Charmaine's story Video (MV)

Thirteen
The year she was noticed
Peers and pressure hurried her into adulthood
She was changing
She went from looking cute to standing out
Growing in ways that made the streets whistle made eyes bulge
Made her cool cool enough to sit with the cool girls two grades above her
All of a sudden she was interesting funny and important
Hanging out with 15- and 16-year-olds made her the it girl in it places
Pulled over by it studs who parked to get their attention
Their youth was theirs and they took it freely
Wool pulled over her parent's eyes
Sleepovers became makeovers
She transitioned from being a girl to almost becoming a woman
But she was still only 13
In grown-up clothes with grown-up lips
Hanging with grown-up boys who served her sweet-tasting drinks
That made her dizzy and laugh like a grown-up
She was still 13 and he was 28
Old enough to pay for dinner and drive them to parties
After being introduced as 'the girl I was telling you about'
The night led them to the backseat of his car
His hands travelled in between her discomfort
This was part of growing up
This was part of being noticed
She thought
He undressed her She tried to stop him
Don't be such a baby
She imagined her friends teasing
Everyone was doing it right?
Outside of the car the pain still ringing in her ears
Her friends greeted her with knowing smiles and unspoken high-fives
She was now truly one of them
First the sickness came-at school and at home
Then the question followed: don't you use protection?
Then came the fear and the feeling of being a child again not knowing
After that she lost more than just her friends
When her mother noticed and asked questions
It was too late
Bursting into tears in her mother's arms she was 13-a baby still
In the emergency room she was 13-a baby still
Too young to carry the child to term
A C-section not enough to save the unborn
The relief that she wouldn't have to become a mother quickly faded
As news of her new reality struck her harder than anything she had heard before-an HIV diagnosis
They got it wrong she thought This couldn't be her
She was 13-a baby still

You can't change Charmaine's story but you could change the stories of thousands like her
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