Chapter 6: Option B

Welcome to Michaela Mae's Audiobook Experience for The Barn off of Colfax Lane: an unfiltered memoir about sexual assault and the mixed feelings that come with it. 

In this book Michaela tells her story of the childhood sexual abuse she experienced when she was 12-years-old while taking horse back riding lessons from a horse trainer in Oregon.

BOOK SUMMARY:

I was 12 years old the first time my horse trainer grabbed my left boob and asked me if I had ever had sex. I'm not sure what caught me off guard the most: his question or the fact a 79-year-old man had his hand firmly cusped around my boob while asking me, a 12-year-old, if I had ever had sex. I've blocked out a lot of that season from my mind, but that first day sticks out clearer than the rest. Is it because of the shock? Is it because I hadn't fully remembered my pro-dissociation skills yet?

I have no f*cking clue, but I do remember the green-striped tank top and the dark navy blue jeans I had on that day. I remember watching his lips ooze as the words, "Have you ever had sex?" spilled out of them. I remember the blank stare in his eyes, the black specks of chew stuck in his teeth, and the way his cheeks met his chin like a pillow shoved under fitted sheets.

My eyes left my left boob, flung around the barn, and up to his face. The light coming in from the barn door behind him lit his back, but darkened his face so his face looked as dark as the blank stare in his eyes. My brain raced for answers that made sense. Hell, it searched for a question that made sense too. "No, of course not. Wait, why is this happening? How do I answer? Do I answer? Am I dreaming?" I couldn't speak, so I looked up at him blankly then he turned and walked away.

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© 2024 MP Media. All rights reserved.

Narrated by Author Michaela Mae.

Keywords: survivor memoir, childhood sexual abuse memoir, childhood sexual abuse, trauma memoir, healing memoir, horse trainer abuse, equestrian community, read by the author, audiobook, Oregon, Michaela Mae

