*Authors Note*

Hiya! Thank you for clicking on to this book.

I hope I can bring you the pain yet also the love and passion, I have imagined for these characters.

This book will involve some pretty dark topics, and I hope I will tackle them with raw honesty but also tact.

Here is the disclaimer: This story does talk about sexual assault, it does talk about the trauma and the psychological impacts that can happen as a result. I once read that you should never write about rape however I honestly believe that adds to the problem.

This book also tells the story of someone finding their way back out of the dark, finding ways to love the world again, and finding friendship and love along the way.

ALSO THIS IS BOOK 1

There needs to be more awareness about this. Silence doesn't help.

She was powerful,

not because she wasn't scared

but because she went on so strongly,

despite the fear.

-Atticus

Ivy James

I still can't really process what happened that Friday night.

I was the bad girl, the miss popular, the head cheerleader and I stupidly believed that this meant I was untouchable, protected.

I used to think I was too powerful for that, too popular, too unavailable.

I thought that Jayden, my gorgeous, protective and popular boyfriend, would never let the ugly world touch me in the ways his so-called best friend did.

But I was wrong, and I hadn't even realised what was happening until it was too late.

I used to love parties, everything about them. I enjoyed the freedom, the action of 'letting your hair down'. Everyone was friendly, just having fun with their friends and even meeting new people. It was great. We all used to attend every party together, me and my girls, Nora, Jess and Faye and Jayden and his boys, Max, Jackson, and the twins, Layton and Luca.

Of course, you'd hear about how things could go wrong, and it is often portrayed in the media about how these parties made young girls vulnerable. But I didn't think this was the reality.

I was a fool.

I had this idea that those things didn't happen in real life, not at our school, not to us. There were no strangers here-and at parties we all looked out for each-other.

Or I guess I thought we did.

It was at Jayden's house. Post football game party and almost everyone from our year was invited.

I used to love those parties; the ones where everyone's eyes found me as we entered. Wondering what I was wearing, who I was talking to, what I was doing tonight. As I think about it now, I spent most of that night doing normal things- drinking, dancing, laughing, probably bitching. Nothing out of the ordinary- nothing to put any blame on me.

I got ready with Jess and Faye and went to pick up Nora on our way. I was pretty normally dressed, a dark lace bodysuit and a black skirt. I wore something like that to every party, literally nothing was different.

I had a lot of friends, being someone that my whole year idolised, everyone was pretty lovely to me. And I was lovely to them, unless I had a reason not to be. At the time, it was pretty easy to find reasons not to be lovely to people, it's very different now.

It's different for all of us.

Jess, Nora and Faye are my best friends. It was always just us and then if we wanted more people we would hang around the girls from cheer. They were popular enough as they cheered. We didn't really talk to a lot of other people, although a lot of the girls in our year wanted to be friends with us.

We weren't the best group of friends-I knew this. We argued and bitched and looked down at others together. It wasn't exactly healthy but at least we had each other.

Jayden's group of friends were a lot closer than the girls and I. But as we were dating, we all hung out together a lot. Our friends were kind of pushed together for all that time. Jay and I had officially been seeing each other for ten months at the time of the party, it wasn't much after that we both desperately wanted out of our relationship.

Both for very different reasons.

Jayden has five guy friends, they ruled the roost or whatever you're supposed to say when a particular group walks through the school like they own it.

They don't do that anymore. At least not all five of them.

There is Max, who was always the kind one before all this shit, and without the influence of the other guys he could always be a sweetheart to me and my girls. At the cafeteria table next to Max always sat Jackson. He was cold and icy. He watched everything, with a hard glare. And I think apart from Max, everyone was at least a little be afraid of him. He never spoke to me or my friends, but it didn't really matter at the time. The next two were twins- and you know how in movies there a good twin and a bad twin? Well this is definitely applicable here.

Layton was bad.

Luca, I guess in comparison, was good.

But at first the party was brilliant. It was loud and intoxicating. Total bliss from a shitty Friday at school, and a shitty afternoon sat watching my boyfriend and his best mates get defeated by a random school's football team.

The opposite team was mediocre at best, it was almost embarrassing.

Jayden stayed with me at the very beginning we both enjoyed the attention we got when everybody's eyes took in the golden couple. It was funny, how much he loved the attention from other girls, it was just as much as I enjoyed the eyes of the other guys, them knowing i was untouchable.

We would never act upon it though, I might be a bitch, but I am loyal to whoever I'm in a relationship with. Any flirting that happened outside of Jayden and I was just harmless fun, we both knew where we stood with each other.

Or at least I thought we did.

It turns out Jayden didn't have as much trust in me as I originally thought. I don't know If I can blame him though. I understood why, and it's not like I set anyone straight what really happened.

That Friday, when it got to about eleven I think, the cops turned up at the front door and as usual it sent intoxicated teenagers scurrying. This happens a lot at the moment, someone must be calling them on us. I suppose it's our fault as we keep going back to the same houses.

Anyway, in the commotion, I lost sight of Jayden, my boyfriend. Honestly at the time that was fine, I was just going to try and find my friends and if I couldn't I could just leave alone.

But looking back now, if only I had made sure to stay with him. If only he didn't just rush off with his friends. Things would have been so different.

In the swarm of drunken bodies, I felt another hand grab mine and pull me towards the upstairs. When I looked up at who it was, I was immediately relieved to see that it was our friend Layton.

God, how much simpler would it all be if I had just got caught by the police?

Layton, one of Jayden's best friend dragged me into the spare bedroom, actively hiding us away from the police. They didn't even usually come in, just kicked everyone out by flashing their lights and playing their siren. I don't even know why I followed him upstairs? Alcohol, stupidity, trust?

As I sat down on the bed we could both hear the hysterical laughs and then shouts from the people downstairs. I doubt the police were even arresting people, usually they just send everyone home and contact parents at the worst.

It's funny how I remember taking in Jay's spare room. I had stayed overnight at Jayden's a few times, and when Jayden's parents had been too strict to let us stay together, I used to sleep in this room. Usually though Jayden always stayed at mine, my parents used to be pretty distant and didn't mind me having the company.

At least that changed after all this shit. The distance.

It was honestly a pretty room and up until this night, I had pretty pleasant memories in here. It has light yellow wallpaper, softly textured I think.

I remember as Layton dimmed the lights, I assumed at the time it was to stay covered from the police. But even then, I knew that the police would have never come up stairs. I don't get why I didn't register what was happening. Layton then took this opportunity to lock the door.

I should have realised then that I wasn't safe, but I didn't even think twice. I trusted him. I thought he was keeping me safe from what was outside.

I didn't even consider that the real danger was standing three meters away from me. That he was the danger.

For god sake, sometimes you just don't know until it's too late.

I am not going to describe to you what happened in that room, there is little need to repeat it.

I repeat it enough later.

My friend, or well my boyfriend's friend, took from me whatever he wanted, and although I didn't realise what was happening until It was too late. I swear to god I told him no, I protested, I tried my hardest to fight back.

But even though I did everything I was taught to do, my boyfriend's best friend attacked me and left me to face the earthquake that followed his actions.

Why do they teach girls how to protect themselves, instead of teaching boys the meaning of the word consent?

This is my story and I refuse to sit here and be another victim of sexual assault without sharing and lighting the world on fire with my story.

I am a victim, I hate it when people say that I am not. I can be both a victim and a survivor, and if anyone needs some light, needs some warmth or courage to continue- I can promise you that not every day is going to be a bad.

A/N: I love you all.