“You know Katie,” Trent said, “I’ve wondered a lot what life would be like if we had stayed together like we were meant to. You never should have left me.” I was getting scared. I didn’t know what he was thinking but by then I knew he had put something in my drink to make me pass out and the little clock on the nightstand said 3:30. I’d been there for hours and hours. I remember trying to tell him I was sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt him all those years ago and that it wasn’t right. We just weren’t right for each other. He laughed. “You don’t really believe that do you?” he asked as he walked over to the bed where I was lying down and sat down next to me. My heart began to thump rapidly and I started to cry. “Trent, no, please, whatever you’re thinking, please…” But that was like throwing a lit match on the puddle of gasoline that the situation was quickly becoming. He got very angry very fast. Twisting my arm, he began to hiss at me about different times that he felt like I’d disrespected him: dancing with other guys at a party, going backstage at a rock concert to which he didn’t have a pass and other things. He leaned over and kissed me and said,” You’re going to enjoy this.” I was crying now, dizzy and sick to my stomach. I reached out with my other hand and raked my long, manicured nails across his face, drawing blood. He gasped in surprise and picked up a huge and thick glass ashtray from the nightstand and brought it down across my right eye and temple. I was unconscious immediately. I was unconscious the entire time he was raping me. I choose to think of that as a blessing, that I do not remember those details.

About an hour or two later, I found myself on the floor. I had no shirt or bra on and I had vomit on my legs along with bruises, a cut above my eyebrow and my lip. I had clearly been raped both vaginally and anally and I could barely walk. I could feel the semen and blood beginning to crust on my genitals and I started to cry. My breasts were covered with small bite marks and my arms had hand print bruises from where he’d held me down. I got dressed as best I could and I washed my face. I had a hard time getting the blood off my eyebrow and I was crying, shaking uncontrollably. I thought about going upstairs and waking up Jamie-Lynn and telling her and Sabo what had happened but I was so totally mortified that I just wanted to get home. When I did, I ran strait for the shower. I knew that wasn’t what I was supposed to do, I knew I should have gone to the ER for a rape kit but I just couldn’t do it. I sat in the tub with the shower blasting scalding water on me for an hour, praying that I was going to be okay and no one would find out what had happened. I was completely mortified. I’d been raped. The words echoed in my head like a gong…raped…raped…raped…

After that night, I quickly lost interest in sex. I didn’t mind being held and kissed but the actual act was something I had to grit my teeth through. Unfortunately, my marriage was breaking up for other reasons so there wasn’t much intimacy anyway. And I was glad. I didn’t really want to be touched. I would find myself thinking of it at odd moments. Small unrelated things set it off. And when I went to sleep at night, I’d see Trent laughing at me saying, “Nobody is going to believe you Katie…nobody…” and then he hit me. Over and over until I woke up with tears streaming down my face, praying to God that I would be able to get through this without killing myself. I felt so lost and completely alone. I can’t believe I put on such a good act for my family that they didn’t know something was going on, but my daughter told me recently, “Mom you’re so moody. We didn’t know if you’d spilled a glass of milk or ran someone down with your truck.” They knew something was wrong, they just didn’t know what it was. And so it went on, for a long time. I pretended it didn’t happen and that it was all just one big nightmare. I couldn’t face up to the fact that I’d been assaulted and I felt like if I went to the police, everyone I knew would call me a liar and things would get worse. I lived in complete and total fear not only of the man who assaulted me, but the people I knew ostracizing me and ridiculing me.