I lie in bed with my boyfriend, both of us fully clothed. Had this been two months ago, he would be wearing only his red boxers with penguins skiing down them, and I would be in pink underwear and a tank top. Our arms and legs would be intricately intertwined and my face resting on his chest, rising and falling with each breath. His hand would slide under my shirt and up and down my back just so he could touch my skin. But tonight we are not tangled amongst each other’s limbs. We each maintain the prone position on our respective sides of the bed and stare at the absurd antics of animated sitcom episodes that play on the LCD monitor. Occasionally, one of us will hesitantly take the other person’s hand and gently squeeze the wrist as a sign of endearment. But that is only a brief moment of acknowledgement in between the long stretches of time we spend trying to focus intently on anything other than what obsessively runs through our minds, but is never mentioned. Because, really, what is there to say at this point?
The information has already been hashed through. I’ve gone through my account of the night several times trying to remember all the details he insists on torturing us with. Every action that led up to the moment, every part of me I remember him touching, every response I should have had, but didn’t. He can’t understand my mindset, and I can’t understand his. It is one of those miles we can never walk in the other’s shoes; only this journey doesn’t seem to have an end. Words are funny like that; they seem to lack the ability to convey what they need to at pivotal moments.
I remember sitting in health class in high school having this scenario taught to me in the abstract. In retrospect, I realize the material is impossible to teach. Health class didn’t explain to me how to handle this situation. The teachers lectured about how to say no firmly; not how as in the execution, but how as in I was supposed to. They lectured about not showering or washing clothing afterwards to preserve DNA, and about going immediately to the hospital to report what happened. I remember all of these cognitive steps that hung on posters in hallway of the guidance office and resided in pamphlets in the health rooms because I have repeated them to friends on more than a few occasions. In the end though, I didn’t follow the rules any better than they did. I had become “that girl” who throws out procedure in lieu of a hot shower and a bar of soap. “That girl” who starts to blame herself for everything that happened and starts believing the blame thrust upon her by others.
I run the night through my mind and think about all of the things I should have done differently, that I wish I had done differently. I should have gone to the police directly afterwards. I should have screamed and fought in hopes of breaking free. I should have slept somewhere else that night. I shouldn’t have drunk so much. I shouldn’t have even gone to the party. I shouldn’t have become his friend in the first place. All of these decisions seem so blatant outside the moment, free from his weight hovering over me, watching it happen from outside.
Health class didn’t teach me how to bypass the emotional reactions of fear and confusion in the moment, in the aftermath. It didn’t teach me how to lie in bed with my boyfriend weeks, months later with inches between us, with him doubting my story, questioning my decisions, with invisible fingerprints all over me that I couldn’t wash away.
Days after the incident, and still, I couldn’t bring myself to say the “R” word. When I told my boyfriend, I just said I hadn’t wanted to. I couldn’t bring myself to be associated with that word. The first time he said it something inside of me cringed, or broke. I still couldn’t understand how my whole world had been stripped from me in one night, in a matter minutes. I found myself asking, was it really the “R” word? The stigma behind it brought images of a woman being jumped in a dark alley and beaten thoroughly, left for dead. That wasn’t me. Stephen had been my best friend. Moments prior, we were smiling. Moments prior I had called my boyfriend to say, “I love you.” My body was not left bruised, only my psyche scarred.
I sat in the Women’s Center on campus with the director, Jacquiline, running through lists of legal processes and treatment options that were dizzying. I kept trying to make sense of it all. I didn’t say the exact word “no,” so does it still count? It still counts, she said. Body language, silence, and other phrases can all serve as resistance to sexual behavior. She handed me a copy of a young girl named Katherine’s report in which she had never said no, never said anything, but it still constituted the “R” word. I had said emphatically to him that it wasn’t going to happen; surely that was a clear no, wasn’t it? I was drunk though. Jacquiline assured me that doesn’t matter. Drinking is not a recusal of personal rights; a person has a right to drink alcohol without living in fear of sexual violation. He had been drinking as well. Does a drunk driver get excused from manslaughter if the pedestrian he hits is drunk? Some how that seemed different, but she was very insistent that it didn’t matter. In the state of Connecticut, if the victim is drunk, she cannot give consent. It’s only word versus word, and there is so much I don’t remember. She ran through lists of questions showing that there are ways, people, behaviors that indicate the “R” word.
