A Girl's Life Online (23 page)

Mr. Garrity-Rokous then gave a brief summary of what kind of testimony would be given if in fact this would go to trial. He mentioned records of e-mails and telephone bills that would prove Frank had been in touch with me. He said that I would have to testify about his groping me in the hotel room, and that a lot of other people—including the Texas police officers—would testify about my condition after I came out of Frank's room.

Then Frank stood up, walked to the witness stand, and took an oath to tell the truth. The judge read the charges and asked, “How do you plead?”

“Guilty.”

With that one word two years of investigation and repercussions were over. The judge announced that sentencing would be held in eighty days. The gavel came down with a sharp crack and we were all free to leave.

As Frank was led out by his attorney, I stood up behind the prosecutor's table. Mr. Garrity-Rokous put out his hand and as I took it he said, “Congratulations, Katie.”

I imagined that I should feel vindicated, maybe even victorious, but I didn't. I was fully aware of the fact that Frank was going to prison, and I was happy to know that at least for a short time, he would not be able to seduce anyone else. But ultimately I couldn't help but think this was a real tragedy for everyone, including him.

“The press wants to speak with you,” added Mr. Garrity-Rokous. Neither David nor I was interested in speaking, so the prosecutor agreed to tell the reporters we were not available. He turned to leave us, but suddenly stopped.

“The defendant's lawyer wants me to give you a message,” he said. “Frank wanted to meet with you, to apologize.”

I was shocked. How could he offer a sincere apology? He lived for the pursuit of young girls and boys. He could only be doing this for appearances. “Tell him to write me a letter,” I said.

In the hallway I passed right by Frank and his lawyers. I looked at him and suddenly realized that one brief Sunday-morning chat on AOL had led to this. My life was a shambles, and he was going to jail. This says something about the power of the sickness that was inside of him. Getting to me—not me in particular, but just getting to a young girl—was so important to him that he had been willing to risk everything. Suddenly the anger that made me reject his request for a meeting melted, and it was replaced by regret. Maybe I should have let him talk to me. Maybe I owed him that much.

On the car ride home David was mostly silent and so was I. About halfway through the trip I clicked on the radio and started channel surfing. “Can't you stick with one station for at least thirty seconds?” snapped David.

“Don't yell at me,” I said.

“Feeling guilty about screwing up a man's life?” he asked.

I was stunned into silence. I wanted to tell him he was wrong, that Frank had done it all to himself. But in that one sentence David had broken the fragile dam that was holding back all my inner doubts and fears. Yes, I did feel guilty, but it wasn't for him to say it, to make it real.

That night, my mother came home and I told her about the hearing. I knew she regretted not going, even though she didn't say so. The next day the newspapers reported the defense attorney's explanation for the guilty plea. Frank wanted “to remove any undue hardship from the victim or her family,” he said.

More guilt flooded my heart in the days after the guilty plea. I knew I would have a chance to actually speak at the sentencing hearing and decided that writing my statement might help me clarify things in my mind. That statement would be the first time that I would talk to Frank in more than two years. And it would be far different from anything I had said to him before.

When I sat down and tried to let my innermost feelings speak, I didn't like what I heard. Instead of raging at Frank, I kept remembering that I had been part of the relationship. I had been charming in our conversations and willing to meet him in Texas. But while he was about to lose his freedom, perhaps for years, I wasn't being punished at all by the court. Something about this was wrong.

I knew that he was older than me—everyone said that was why he was being punished—but I still felt responsible. At the time I considered myself very mature for my age—maybe most thirteen-year-old girls think this way, but I truly believed it. The truth of the matter was that I should have known better.

I needed to confess. I needed to say that I was guilty, maybe even as guilty as the man who was going to go to jail for our relationship. I was a straight-A student, a nationally ranked swimmer, and an accomplished musician. I had friends and family who loved me. In getting involved with that man named Mark on the Internet, I had betrayed them.

