Chapter 9
The Scream Inside Me
The chapter recounts the author’s sudden awareness that the scream the attacker wanted was the same scream she had been holding back her entire life, and the decision to stop silencing herself.
I stood there after he was gone, my arm still burning where his fingers had dug in. The scream he wanted—that wasn’t just about that night. It was the one I’d been swallowing since I was three. The one that got stuck in my throat when the door locked behind me at fifteen. The one that turned to nothing when I called for help and no one answered. He didn’t just want to hear it. He wanted to own it, like he owned all the other nights I didn’t know he was there.
But the scream wasn’t his. It was mine. Every time I’d been quiet, every time I’d let someone else tell me what I deserved, I’d given him a little more of it. That night on the trail, I realized I was done giving it away. The scream wasn’t just fear. It was proof I was still here.
I didn’t know how to let it out yet. But I knew I wouldn’t keep it inside anymore.