Transcript

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Chapter six Option B twelve year old Michaela It took me two hours to clean the last two stalls. Now that I have this stall cleaning thing down, it typically takes me about twenty minutes to clean a single stall. But today I couldn't stop taking breaks after the incident occurred. Even after I finished Pepper's stall, I returned multiple times to lean against her. I expected myself to cry, but each time my head hit her mane, the tears never came. It feels like my body is experiencing a drought. My eyes need to be watered so badly, but there's no water in my body to give them. I return to Pepper's stall once more. I can't decide who I want to return here first. My dad or Todd. A part of me wants Todd to get here first so I can confront him and find out if what happened this morning was an accident. Because if he apologized, I think that means it was an accident, right? And the other part of me also wants my dad to get here first so I don't have to see Todd again today. I debate the options as I pet Pepper's mane, and a few moments later I hear a truck backing into the barn. It's Todd. I'm shocked. Or should I say more shocked than I already am? Even though a part of me didn't know who I wanted to get back to the barn first, I never thought Todd would be the one to return to the barn while I was still here. I ran so many different options through my head while Pepper and I had our alone time. He feels so guilty he won't be able to look at me. He's so ashamed that he won't return today. Or the option I fear most, he will tell my dad out of guilt. And I don't want that at all. I know my dad well enough to know that this isn't a big enough deal for Todd to die for or for my dad to go to jail for, especially if it only happens one time. Which I'm sure it will. I will just keep my mouth shut unless it happens again. Todd puts his truck in park and hops in the back. Will you help me unload this? he asked me. I walk over to the truck and I look in the back. He bought a garden hose. It's not a brand new hose, so he must have found a garage sale to go to. I cringe when I see the hose. The hose is another thing that always has to be perfect, and just like all of his other lessons, he never told me why or how I wrapped the hose wrong. I wrapped, unwrapped, and rewrapped the damn hose after after watering horses more times than I can remember. Each day when he wrapped the hose up, just like I did with the stalls, I would walk over and see how he did it, and even though I'm better at wrapping the hose now, I still can't wrap it as well as he can, because when he wraps the hose, it always looks like it came brand new from the store, minus the zip ties and packaging. I keep waiting for him to say something as we unload the hose. I'm not sure if he can look at me or not, but I certainly cannot look at him. My body still feels numb, but I have more feeling back in my body than I did a few hours ago. We finish unloading the hose, my dad arrives, and I jump in the truck to head home for lunch. Todd didn't say a word about the incident and acted perfectly normal when my dad got out of the truck to talk to him. He even told my dad how well I wrote in my lesson today. Hmm. Maybe it was just a slip earlier today. But slip or not, my stomach turns. My dad notices how quiet I am in the car ride home. Are you okay? he asks. No, I shake my head. My stomach doesn't feel good at all. Well, we're going home for a few hours before we return to the field, so you have plenty of time to take a nap, he responds. Sounds good to me. My dad didn't question the stomach ache any further. We got up an extra hour early this morning to start water and went to bed a few hours late last night because we had issues in one of the fields, and today is the hottest day we've had all summer. It's the perfect combination for a stomach ache, but I don't dare say that none of those things have anything to do with my stomach ache. As my dad would say, what he don't know don't hurt him. When we arrive home, I go straight upstairs to my bedroom. I don't have AC up here, so I usually nap downstairs in the cool air, but I would rather nap alone today. My bed sits right under the window and the sun comes directly through my bedroom window during this time of day. I toss and I turn on my bed, and with every toss and every turn I get sweater and sweater. My mind swirls as I lay in bed. I keep looking down and I keep looking down at my green tank top with the white stripes in my left boob, thinking, there's no way that happened. There's no way that happened. There's no way I saw what I saw. There's no way I felt what I felt. I get up to go to the bathroom and I see sweat stains all over my sheets. The weirdest part about it is that the sweating feels oddly good. I look at my reflection as I wash my hands and realize it's the first time I've paid attention to my appearance all summer. The sun tans my skin and lightens my hair every summer, and there's always a turning point when the shift in my appearance becomes more noticeable, and today's the day. I've officially gone from dirty blonde with pale skin to a platinum blonde with darkened skin. I study my tan skinned, lightened hair and facial features. And the voices and the three voices begin their chatter. Maybe I'm pretty, but I'm not that pretty. Uh Michaela, I don't think pretty no, stop. I have pretty features, sure. But I'm not that kind of pretty. Not the kind of pretty guys like. I'm not the girl that the guys like, mainly because I'm usually the one acting like them. My age or not, guys are not attracted to me. True. So today's earlier incident must have been a slip of dementia. Yes, and after all, he just lost his wife. Oh yes, yes, that's it. He's confused you with his wife. I've heard that happens all the time with dementia patients. Me too. It's no use making a big deal about it. If Todd can forget about it, then I can too. Um dementia or not, it's still nope, no more. Our decision has been made, it's dementia. And he confused me with his wife today. Good lord, I hope he didn't try to pick his wife up with have you ever had sex? I thought deciding he had dementia would make me feel better, but the knot in my stomach continued to churn. On the plus side, it gets me out of work for the rest of the day. My dad and sister agreed to take care of my evening chores so I could stay home to get better for tomorrow. I relax in bed until the thought of dad going to the barn enters my head, and then an avalanche of another thoughts blow in. Would Todd tell him? Would Dad come back in a rage? Would Dad know to get pepper? If he didn't, would Dad let me go get pepper? Would Dad be mad at me? The voices make an appearance again. It's dementia, remember? Todd doesn't remember to tell your dad what happened. Oh right, right, right, right, right. The coast is clear. I take a deep breath and decide to take a bath while I'm alone at the house. While in the bath I call my friend Alice to tell her about the incident. I tell her about my dementia theory and I ask her not to tell anyone. She agrees, but we decide to say something if he does anything again. It makes me feel better to talk to her, but something in me still feels knotted. I hang up the phone, get out of the bath, and slip back under the covers and ignore the knot in my stomach and in my mind. I didn't sleep much last night, and I don't know if it's because I took such a long nap yesterday afternoon or if it's because I'm nervous about going to the barn this morning. What will Todd say? Will he know that my stomach ache was what will he know what my stomach ache was actually about? Will he apologize? A part of me hopes he will, and another part of me hopes neither of us will ever bring up the incident ever again. My dad drops me off at the barn after we finish moving pipe for the hayfields, and I start feeding horses like I always do. I finish my chores and pull my phone from my pocket to check the time. I look at my phone and see it's past nine AM. Hmm. Todd's late. That's weird. I feel more nervous seeing he's off routine. I put my phone back in my pocket and hear a screen door squeak as I enter the next stall. His footsteps enter the alleyway of the barn. Good morning, he says. Your dad said you had a stomach ache yesterday. Are you feeling better? I try not to make it seem obvious, but I lift my head enough just to peek my eyes over the back of the horse I am standing behind in the stall. Hmm. He seems normal. His face looks calm. And his eyes don't look blank. Yeah, I respond. Thank you for asking. Do you think it was the heat? he asked. No, I think it was because a 79-year-old man grabbed my boob and asked me if I ever had sex. Maybe, I say to him out loud. It was hot yesterday, and I definitely didn't drink enough water. The three voices chime in again. Why didn't you say what you were thinking? The look on his face would have told you everything you needed to know. Because we're trying to forget. Remember? I'm not trying to be irrational. Irrational. He grabbed your boot. We're trying to forget. Remember? I'm just trying to get through the day and go from there. No need to cause extra drama. Crap. Crap. Is he still talking? I shake my head and refocus on what he's saying. Yeah, you've got to drink enough water or that will happen. He pauses and hesitates. Well, I know your dad means well, but he makes you girls work too hard in this hot weather. I pause what I'm doing and I fully look up at him. Yeah, I would agree, I say, but it is what it is. The last word leaves my mouth and the corner of my right eye catches him, shrugging his shoulders as he goes to grab the wheelbarrow. He says nothing more than the words in his body language, and I can't tell what his body language or words mean. Did he really just say that? I mean it's kind of nice that someone sees how much my sister and I work and don't get to have much fun outside of the horses. But that was just an odd thing for him to say. He has never said anything like that to me before, especially because most people his age find it honorable how much my dad, my sister, and I work. They say it builds strong work ethic. I thought Todd of all people would find it honorable how much we work. I shake my head again and continue cleaning the stall. I keep trying to make sense of the incident yesterday, the comments he just made, and the actual state of his brain. Option A he grabbed my boob and asked me if I ever had sex on purpose. Option B, his memory is slipping and he somehow confused me with his wife. I guess I'm going to go with option B until he proves me otherwise.