"Just Listen" entry #8

author: Sarah Dessen; published: 2006

This passage is noteworthy because it's of Annabel telling the truth- exactly as it happened that night.

"As I stepped over the threshold into the dark, I had my first prickling sense that something wasn't right. It was just how the room felt, like the entire space around my was unsettled. I stepped back, reaching for the knob, but I couldn't find it, my fingers only touching the wall. 'Nick?' I said. Then, suddenly, I felt something bumb up against my left side. Not furniture, or an object, but something alive. Someone. It's Nick, I told myself. He's drunk. But at the same time I started moving my hand behind me, faster now, searching for the light switch or doorknob. Finally, I felt the knob. Just as I was twisting it, though, I felt my fingers closing over my wrist. 'Hey,' I said, and even though I was trying to act casual, my voice sounded scared. 'What's--?'

'Shhhh, Annabel,' the voice said, and then the fingers were moving up my arm, over my skin, and I felt another hand on my right shoulder. 'It's just me.'

It wasn't Nick. This voice was deeper, and not slurring at all, each syllable enunciated perfectly. As I realized this, I panicked, my hand gripping tighter around the water bottle in my hand. The top popped off, and suddenly I felt cold water seeping into my shirt, only my skin. 'Don't,' I said.

'Shhh,' the voice said again, and then the hands were off me. A second later, they covered my eyes.

I jerked forward, trying to pull away. The water bottle, now half empty, fell from my hands, hitting the carpet with a dull thud, and his hands grabbed my by the shoulders, hard. I kept wriggling, trying to get loose and turn around, toward the door, but my hands were flailing in empty air. It was like the walls had slid back, out of reach; there was nothing to hold on to.

I could hear myself gasping, my breath beginning to sputter as he lock an elbow around my neck, pulling me up against him. My legs came up off the ground and I started kicking them, making contact with the door once- bang!- before he dragged me backwards a couple of steps. Then his other hand was moving around to my stomach, pushing aside my shirt, and thrusting down my jeans."

This is the moment in the book just before and just as Annabel is getting raped. The whole book is about this one, important event that happened in Annabel's life- leading to how she is before she meets Owen- quiet and unable to speak her mind. Because if she speaks her mind then she admits to something horrible, wrong- that she was raped, and that she didn't consent to her then best friend Sophie's boyfriend, Will, to doing this to her. Annabel didn't consent to Will violating her in this way. It's the ultimate part of this book because it's what Annabel tries to hold in the whole time- no body has any idea that Annabel was raped, let alone that Sophie thinks that Annabel willing did this with Will. No body knows anything that Annabel is going through let alone what she's holding in this entire time.