Jacquiline wanted me to go to the police right at that moment, but it was not that easy and she understood that. If it was easy the percentage of reported cases would be drastically higher than twenty percent. She handed a folder full of crisis numbers, advocate services, university policies and with that I left more scared and angrier.
At this point, it had been days since it happened, since I had seen his face or heard his voice outside of my nightmares. I had typed to him after that night, though. We conversed via Instant Messenger the next day, within hours of what had happened. Before I had said the story out loud to anyone. Before I had processed what had happened. I felt broken inside. I asked him questions hoping to find a missing piece of the night to explain why and how. He provided information, but it wouldn’t be long before I realized these “facts” were nothing more fabrications. The story changed each time he recounted the “same” moment. My own memory started becoming keener. And then there was the moment that solidified the hurt. The moment he told me not to tell anyone what had happened. He didn’t threaten me so much, but said it was in my best interest to keep it to myself. A resounding fear set in and I wanted to tell everyone and no one at the same time. So I kept it to myself for two very long days before I couldn’t handle it alone any longer.
There was a second conversation a day or so later when the fear seemed to reformulate itself into anger. I told him that I hated him, that he hurt me, that he used me, and that I never wanted anything to do with him again. He kept calling and writing for days; his voice would hide in my voicemail box and cause a weak and nauseas feeling to overwhelm me. Something inside me had died and I was silenced.
I haven’t eaten in days, almost seven now. My stomach still feels sick and my body starts shaking uncontrollably and without warning. My boyfriend reaches over and looks at me with eyes that have so much anger in them that I can hardly see the love anymore. He runs his fingers across my stomach, but quickly catches himself and retracts back to the other side of our six-inch divider. He is scared to touch me, or disgusted by touching me; I’m not sure which. He falls asleep to escape from obsessive thoughts and I struggle to stay awake so as not to fall victim to the nightmares that wait to torment me. I close my eyes just for a moment and images start to flash in my mind. Sometimes I can still feel it –his hands touching my body.
When I close my eyes it is like I transport back to Stephen’s apartment –terror falls over my body again, I revert back to that moment when I realized that my “no” didn’t mean anything to him. I want to cry and push and scream, but I can’t. I’m paralyzed by so many fears: fears of him hating me, fears of him hitting me, fear of no one believing me, fears of pain. My mind races for explanations as to why one of my best friends would be doing this to me. Was I clear that I didn’t want this? Trying to rationalize his behavior but there is no logic to grab hold of. I said I didn’t want to. I was not being coy or playful about it. Couldn’t he see the fear in my eyes? I was screaming for my boyfriend in my head, why couldn’t he hear me? Why didn’t the sounds come out? Why couldn’t I move? I manage to meekly get out the words “Why are you doing this? You don’t even like me?” His face laughing above me –the last image in my mind.
Then everything is gone. Everything outside my head became unreachable. The memory of a boy trying to force me into oral sex in the hallway of my high school rushes to my mind. In response to my emphatic no he twisted my arm in back of me and repeatedly kicked me in the ribs to get me on my knees. I never thought he would hit me, but he did. How could I misjudge so many people? What would prevent Stephen from doing the same thing? What would prevent him from doing worse? I couldn’t determine if my crying has become external or not. I couldn’t feel anything. I was trapped in my head. My mind started trying to count drinks. There were six I could remember and two more that I remembered sharing. More than six drinks in about 2 hours. I still couldn’t drive. I could….
Then it was over. No words were exchanged; no further attempts to touch me were made. I turn on to my left side and wanted to throw up. I knew now the tears covered my face, but didn’t know how long they had been there. I didn’t know if he didn’t notice I was crying or just didn’t care, but in a matter of seconds everything was gone again until I woke up at 7:00 am, an hour before my alarm was due to go off. I sat up and was numb. I held my breath as I gathered my things praying he wouldn’t wake up. I wrote a note saying I left and retreated to my car where I sat and cried. My boyfriend gets out of the bed and some loose change that fell out of his pocket remains on the mattress where he had been. He stands there frozen for a moment maybe trying not to cry, not to scream, not to break something, or just trying to find the strength not to give up. I look at him trying to determine whether or not to say anything. I opt not to.
