By the time she had begun to throw her bean-bag chairs and radios from the window as well, Mari was screaming. It all needed to be gone. It couldn't be here anymore. This life couldn't be here anymore.

John Collingwood burst through the door after hearing his baby's cries. He found her in a heap on her floor, sobbing, her window's glass was all broken out now, probably because of her attempts at fitting her desk chair out of it. Her furniture, for that matter, was missing. So that's what Emma heard outside. Our traumatized child throwing the contents of her room out the window.

His first instinct was to bend down and wrap her up in his arms, as he used to do when she would fall off her bike or just miss that bottom step.

But he restrained himself. No touching. That was what Dr. Wempler first instructed. Dr. Wempler was a psychiatrist, but not for Mari, for Emma and John. The hopeless parents found that they themselves needed counseling on the matter. Not only on how to deal with their daughter, but on how to cope with becoming what they were. The young couple would never be the same after what they had done.

"Give her a year." Dr. Wempler had said gently to the man holding his crying wife. "Let her be distant. She needs time. These things happen more than we'd like, and it's a terrible tragedy when it happens to someone we love, but there are ways to manage. She'll come back to you, I promise. It always happens. Especially with the young ones. They still need their mommies and daddies.

"Now," the doctor continued with a heavy sigh, "in regards to your, erm, personal situation, all I can say is that you two are honestly the first people I have ever seen dealing with something like it."

Dr. Wempler's many lectures now resounded throughout John's mind. Don't touch, don't touch, don't touch, don't touch, don't touch, donttouch, donttouch, donttouchdonttouchdonttouch.

So, instead, John tried to reach his little girl another way. "Mari!" he yelled down at her. He was surprised to find that he had begun crying as well. "Mari, honey, tell me what's wrong, baby, I can hel-", he choked on the word, forcing it back down. Mari didn't take well to people who tried to help.

Emma was calling for Justin in the hall. He could try to help, right? No, not help, he could do something to console her though. He is the only one closest to knowing the truth to what happened to Mari besides Mari herself.

Mari coughed on her gasps, but the tears didn't stop. "They're looking at me!" She screamed. "They're watching me! They're all fucking watching me and I can't do anything to stop it!" She grabbed her hair and knotted it into her fingers, balling her fists until her knuckles were white. Stop it stop it stop it. It didn't stop. It never stopped. He was there. He was in her. He was fucking her.

Justin stood in the doorway, hugging Emma, staring in horror at Mari trembling on the floor, at John Collingwood screaming "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck" to the ceiling, the sky, or even maybe to God. (What God?) Emma's tears felt sticky against his neck and he wanted to let her go. He didn't want to feel anything right now. That's what scared him the most. He felt everything.

"Baby," John looked down to his daughter again, "baby, who's looking at you? Who's looking at you? Tell me who's- NOBODY IS WATCHING YOU, MARI!" His face was red with blood. Veins protruded from his neck. He looked like a monster. She had done this to him. She had made him a monster.

John abruptly turned from his screaming daughter to his crying wife. That boy was holding her. John reached out and grabbed her arm. Emma screamed, being yanked forward by her husband. He threw her over to Mari. Emma stumbled and fell onto her daughter. Through her tears and sobs, Emma could hear John: "You fix her!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Two Months Later: September~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

John Collingwood shouted to the paper boy that the magazine he had just dropped off belonged to the neighbors. Emma Collingwood chattered away on the phone to her friend, Lucy Firreira. ("We should go to a movie tonight!")

Justin Collingwood, as he was now being addressed by, was taking in quite a bit of marijuana in his room with a lock. Mari Collingwood was not home. Mari Collingwood was at Bellard Schlider's apartment. Bellard Schlider was nineteen years old, and since Mari had just had a birthday in August, he felt no wrong about having sex with her.

Mari had changed a lot since July. After what everyone in the house now called "the Incident", when John had gotten frighteningly physical with his family, Mari had started acting more normal.

This was the third time Mari had gone over to his apartment to be fucked by him. It wasn't that it felt good, or that she particularly liked Bellard, it was that her parents no longer wanted her in the house.

He was moving in and out of her, thrusting harder and harder each time, to the point where it was actually hurting Mari. But she bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut, keeping quiet. She wasn't going to tell him to stop. For all she knew, her body could just be messed up from having been invaded two- three?- months before. This could all be normal. No reason to stop if it wasn't necessary. She would allow him to finish, he would, then she'd leave. Same as always.

He was holding onto her arms, which were wrapped around his neck tightly, pulling him to her. She could feel his hot breath and condensation from his mouth on her neck, just under her ear. She hated it. She hated him. Her legs were hitched onto his hips, causing him to be sheathed in her as deeply as possible. Oh, and she hated it. She wanted to vomit the entire time. From the moment he kisses her lips, to his final grunt, she detests the activity wholly. Still, she wanted him in her. She wanted to be filled by Bellard. She wanted it all. She just wished she knew why.

And then it happened. Unceremoniously as usual, Bellard met his orgasm with one last, rough pound, and it was over. He laid there for a moment to catch his breath. Mari patiently waited for him to get off of her so she could go home. Bellard rose onto his arms and hovered above her for a moment.

He looked down at Mari. She returned the eye contact. That was something odd about the girl. Bellard had had eight other sex partners already in his entire nineteen years of existence, all of which he was involved in emotionally. These girls would love him and he would love them right back. No relationship ever worked out, though. Mari Collingwood was the first girl Bellard ever just fucked. She didn't want anything else. She made that perfectly clear. "I just want to have sex with you, Bellard, so please don't think anything will get serious between us." Yet, she always looked at him so fondly afterward, and sometimes, even during. None of Bellard's girlfriends had ever even done that.

Then, he slid out of her gently. Mari looked down between their bodies to watch them disconnect. She gazed at the sight curiously. How was something so far away from your heart or mind supposed to affect your feelings? It fascinated her. Having emotionally-severed sexual relations with Bellard had made her realize that sex was, indeed, nothing at all. She felt stupid for ever having felt like being raped earned her any special treatment.

Bellard stood up, searching around on the floor for his boxers. Mari sat up, holding the blanket up to her front. She felt sore. The feeling was familiar, whether she wanted it to be or not. Bellard found his boxers and gingerly handed Mari her panties. Mari took them without a word.