I
was one of the last people to arrive back at school after spring break. I tried hard to lose myself in work and activities. I began rowing crew and actually enjoyed the killer workouts on Turkey Pond. But while other members of the team seemed to be ravenous after burning so many calories, I just didn't have any appetite.

Crew and everything else helped me forget about Frank. But every time my mind was not fully engaged, I'd start thinking about the upcoming sentencing. Before I knew it an hour had passed. Homework took longer and longer to complete, and sleeping became more and more difficult.

Over the phone my mom picked up on a little of what I was going through. I'd say something about feeling guilty, and she'd argue with me. Almost every day I'd find a voice mail message from her reminding me that we had done the right thing in reporting and prosecuting Frank.

I knew we had done the right thing. He had to be charged and punished for what he did. But in the end, his confession and the time he would spend in jail would give him some sort of completion. He had done something bad. He had been caught. He was paying for it. Then he would be freed.

What about me? I had done something bad. I had been caught, but there would be no public ceremony where I could admit my guilt. There would be no formal punishment for me, and because of this, there would be no public moment when my debt would be declared paid in full.

This is what I thought about all day long. At night I'd lie awake, remembering that night in Texas, thinking about how my mother had suffered, imagining Frank being led into a prison cell. I'd wake up feeling the bile rising in my throat and my stomach convulsing and I'd run to the bathroom.

I began not eating at most meals because I knew I was going to throw it up and it would hurt more. I'd telephone my mother and ask if she thought I might need some sort of help. After the experience with Psychologists One and Two my mom was pretty skeptical about me seeing another counselor.

“You can talk with friends, Katie. Maybe you can do that, and get yourself involved with things. Time will pass and you will feel better.”

“I'm not sure that's going to work this time,” I said. “What if it doesn't?”

“Keep the counseling as a last resort. Think of it as something that's there if you need it.”

I knew, deep down, that my friends weren't enough. They couldn't possibly understand my feelings. Last resort or not, I needed help.

As I walked up the stairs to the health center I worried about who might see me going in, but inside I saw at least a dozen people waiting to be seen. I knew them all, and it made me feel better about going, because if they went, I could go, too.

I didn't have to say much other than I wanted to see a counselor and I preferred seeing a woman. The receptionist asked for my schedule, and I handed it to her.

“I really don't have anything available,” she said as she handed it back to me.

I wasn't ready for this. I mean, just getting myself up the stairs and into the waiting room had been hard enough. We talked a little bit about how busy everyone was. Then she said she'd try to find an opening for me, perhaps in a few days. And there were some off-campus options. She was very friendly, and it wasn't her fault that everyone had full schedules. I thanked her and left.

Maybe my mother was right. For now, I would just try to get through each day. I would row, attend my classes, do my work. A normal routine would make me feel better.

“Pick something that interests you,” my English teacher said. “Pick a topic that excites you, pick something that you want to explore further.”

I was supposed to settle on something like “The Role of Women in the South” or “The History of Baseball.” But I was fixated on pedophilia. I thought about it all the time. I wondered if people are born with it. Is it something that you might be able to control? Is it curable?

Of course, I didn't want to think about this. I mean, I was a sixteen-year-old from supposedly perfect New Canaan, Connecticut. I was supposed to be thinking about what dress I was going to wear to the next dance, or figuring out what the hyperbolic sine curve meant. But there I was, standing at my teacher's door, with child molesters on my mind.

I have always found doors without windows intimidating. I never want to feel as if I am interrupting something. So I just stood there for a while. I slipped off my signet ring, twisted it in my hand, and then looked at the scratches that blur the initials. I ran my hands through my hair a couple of times and noticed that it was falling out of my head. Enough stalling. I knocked on the door.

“Hi, Katie.”

I walked in and took a seat in his office. Avoiding eye contact at all costs, I began to look at the pictures on his desk—the happy wife and kids.

“I have thought about it, and I think that I might want to write something along the lines of . . . well, I thought it would be interesting if I explored, and I really want to understand . . . well, I want to write about pedophilia.”

“Interesting. You know, that is a very fascinating topic. Not many people really understand how it affects our society.”