“Do you want anything to drink?” The truth is I’m not thirsty, but for some reason I feel the need to take anything he offers me right now. So, I silently nod yes, as if it is some sort of peace offering –as if somehow juice means, “I love you.” He goes into the kitchen and I take a few deep breaths in attempt to loosen the knots increasingly tightening in my stomach. He wants to destroy the one who had the nerve to touch his girlfriend, who had the gall to then lie about it, who destroyed what he believes was the most sacred part of our relationship. He doesn’t though. He has called Stephen a few times and the story is always a bit different though the stance never changes. Stephen claims it was consensual; each time my boyfriend hears it I think he doubts me more and hates him more. He has never laid a finger on him though and won’t because he promised me he wouldn’t. He thinks I am protecting Stephen by halting revenge and by not going to the police, but I am protecting me. I am protecting myself from the hot lights of a courtroom, the process of retelling the story over and over again, the people calling me a liar, the threats, the potential physical harm that might surface. I am protecting my boyfriend from ruining his life by being arrested in his cloud of invincibility. I am protecting my character from becoming a person I hate. My boyfriend returns carrying two white coffee mugs with blue stripes around the rim. He places mine containing white grape juice on the filing cabinet next to the bed.
“Thanks.” My voice is timid and intimidated because I am not sure who he hates anymore. I take a sip and move a bit closer to his body, pushing limits.
I hadn’t wanted to ruin Stephen’s life though that is how he has made me feel. That was never my objective. He had been my best friend and in some strange perverse way there was still this foundation of love for the person I thought he was, the person he turned out not to be. I think about the night I met Stephen’s father at one of his plays and how proud he was of his son; did his father know about his other performances –the performances of lies, of egotism, of the “R” word? I think about sitting up on the witness stand while the defense attorney misconstrues and twists my story as my voice quivers. I don’t want to have my sexual history called into question in front of the public eye, in front of my parents’ eyes. I don’t want to hurt his family or any other innocent bystander. What I wanted was an apology, some sort of acknowledgement of remorse, some sort of explanation, but no matter how hard I goaded him for one, Stephen would not say he was sorry for destroying me inside. He could not apologize for something he would not admit to. He stuck to his story that the sex had been consensual though the details varied. Perhaps he thought it was a set up to get a confession, and perhaps it would have been used against him, but at the time I needed someone to be sorry and I was tired of it being me.
I don’t expect an apology anymore, and even if I received one now I’m not sure it would be enough; I’m not sure it ever would have been. I someday hope to be a strong enough person to forgive him for the permanent damage he has caused me, but I can’t seem to find a way to do so yet because my anger and hate build everyday that I feel a fear I didn’t have before or a hurt that shouldn’t be there. I sit and stare at my boyfriend as he stares at the television. I can’t tell if he is watching it or looking past it, but I know that forgiveness is a long way off for him. I just wonder whom he needs to forgive.
My boyfriend came to campus with me the Tuesday after it happened. His muscles would tense up in intervals as we sat in the student center and I worked on my reading assignment that was due at 12:30 that afternoon. I walked around campus in fear of running into Stephen, checking around each corner, sending friends into the hall to check for him before I exited a classroom. My heart was in a constant state of panic, pounding against my chest so forcefully I could feel my sternum vibrate. My cell phone kept vibrating in my pocket; Stephen wanted to talk to me. My boyfriend escorted me from class to class hoping to run into the one person I hoped to never see again. He sat in the hall anxiously as I talked to my fiction professor trying to explain that I couldn’t attend his class anymore, but without divulging exactly why. The entire time I stood there, talking to my professor, trying to fake a smile at his jokes, my eyes stayed fixed on the doorknob fearing Stephen would walk in at any moment.
My essay class was equally as daunting. I couldn’t focus on the texts or what my classmates were saying. The room felt stuffy and small compared to normal, and I couldn’t help checking the time on my cell phone every two minutes to see if I could leave yet. I needed some air or some cold water, but what if Stephen was waiting outside in the hall for me? I watched one student after another leave and return to the classroom. I envied them for not having to fear going out that door. The classroom might have been hot and confining, but it was safe. My professor would keep me safe for as long as I sat at my desk.
When I got home from classes that evening I felt like a shell of myself. I hadn’t responded to any of Stephen’s attempts to contact me up until that point. I took a deep breath, double clicked his screen name on my buddy list, and started a painfully difficult conversation. I kept myself detached as I typed levelheaded responses void of emotional vulnerability. Real didn’t seem as important as safe. I briefly touched on how I felt, but the main focus of the conversation was about how he didn’t want his reputation ruined. He asked me to tell everyone that I was fifty percent responsible for the actions that occurred that night, to tell them he didn’t do anything wrong. I agreed to ask the people in my life to stop contacting him, but under circumstances would I lie to them about what happened that night. What happened was not consensual; it was the “R” word. I brought up legalities and told him at the moment I was not pursuing legal action, but that I had not ruled it out either. He in turn threatened me with legal action of his own: defamation of character and threats. At this point, visions of my boyfriend being questioned by the police raced to my head making it harder to breath and focus.
