had to cry it out a bit as well. It’s hard being a big sister sometimes.