Grade 11 New Model Private College
(Trigger Warning, description of rape)
She was tired of the pain, she was tired of the way she felt, she was tired of the sleepless nights and unbearable nightmares. She stood in front of a mirror, tears streaming from her eyes as she took one last look at herself before she took her own life. Her parents got home hours later to find her lifelessly hanging from the ceiling fan. Her mom fell to her knees and let out a scream mixed of agony, shock and heartbreak. Her father picked up a note she wrote before her death, that read, ” I TRIED TO TALK BUT NO ONE LISTENED”. Lerato Motlau was a sixteen-year-old girl who was an only child to her parents. They lived together in a small house in Soweto. Lerato was well-known to the entire town for her breathtaking beauty and her respectful behaviour. She was an excellent student and very popular in school.
Lerato was so beautiful that girls wished to be her, and guys would turn their heads as she passed by just to witness her beauty. She had a model-like figure, and she was as neat as she was beautiful. Lerato lived a normal teenage life full of friends, guys, parties and school work. Her parents and teachers adored her as she was a perfect child with perfect grades and perfect behaviour. Lauren, Lerato’s mother, always believed that Lerato dolled herself up to attract the attention of boys. Did she? Lerato was a good girl; she always took part in community activities like fundraisers, she respected everyone she knew, and was a good role model in her community.
She loved playing netball every Saturday from 16:00 to 18:00. It was the twenty-fifth of November on a Saturday afternoon, she wore her three-quarter shorts, a black crop top, and a white hoodie. It was a ten-minute walk to the netball court from her parents’ house so she grabbed her netball gear and headed off early. As she took her usual silent walk to the court, she noticed three men following her from behind. She tried taking a different path but they kept following her, and fear and panic started building up in her chest, so she ran.
She ran faster than she ever had in her life, and she did not dare look back. She arrived breathless at the venue and tried to tell her teammates about the men who were following her. To her dismay her teammates did not take her seriously because they assumed she wanted attention. Lerato ended up convincing herself that she was being paranoid and later forgot about the men.
Their training came to an end as it was time for them to go home. Lerato had to go home alone because the friends who usually walked home with her were absent. The sunset was a dazzling colour that made the sky seem brighter than it usually was, so Lerato decided to walk home and believed she would make it home before the sun fully set. As she walked she met familiar people and greeted them and had short conversations with some. She realised that she wasted time, and it was getting darker and late so she took a short cut. She did not notice the men following her as she took an isolated route with very few people and which was sometimes totally empty. One of the men caught up with her and spanked her. In shock and rage she quickly turned around and attempted to slap him but the man caught Lerato’s wrist in mid-air and smirked. She saw his face and her heart nearly stopped as she realised it was one of the men who had followed her earlier that day. Lerato tried to free her wrist from the man’s huge muscular hand but his grip was that of a lion. She looked at him in disgust and shouted, “What do you want from me?” He chuckled, revealing his bright yellow teeth that seemed to have last been brushed a century ago, and whispered in a crackling drunkard voice, “You know what I want, ntombazan.”
Lerato let out an ear-piercing scream, hoping someone would come to her rescue. However, she was silenced by a hard slap on her cheek from the man. She silently cried, cupping her painful cheek in her hand. The man whistled and seconds later the two other men that Lerato had seen earlier appeared out of the shadows. One of the men immediately tied a dirty cloth over Lerato’s mouth and tied her hands together. They each took turns touching her inappropriately and chuckled every time she flinched at their touch. Lerato cried so much that tears seemed to have been totally drained from her eyes, as they slowly removed her pants, she tried to scream but the cloth muted her. One after the other they penetrated her until she was numb. She could not move and just lay there like a corpse. The men left her there, stranded in the darkness as she tried to regain control of her limbs. She got home an hour late to find her mother fuming with rage. Lerato told her mother that she was raped with hope to get some consolation and help, but her mother blamed her. Lerato felt like her whole world wase crashing down. “You always wear revealing clothes and show off your beauty… That’s what you get, mntanam,” her mother said as she left the room. Lerato could not believe her ears; her chest tightened up and thick tears fell from her eyes. She could not tell anyone else. Only her mother knew. She spent months with the secret and lost all that she was. Her grades dropped, she was not comfortable in her own body anymore and she stopped interacting with people the way she usually did. Sooner or later people started hating her and calling her arrogant. Lerato spent numerous nights crying herself to sleep or not sleeping at all. She felt like the world had turned its back on her and she could not take it anymore.