Toni Was Here

By Toni Squara

It is a true story and includes the stories of South African women who have also experienced various kinds of GBV. Toni tells her story as it happened, all the raw, uncomfortable, and honest truths that follow women around the world.
Toni Was Here is a novel that takes the reader into the mind of a survivor of men’s violence against women. Toni struggles to make sense of her new reality and discovers that although her body survived a brutal assault, surviving her own mind was a far greater undertaking.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Toni Squara
• Release date: Sep 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005461270

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Copyright © 2022 Toni Squara

First edition 2022

Published by Toni Squara at Smashwords

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Cover Design by Andrew Mossop.

Toni Squara

www.toniwashere.com

Dedication

To the Squarakies, my favourite people in the world.

Trigger Warning

This book contains graphic descriptions of assault and suicidal thoughts.

Prologue

This work aims to bring attention to men’s violence against women to make a meaningful difference in lives and attitudes of people across the world. We each have a role to play in the evolving future of the world. gender based violence has historically been considered a woman’s issue, but we are not raping and killing ourselves.

Men’s violence against women is a men’s issue.

I am calling on men to start the conversation. This is where we need knights in shining armour. There are too many damsels in distress. You, as a man, have the power to open the conversation and change the narrative of men around you in a way that women cannot.

The way we currently regard and treat the women in our lives is deeply troubling. Countries across the world are including gender-based violence as a criterion for decisions on laws and regulations. While this is a positive movement, it doesn’t change the way that people think or behave.

‘‘You say you’ll change the constitution

Well, you know

We’d all love to change your head

You tell me it’s the institution

Well, you know

You better free your mind instead’’

- The Beatles

Chapter 1

The Beginning of My Story

I would like you to press a finger—any finger—on the soft fleshy tissue between the curve of your jaw and your neck. You will find it uncomfortable with slight pressure, painful with moderate, and unbearable with more.

This is where I was stabbed.

You have to go. You have to die.

Those were the last words I heard before everything changed. One night, after the breakup, he tried to wrap me in his arms, and I coldly rejected his embrace. I broke his heart when I broke it off with him, and he, in turn, broke me.

Injuries to the throat and neck are likely fatal, even when tended to quickly. The internal carotid artery—supplies blood to the brain— external carotid artery—supplies blood to the face and neck—and jugular veins—drains blood from the face and brain—rest in this area. With so much vital blood carried by these channels, the slightest trauma can instantly evoke death.

Warmth rushed over my face as my mind began to realise what my body already knew. Something terrible had happened. My arms lifted instinctively, and I felt the soft woven wool of my lover’s jersey depress against my fingertips as my body threw itself to the floor. I was on my back, my heart was in my throat, and the sight of a blade thrashing down at me confirmed the unthinkable.

I snapped around and hurried away from him on my hands and knees. But I couldn’t breathe through the overburdening stream of hot, thick blood pouring down my throat. It felt as though shards of glass were piercing my lungs when I inhaled, and the blood gurgled in the back of my throat when exhaling. I reached the couch on the opposite side of the narrow room and desperately clawed up, all the while violently coughing and choking.

An instinctual scream managed to squeeze past the shards of blood in my throat. I heard screaming, the words help me repeatedly screeching out. My own cry was so distant and detached that I wasn’t sure it came from me at all. All I knew was that my lungs were now solidly deflated. Eager gulps of air follow screams. All I could do was cough and choke on the strangling sprays of blood.

The inability to breathe almost made me forget about the knife still thrashing down, but my body didn’t forget. A forceful plunge came from above, and my hand somehow managed to stop the blade hurtling towards me. His arm plunged with so immense a passion that I felt the shaking strain in my muscles as they laboured under the pressure.

A ghastly realisation fuelled my need to fight back. Should he overpower me, he would have the advantage of fatally accurate aim. We fought and grappled for the knife through panicked breaths of bloodied air.

My arm flew forward unexpectedly, and I braced for the worst until I realised I was clasping a splinter of the blade, which I furiously plunged into his arm. I hoped this would stop him from carrying on, but I was mostly hoping that enough time had passed for someone to hear my screams. Such a piercing and frenzied noise was sure to have travelled across the apartment building. It was sure to have roused the neighbours’ curiosity. I was certain that it held the promise of being saved.

In an instant, I was on my back and felt a sort of sweltering shadow covering me. All focus lay on the inability to breathe, an awful sensation of my diaphragm violently contracting to force air into my lungs but finding only a vacuum—a complete lack of oxygen.

He was on top of me, his hands around my throat with his arms stretching out and merging into the dark haze of the person I once loved. His grip tightened around my throat, and in less than a second, my vision became blurry. In less than two, my eyes started rolling. The fire of life around me diminished, and a comforting shadow overcame my being.

It is said that death comes to one as naturally as sleep. Perhaps that is why it is typically described as quite a comfortable experience, being in that darkness. At that moment, I felt a compelling desire to die, a pining remembrance to join the comfort of the shadow and to understand and reunite with the inevitability of death.

