August 2, 2020

Confession,

Here’s something I want to lift off my chest … There’s one specific person I have been
avoiding since the last Keswick camp. That’s kuya Charly. Why am I avoiding him you may
ask? Because he scares me. Well, before the camp, most of my church mates, who are like…
old, respectable women, keep reminding me to stay away from him, if not, to be careful.
And truth be told, I know why they keep telling me this. The man’s a creep. Oh, how did I
know about this? Because I remember everything he did to me when I was in 4 th grade. –
And before you say anything, no, I was not raped. I, however, was touched in places that
shouldn’t be touched (my chest area) and had my first kiss stolen by him. As a kid, I didn’t
know what was going on, so I let him do whatever he did and still remained his friend. Back
then I used to wait for my dad in front of church from 3:30 pm to 7pm- 9pm. But thankfully,
I had access in and out of the church. And most times, I go to the office and stay with
whoever is working there. And that time, it was him… I don’t remember the things we were
talking about but I do remember him, sitting on one of his lap and him sniffing on the
cologne my mom gave me from Hong Kong. Now before you judge, I like smelling good
when I’m at school, and that cologne doesn’t wear off until I take a bath… ok moving on… So
I remember him sniffing, and I remember having a kiss war between me and him… he kisses
me on the cheek and I kiss him back on his cheek. It was all innocent… I, at least, was
innocent… I was taught to kiss the cheeks of people I like, and I kiss the cheeks of my parents
all the time. Anyways I started to notice red flags when he started to sit me in between his
legs, and I kept moving up to where I was originally sitting and he kept bringing me back.
And what’s in between his legs, was a boner…. So I panicked and ran… He chased me, and
the next thing I knew, was that I was pinned down on the staircase of the church, I was
pushing his lips up with both my hands as he tried to push himself down, and before he
could do anything. I managed to slip away, and ran outside… Thankfully, my brother was
there. But I didn’t tell him what happened... School, came and I told some of my classmates,
but they didn’t really believe me. So that kind of discouraged me to speak up…. Anyways a
years passed and voila, I have forgotten what happened, more like, I didn’t know, what to
feel. But I decided to forgive the man, and yes, we became best friends thinking, that he
might’ve been very sorry, and guilty, and decided to redeem himself, to me and to God.

However, you might be thinking, I forgave him before, Why the heck am a scared of him
now? Well that’s because, last year’s camp, my pastor enlightened me with a reason why I
should avoid him. And it turns out, I wasn’t his only victim, there was more girls, older than
me that was harassed by him… And that thought infuriated me. And this past few days, it’s
been hard to avoid him. I pitty him, knowing that, he probably has ruined his reputation and
image from the church, and as his friend. I want to be the one that makes him feel that the
whole world isn’t against him, and that he has a chance to actually redeem himself. But I just
scared. I mean, in those years of being his “best friend” he actually started being touchy…
and on our recent choir practice, he, one time, pulled me and kissed me on my cheek, and I
tried to pull away, but all he thought was that I almost tripped. He also started giving me
gifts which I didn’t ask for. (And gift giving was a behavior I saw him do when he was trying
to win a girl he had a crush on) So that kind of set me off to defense mode….

So yeah, that’s why I’m avoiding this man. And the reason why I don’t want to go to church.