She called for me as she sat on her prayer rug; her tone was sharp and angry, letting off sparks that you could almost see with your eyes.
She asked: "What's going on between you and Hassan? Why are you so mad at him? What's your relationship with him? Are you in love with him?"

I replied with words that felt heavy. It was the first time I would feel that words bore weight.
"No Mom, I'm not in love with him. He's a dirty person and I hate him, and I don't want to see him again in our house, please."
"Why, what did he do to you?"

I told her with little details about an ominous and depressing day.
It was an ordinary day in the life of a 16-year-old girl in high school, going out with friends for lunch and a movie. My phone rang; it was Hassan, my cousin.

"Hello…Where are you? Come on, I want to take you out for lunch to celebrate my new car."
Hassan was 6 years older than me. Him and his brother were the family members I spent most of my time with whenever I would visit Egypt.
He was like an older brother, very close to me because my mother and her sister – his mother – were very close themselves.

It was around 4 pm when I got into the car with him.
"Congratulations bro, the car is really nice. Fingers crossed till you buy your dream apartment."
"Actually, I wanted to take your opinion on something else. I found an apartment in The Fifth Settlement, would you come with me to check out its location?"
"Of course! Before or after lunch?"
"Let's go now quickly."

We set out and of course I don't know how to get to the neighborhood we were visiting, nor did I even know where it was on the map of greater Cairo.
Needless to say, such questions didn't cross my mind then.
We stopped in a place in the middle of the desert, surrounded by mountains.

"Are we there?"
"Yeah, the whole place is still under construction. Get out of the car and I'll show you where it is exactly."
" Where? I can't see anything."
"Come on here and take a look."

He was very close to me then. He forced me onto the car.
I cannot remember all the details because they are buried somewhere…
Yet there are feelings that I remember, like how I felt when he pulled my headscarf off my hair.
I remember my feeling when I was trying to hide my mouth in his chest so he couldn't reach it. 

He was taller and bigger than me.
I was pushing him away with all my strength. I struggled a lot till I got away from him and I looked around me and didn't know where I was.
There was nowhere to run except to get into the car again…
I was screaming: "I want to get out of here…I want to get out of this place, take me back!"
He got into the car; "Okay, okay I'll drive you back."

Instead of taking the wheel, I found him trying to reach me again. His hands were groping me everywhere, and I didn't know how to push it away from all the parts of my body that he was touching.
I have no idea where my strength came from at that moment, but I kept hitting and pushing him until I got out of the car again.

I ran away around the place but there was no clear sign as to where the main street was. He ran after me and said, "Okay, okay, I'll take you home."
It was really difficult to trust him again and get into the car, but that was the only way to leave other than get lost in the desert.
I got into the car again. He drove until there was a sign of a road and I said: "Stop the car, I'm getting off here."
I took a taxi home. I didn't cry then. I cried maybe two months later after telling my mother and she told me: "This is all your fault because you got into the car with him alone in the first place. I don’t want him or anyone else to know that you told me what happened."

I am 27 years old now, and still a virgin according to your concept of virginity because my hymen is intact.
But I will always remember that the first time someone touched me, it was against my will and that my mother was too much of a coward to stand by my side.