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One Girl Against the World

Yelling and screaming came from the kitchen. She was fighting with her Mom and Dad, again, before school. She had enough.

Emotional and distraught, she left for school. It was on that familiar route she made a choice, to break the silence and stand up against the world. She chose to confide in one person at school who could make all the difference in the world, her counselor. The bell was ringing and with a deep breath, she walked through the school doors and went to the counselor's office. It was there she began sharing the black cloud that inhibited her every choice that contained a dark, deep and gruesome secret.

That morning at the beginning of 2006 marked a long battle she would face over the coming months. She told the story of the man, who had raised her since the age of four, who took her innocence and ripped a tender little girl apart into her teenage years. The proper authorities were phoned and the process of interviews and examinations began.

There was no one in the family that believed in her word. They saw her at a troublemaker; never believing, for one minute, that man could have possibly done as she had described. Yet, she stuck to her guns, held fast to the truth she had lived for so many years and didn't back down. She continued to tell her story; it was verbatim, word for word. There was not one account that she couldn't recall, not one moment of torture and torment she couldn't describe time after time, interview after interview. She stood against the world, fighting for the justice she so deserved; not to mention her two younger sisters she wanted to protect.

Department of family services had completed their investigation and believed she was not telling the truth. They released her father' allowing him the opportunity to return home. Fortunately, there was someone still in her corner, the military.

As her 'father' was enlisted in the ARMY, they continued and finally sat down with him and asked a very simple question after laying the transcriptions of all interviews conducted with her on the table before him; "Why is it her story never changes?" He finally spoke the truth when he stated, "Her story will never change as she is telling the truth."

The months rolled by and finally a trial date was set. She would have to stand before him and recount the events transpired once again. A courtroom full of people, men in military uniforms, a judge behind the bench, lawyers at each table, all eyes and ears piercing through

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