It seemed everything he was saying was a lie now. He claimed things started and occurred in ways that were completely untrue. I had gaps in the night, but I remember it well enough to know he was trying to make me feel guilty about a situation in which I did nothing wrong, and the worst part was –it was working. He was trying to cover his ass. I repeatedly told him I knew things didn’t happen the way he claimed. I knew he wasn’t drunk that night. He was my designated driver and only had three drinks. For an avid drinker three drinks in two hours was not debilitating. I knew that I never kissed him; I knew that we never kissed period. The whole encounter started with him touching me, not the other way around. It was his hand that started caressing my stomach and it was at this point I said it wasn’t going to happen the first time. He respectfully backed off and apologized. Then moments later he started again and this time my verbal resistance was not respected. Stephen said I touched him; I never touched him. He said he used a condom-- a statement he would later confess was a lie when I asserted that he left semen on my skin. His assertions just didn’t add up, and everything inside of me knew that what happened that night was wrong. My conversation with him turned from police and condoms to his desire to be friends again, his hope of getting things back to how they used to be, but still no accompanying apology. My only desire is a longing to go back and never meet him.
My boyfriend notices I am no longer watching the screen but staring down at the bed, and he asks me what is wrong. I tell him nothing is wrong, which is what I always tell him. The truth is everything is wrong now. That I feel like he hates me, that he thinks I’m dirty, that he is going to leave me. I have a million regrets and “should have’s” running though my mind. A million conflicted emotions of guilt, hate, anger, sadness, and fear. An overwhelming desire to go to sleep and never wake up again. Everything is wrong now. There is a gap between us that seems at times too wide to even fathom closing. He doesn’t understand how I can be trying to move on with my life, accusing me of letting Stephen get away with this, of not being angry enough. I don’t understand why his hate is stronger than his love for me, why he doesn’t want to just hold onto me forever.
It took six weeks for me to gather the emotional strength I needed to go to the police and file a report. The last triggering moment was while I sat at a bar with my friends and was too scared that I would see Stephen to stay longer than an hour before retreating back to the safety of my boyfriend’s arms. I hated what my life had become and what I hated more was that Stephen’s life had gone unaltered. Officer Surowiec of the New Britain Police Department took my statement with an aura of resentment. When I first arrived into the uninviting lobby with my best friend he stated he didn’t have the time to talk to me if I wasn’t there to press charges. He made comments about how it was possible nothing would happen, questioned my statements making me feel like he didn’t believe a word I was saying and that this was an inconvenience in his life. I gave the police my laptop so they could retrieve the correspondence between Stephen and me, and then there was nothing to do but wait.
My boyfriend is falling asleep by my side while a detective at the precinct looks over my case searching for slipups, searching for reasonable cause. I move another inch closer to his warm body and rest my head on his chest. I hear his heart beating, forcing itself to continue on. In my head, I think of what those health books should really cover. The questions that are relevant outside the abstract: How will I ever trust a male friend again? Will I forever be scared with the people I love? Will I be scared to drink? Will I walk around campus for the rest of the semester peeking behind corners? Will I always avoid places he might be? Will I ever want to have sex again? What if the tests come back showing I have contracted something? What if he gave me AIDS? What if I die? What if I am pregnant? What if no one wants me now? Will I ever be able to forgive myself for something I didn’t do? These are the thoughts that haunt me, that perpetuate a fear underlying every moment my boyfriend is not holding me. But perhaps even if they did teach these things the lessons would be lost because you can’t prepare for something like this, for the “R” word.
I run my hand up and down my boyfriend’s body. It looks so strong that one would never guess how broken and frail the spirit inside it is now. How his heart has to try a little harder to keep going. I want to kiss him and make our lives all better again. This isn’t something I can makeshift though. I want to tell him to never leave me alone again, but those inches between us, even when we touch, seem to be growing everyday and everyday that we let this destroy us we give Stephen more power. I’m done feeling weak, from this point on I will not be scared to scream: RAPE.