A snowy evening.
I knew it was wrong. I’d stopped it before. But with a tear soaked face and a friend on the line, I was bound and determined to fuck up everything. Over one little text:
So how are you, my angel?
So I get in the back seat of a car. Immediatly, he tells me to start drinking. Vodka out of a XXX Vitamin Water Bottle. We crack jokes, I light up a cig. The car is fast and the liquor isn’t getting much easier to drink. Still, they tell me to drink up. So I do.
And we get in the house. We go directly to the basement. Which was suspect. Never did we have to do that in the years I had known him. In any event, I go downstairs. And sit on his leather couch, like the millions of times I had before, predating my blue hair.
I sit with his friend, someone who I had dated. We shoot the breeze, talking smack to talk smack. He encourages more drinking. We put in a movie. A comedy. One with Adam Sandler. The world starts spinning. I start feeling like Mother. I call one of my dear friends, who is many states away. I say hi and the battery dies. He takes my phone from me. So what does a smart girl do? Leave.
But I drink more. I eat a taco. Then, his friend leaves. And I am left with only him.
His baby doll lips.
His long curly hair.
His merciless blue eyes.
The rest of the story is in glimpses, little lightning bugs of moments: I am on the ground, my clothes off. Hands—hands that are not my own, with long nails—brush around me. A smart girl can move. I am paralyzed. But he is not. His hands do not cease. Then, hands aren’t the only things touching me and still I cannot move.
I am naked, hunched over a toilet. I look in the mirror. And there he is, naked as me, behind me. Merciless blue eyes.
I am once again clothed, stumbling up the stairs of my house. I get in bed.
The next day starts at noon, much later than I usually awake. I wake up to nausea, that promptly turns to sickness on my bedroom floor. I call my friend. I tell him what happened—what I remember. And he hangs up. I get sick again. I call my other friend. He is mad at me too. But he calms and tells me to go shower—I’ll feel better.
So I manage to get there. How? I will never know. I strip off clothes that aren’t mine. Underwear that isn’t mine. I lay in the shower, sobbing. What happened?
I once again get sick.
By 4, I manage to make it downstairs, claiming a severe stomach bug. Through texts, I get more confused.
Me:what happened last night?
Him: you drank.
Me: Well, I’m sick. So what all did I drink?
Him: A Lot.
And then his friend texts me.
Him: Happy alcohol poisoning, bitch.
Me: What happened?
Him: You got played so bad. And you don’t even know it.
Me: How?
Him: You’ll get mad at me.
I tell another one of my friends, who decides I should go get checked out, at least to make sure there was nothing caught or growing.
So, for the second night in a row, I sneak out. Terrified.
The hospital seemed cold, very unfriendly. I try to get through it with jokes. I cannot cry.
The hospital calls the police. They separate me from my friend. They take my clothes as evidence. I stand on a mat, naked. In front of a nurse with sharp features and a disapproving look. It’s all a fucking show.
They do tests. Tests that hurt. Tests that made me shiver and freeze up. The police call my father.
At 3 in the morning, I am alone in a hospital room, shaking and unsure.
At 5 in the morning, I’m escorted home by an officer. She takes the clothes I was wearing in the morning. I take pill after pill and fall asleep.
I didn’t sleep in my room for months. I couldn’t close the door to the garage for 6.
The clock keeps ticking.
They say I’m fine. They say he can’t hurt me.
But didn’t he already?
Do I deserve to be his little fucking blow up doll?
And the last text I received from him:
I am truly and deeply sorry for raping you.
