Firetrucks Don’t Stop At Red Lights

You always have to be careful choosing who your friends are.

I thought people would just tell me that so I could avoid drama, or fake friends, but its meaning is so much deeper.

You always have to be careful; careful that he isn’t going to take advantage of you, careful that he isn’t going to hurt you, careful that he isn’t going to touch you.

I wasn’t careful. I was an idiot.

When he met Amelia, I knew I wasn’t going to like him fairly soon after.

He was rude and thought he was top shit (he wasn’t).

Amelia liked him, and I think he liked her too, they would talk all the time about everything, but there were too many times that something he said would end in an argument or Amelia crying. Or both.

He knew how nice she was and he took advantage of it, so she would forgive him. Every time.

She would always tell me that he was actually really nice and that he would just put on an act, that he was different.

I never believed her but I wanted to try, he was her close friend and crush and I was her best friend, I had to try right?

We talked a few times and we all hung out at the basketball courts at recess and lunch, and sat together in classes, everything seemed okay. He seemed okay.

I wished we picked up on the red flags, there were so many, but we were young and naive, we didn’t understand how wrong this could go.

Science.

It was a subject I really liked, I had my friends, a chill teacher and I never had to study for it, I always scored high. The perfect class.

We all sat together, Jack, me, Joe and Amelia. In that order. Sometimes it would change but it usually stayed that way.

We would play games, we would talk and we would have fun.

Sometimes the boys would decide to watch ‘The Gauntlet’ and make us watch with them, another red flag, it was traumatising and disgusting. But I didn’t see how wrong it was, as I said, we were young.

“Wanna play Firetruck?”

Joe asked out of nowhere. What the fuck is Firetruck? He told me it was a game but I had never heard of it before. He explained it to me. He puts his hand somewhere and I say green light if it’s okay, and red light if it’s not.

What could go wrong, right? A-lot, that was the answer.

Why I even said yes to a game like that I have no idea, the thought that he could take advantage of me or that maybe he didn’t tell me all the rules hadn’t even occurred to me.

Young and naive remember? Stupid

He placed his hand on my head and I laugh, this game was so weird.

After a few more times he makes his way to my leg, he had his hand on my knee, that was fine. “Green light” I say

He moves his hand slowly up my thigh, not placing it, just slowly getting higher and higher. “Red light,” I say as he reached my mid thigh. He doesn’t listen. I repeat it more urgently, “Red Light!”

“Firetrucks don’t stop at red lights.” He says.

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

I was so confused. What was he doing? I said red light.

“Stop it,” I say annoyed. He doesn’t even acknowledge me, he just continues to run his hand higher and higher, staring at the front of the class, completely unbothered.

Jack was on the other side of me giggling, oh yes this is so funny. He eventually decided to place his hand on my thigh as well but he didn’t go as high.

Joe had reached to my vagina. It was summer so I was in my dress. He placed his fingers on me and began moving them around, slowly, in circles.

Stop it stop it stop it stop it.

“Stop,” I say, but it came out as a whisper, I repeated it louder but he ignores me. I jump from my seat and he smirks at me, the teacher tells me to sit back down.

I didn’t know what to do, how to deal with it, what it was. I just knew that I didn’t like it. But he did.

I sat back down, my legs crossed tightly, hand in my lap holding down my dress. A few moments later the hands, they were back. Trying to force their way under. It didn’t work, eventually he gave up and kept his hand on my thigh.

I just sat there.

It continued all throughout that year, not many times more did he get that far but their hands, every science class, were ALWAYS on me.

“You need to shave”

“Don’t you dare wear shorts”

“Go back to wearing the winter skirt”

Every. Single. Class.

And I listened.

Dumb, young, naive, stupid little me.

That was 2019.

Before Covid-19, before SH, before the ward, before my attempts, before everything. But the beginning of it all.

It is now 2022.

I first told someone this year.

3 years later. I finally told someone. I told Amelia.

Her response was something I never wanted to hear. He had done it to her too.