Why “Nothing Happened” Hurts the Most
In my novel, On the Edge of Then and Now, my protagonist Becky is sexually assaulted, but when she tells her friends, her mother, the local cops, she realizes how much her assault…
jennymorelliwrites.com/2026/09/06/w…
jennymorelliwrites.com
Why “Nothing Happened” Hurts the Most
In my novel, On the Edge of Then and Now, my protagonist Becky is sexually assaulted, but when she tells her friends, her mother, the local cops, she realizes how much her assault is minimized when she’s forced to say ‘Nothing happened,’ simply because she escaped before he could go all the way, which leaves her with no proof. In my novel, my other protagonist, Cade, suffers violent abuse, both physical and emotional, at the hands of his father, who knows where to hit so that others can’t see his wounds, the parts that can be hidden behind a flannel, even on the warmest of days.