This was to be my doom. I would be slaughtered in my own house by someone I loved. Growing concerned with the unanswered calls, my worried mother would discover the horrific scene. She would enter the apartment to find my decomposing corpse settled in the middle of a black ring of blood, just lying there, dead between the couch and the centre table.

It was in the moment of this horrific thought that my body started wildly bucking to gain liberty. My legs were kicking and my arms were pulling when suddenly sweet, hallowed oxygen caressed my lungs. I eagerly gulped for air.

My desperate thirst for air was not nearly quenched when the soft fabric of a decorative cushion heavily covered my face, and the terror of being unable to breathe was upon me once more. To my delight, I found a welcome pocket of dusty air with my head turned to the side, one cheek nestled against the balmy carpet and the other against the soft fabric of the cushion. While it was not nearly enough to quench my thirst for air, I found that by taking slow and steady breaths, the smallest amount of air gently flowed without disturbing the blood still trickling down my throat.

My lungs were pining for air and were becoming increasingly impatient with the slow and steady breaths. And then he just lifted the cushion from my face and disappeared. Perhaps he realised that I had found a way to breathe. Perhaps he would just…stop.

The brief rest was enough to inspire me to flip over and scuttle to safety, but just as soon as I had willed my body to roll over, I once again collapsed as he tackled me from behind. I was now flat on my stomach, with him on top of me. In this position, my arms could not move any considerable distance, and my head was pressed firmly to the floor. I tried rolling my body from side to side, but he clutched my wrists and pressed them firmly to the floor on either side of my head.

Then, as though some primal force within me lashed out, I furiously bit down into his arm, my head shaking as I clenched my teeth together as tightly as I could. Only, I should have realised that he would retaliate in a primal manner too. I don’t remember the exact details, but the aftermath was that he removed chunks of flesh from my hands with his teeth. I do remember quite clearly the sharp pinch at the top of my left ear as he held it firmly between his teeth, pulling and tugging. I couldn’t believe it. He was savagely tearing at my ear.

There is a bit of a blank space in my memory. I do not recall exactly how I ended up on my knees on the other side of the room. I must have been there without thought for some time. I sluggishly scanned the room. There was no sign of him. I meant to move, to find safety or even a weapon to defend myself, but I couldn’t quite convince my body to follow suit. I was so paralysed with exhaustion and terror that I just stood still, feverishly sobbing in the pool of blood beneath me.

In a flash, a thunderbolt flared before me with a sickly brilliant radiance. I concluded that he must have been hitting me with something. But…surely not, he wouldn’t have another plan to kill me. Before I could connect all the dots, I turned my head and saw a rock climbing in the distance.

Thud.

Each blow threatened to be the one that would take my life.

Thud.

Each thunderous jolt held the promise of my tragic end and left me dizzier and more confused than the last.

Thud.

The pieces of my skull reverberated against each other. My ears were ringing so loudly that I was barely able to think a whole thought before it slipped from my grasp. A storm clouded my mind. I stood motionless on my knees and swayed back and forth to the rhythm of the beating. My body was heavy, and my mind paralysed.

He must have moved to stand in front of me at some point. All I can remember is that a vague plan emerged as my eye was beckoned by the flash of light reflecting off the zipper on his pants. I pieced the fragments together and ordered my tardy arm to lift and plunge forward.

Chapter 2

The Six Hours

I was still in the same spot, on my knees. I wasn’t sure where he had gone, and I was too exhausted and confused to move. Then I saw him out of the corner of my eye coming up beside me.

Please, please stop! I implored. I can’t take any more. J…just stop. Just stop.

It felt as though I had used the last of my strength on these words as I remained standing on my knees, my arms limply hanging at my sides and strings of blood-soaked hair hanging across my face.

Hands, he said calmly as he rattled a roll of tape back and forth.

I loosely placed my wrists together and offered them to him. He rolled the tape around my wrists until he was satisfied that I would not escape. He then calmly stood up and absentmindedly placed the knife on the centre table as he went.

The knife was too far for me to reach but was close enough to be within easy grasp. In a panicked urgency for the glimmer of hope that presented itself, the slippery blood covering my hands made it easy to free my hands from the ties, and I hurriedly lunged for the knife. To my disappointment, my weak and tardy limbs betrayed my efforts. He saw what I tried to do and snatched the knife half a second before I could.

Tsk, tsk, tsk, he clicked with his tongue as he waved the knife back and forth through the air as if scolding a naughty child, evidently proud of his achievement.

I am sorry, I…I won’t do it again. Just tie me up, and I won’t struggle. I tried to sound as earnest and entreating as I could, but what came out was flat and slow. I had to force the words out. I simply didn’t have the energy to plead for my life.

Instead of unleashing the mad fit of rage I expected, he coolly—almost robotically—instructed me to get up off the floor and sit on the couch. I did as he instructed and offered my wrists to