She Survived Read Online Free Page A

comics. I also used to hang out with this one national comic who would come to town two or three times a year. He even finally made a small, unknown movie called Ski Patrol. When it came out on video, he would come into the video store I was running and yell, “Hey, where’s my movie?” People would just stare at him strangely. I would point and say, “Over there, Mr. Lopez.” I kept trying to convince people to go see this comedian and people kept saying, “George who?”
    Too bad they didn’t listen.

    Not knowing where she might have dredged up the presence of mind to do it, very quietly, almost in a whisper, Melissa said to her attacker: “Excuse me, but I’m bleeding very badly.”
    This comment stopped the bogeyman in his tracks. He froze. Perhaps he did not expect his victim to humanize herself. She was not an object any longer, maybe. Melissa had turned herself into a person, a human being.
    After she said that, Melissa’s attacker quickly jumped off the bed and ran, as if Melissa’s comment had snapped him out of the rage-fueled, sexual frenzy he was in and brought him back to reality. It was as though he realized what he was doing wasn’t working.
    Melissa thought quickly and reacted.
    â€œI did not even give him the chance to get to the bedroom door when I rolled over and grabbed the phone and dialed 911.”
    A move that likely had saved her life.
    As her attacker scrambled to get out of the apartment, Melissa pleaded with the 911 dispatcher. Her first two sentences were so quick and garbled and full of terror, the words were hard to comprehend. What wasn’t difficult to recognize, however, turned out to be the final words of Melissa’s first interaction with that 911 dispatcher: “. . . He tried to rape me. . . . I’m bleeding. . . .”
    Melissa sounded defeated. At the end. Doomed.
    â€œMa’am, slow down and take a deep breath and repeat what you just said,” the dispatcher said firmly.
    â€œ. . . I . . . I . . . he . . . He tried to rape me and I am bleeding very badly.”
    â€œOkay, do you need an ambulance?”
    â€œYes!” Melissa said, and then she broke down into tears.
    â€œ. . . Don’t hang up.”
    â€œI’m not going to hang up.”
    Dispatch asked Melissa if she was calling from an address dispatch had on file already, which she must have gotten from caller ID.
    â€œYes . . . yes,” she said frantically, confirming. “I’m bleeding very, very badly. . . .”
    â€œAttempt rape,” dispatch reported to another person on another line.
    â€œI think he stabbed me,” Melissa said over that.
    â€œOkay, ma’am, what’s your name?”
    Melissa gave it.
    There was some rapid-fire keyboard tapping while Melissa could be heard breathing deeply, heavily, Darth Vader–like, her rate of taking in air becoming slower and slower.
    â€œOkay, ma’am . . . Okay, what did he look like?”
    â€œI can’t tell you—I was asleep.” Her voice had a terror to it. It was as though Melissa, as she explained it, was just then realizing what had happened and how badly she was possibly hurt.
    There was a lot more computer keyboard tapping. Then dispatch said, “There’s an ambulance on the way to you, ma’am.”
    â€œI need the police. . . .”
    â€œI know . . . just stay on the line with me and calm down, okay?”
    â€œI know . . . I know . . . ,” Melissa said through tears, her breathing now terribly labored. She was fading in and out.
    â€œJust stay with me and calm down, ma’am.” Dispatch was trying her best to keep Melissa talking, breathing, and alert.
    â€œI am . . . I am surprised I am this calm,” Melissa said.
    â€œWas the man black or white? Could you tell?”
    â€œI have no idea,” Melissa answered.
    More vigorous keyboard tapping in between long periods of no talking.
    At one point,