Scars that Shine: Shea Steelman Ruark, Surviving Sexual Assault

At first glance, he doesn’t seem like someone to worry about, does he? According to Google, he’s 837 miles away from my home at any given moment.

But this person changed my life in ways I could never have imagined. Because of him, the lives of those who love me were changed, too. He stole things from me that can never be replaced. He broke things that can never be repaired. He took more from me than anyone or anything else. Almost.

You see, my life has never been the same since that night. I can’t sleep in my own home unless another adult is there. I panic when a stranger gets too close in public. I can’t wear a mask without spiralling into a full-blown panic attack. I lie awake at night, replaying the events, punishing myself with thoughts of what I could have done to stop it. I blame myself for the simple fact that I had a beer and smoked a joint that night—as if that justifies what happened. Some days, survival itself feels like a battle.

But here’s the truth: Fordyce, Arkansas, did even more damage to me. More than him. More than that night.

I left the first chance I got, vowing never to return. But against my better judgment, I did. “Give it a chance, Shea. You’re different now,” they said. So I tried. I moved back, unwillingly, but I tried to make it work. And yet, nothing had changed.

The night I was raped, I never saw his face. He made sure of that. I fought desperately to get even a glimpse, but all I knew was darkness. And for years, I was grateful for that—I didn’t have to carry his face in my nightmares.

That changed when we moved back to Fordyce.

One day, someone told my husband they “knew” me. I was “that girl” who lied because she got caught “with a Black man.” And in an instant, I was back in 1994, drowning in that horror. Back in that waking nightmare. Back in the whispers, the stares, the fake friends and family. Back to sleepless nights, starving myself, my mind filled with unbearable noise.

I was back in that apartment. Back in that terror.

I searched the prison records because—even after everything—I felt like I had to prove I wasn’t lying. And that’s when his face finally entered my mind. I could no longer escape it. Because in a place like Fordyce, people love to talk. They’ll spread rumours about things they know nothing about.

And the ripple effects didn’t stop with me. My child had a meltdown in class when another student smugly announced, “I heard your mom got raped.” That’s just how it goes there.

I coped the only way I knew how. Self-medication. Anything to numb the pain of knowing that in a town of 5,000 people, maybe five actually believed me. The rest? They watched as I spiralled into a full psychotic break, whispering behind my back that I must be on crack. Those words cut the deepest—people who should have cared instead dismissed me as a liar, a cheater, a girl who got caught and made up a story. Some claimed I was pregnant with a mixed baby and needed a cover-up. It never made sense—I’ve never cared what people thought about my choices. But in Fordyce, it was easier to gossip than to offer compassion.

Even the authorities weren’t on my side. A Fordyce cop—on duty—picked me up in his cruiser, drove me down dimly lit backroads, and told me exactly what they all thought of me. “You’re just a whore, and everybody knows what a liar you are,” he sneered. My boyfriend’s family thought I was “gold-digging trash” who was “sleeping with Black men.”

Months of terror passed. I lost my grip on reality. And then, one day, I got the call from JR Jones.

“We got him.”

The man I had been screaming about for months had done the exact same thing to other women. And this time, someone in Drew County listened. They caught him. He bragged about me.

Months later, I was called into the prosecutor’s office. They told me that Kendall Rhodes had been convicted of two other rapes, plus burglary. Two life sentences. Forty more years. No chance of parole. The prosecutor reassured me that I wouldn’t have to testify—that he would never get out of prison. And in that moment, at just 20 years old, still in shock and utterly alone, I agreed not to push forward with my own case.

I regret that every single day.

I regret not fighting for myself.
I regret my loyalty to people who turned on me.
I regret believing that anyone in that town would see me as anything other than an inconvenience.
I regret not demanding the psychological help I so desperately needed.
I regret being too scared to stand alone.

I regret ever going back.

Fordyce, Arkansas, will never apologize. I could sue, but it’s not money I want. All I ever wanted was for the people who treated me this way to understand what they did. To see that every time I witness small-town corruption, it reminds me of how badly they treat people. They cry when criticized but never hold themselves accountable. They cling to their so-called morality but turn a blind eye when someone with power does something truly evil.

I’ll stop talking about how toxic that place is when they start making bullies accountable. When they learn the difference between integrity and ego. When they stop valuing social status over basic human decency.

I try not to dwell on these things. They almost killed me once. But now, after all these years, I’ve learned that “no parole” was a lie. For months, I’ve been living in a world without colour, drowning in the weight of that realization.

But here’s the update: He’s not getting out.

As I always knew, he had serious issues and had to be transferred to a facility that could handle them. The weight has lifted. The colours have returned.

And I’m here. My heart is full, but it’s open. And after everything I’ve endured, there’s no room left in it for judgment—only understanding.