Mirror Talk, nonfiction

*This piece originally appeared in the You Are Not Your Rape anthology, published by Rhythm and Bones Press. You can order your copy through Barnes and Noble and Amazon*

Look at you. You’re eighteen, just moved back home from your freshman year of college out of state. World-weary, tired, still optimistic. You decided to transfer to a school back home a few months ago, when your swim coach cut your scholarship for no reason. Long before your teammate threatened to drug and rape you during a team dinner—before your coach defended him.

            You’ll meet a boy that summer that will change your life. He swoops in unannounced and burrows his way in. He takes you out to dinner, and while you’re talking animatedly about Doctor Who, you’ll think he’s pretty close to perfect. How lucky you are, to have found someone like him.

            He’ll kiss you a week later in your kitchen. One minute, you’ll be talking about your dogs, then, mid-sentence, he’ll be on you. Holding your face in his hands, his mouth slimy on yours. You don’t know how to react. You won’t kiss back. He’ll break away, avert his gaze, and run out your front door. He doesn’t apologize.

            Take note. This sets the tone for your entire relationship.

            A month later, he’ll break down, tell you he was raped by a boy he thought he was in love with. That he used to identify as gay, then bi, now pansexual. You’ll tell him how brave he is for sharing. A few days later, he’ll tell you he loves you, that he’s never met anyone as kind or understanding.

            You won’t be sure how to feel. That’s okay. You don’t say it back. That’s okay too.

            The sweet, sensitive boy that shared his vulnerabilities turns forceful. He has a voracious appetite. Nothing is sufficient. He pins you down on his couch in the dead heat of July, writhing on top of you, his mouth mashed against yours until your lips are bruised and swollen. Your thoughts wander. This isn’t what you want.

            Then he’ll shove his hand up under your shirt, without ever asking, groping at your chest. You’ll push him off, tell him you don’t like it, ask him to stop. He will, for that day.

            You’ll blame the clothes you were wearing. You’ll think you did something to lead him on. Your clothes were fine. You did nothing wrong. You’ll dress in those oversized t-shirts and running shorts anyway. Huddle in on yourself and try not to touch him. You’ll think if you don’t touch him, he won’t keep coming on to you. It won’t work. The issue was never your clothes, never what you did. It was always with him. His inability to respect your boundaries. I know you’ll think you did, but you never did anything wrong.

            He begs you to sleep with him. Practically gets down on his knees. Won’t understand why you keep saying no. Gets angry. Finally, in August, you’ll break down and tell him. I’m asexual. I don’t want to have sex. Not now. Not ever.

            His response will be asexuals can still have sex. The things he’ll say to you will turn inward. Small pieces of who you are will break off and ache, sharp, right behind your heart.

            You’ll tell him you love him during a weekend vacation at your best friend’s house on the Potomac River. You’re sitting on the dock, your friends swimming nearby. It should be romantic, but your stomach twists itself into new knots when he won’t keep his hands off you afterwards. Slapping your ass in front of your friends, making out with you in the middle of the night when you’ll just want to sleep. You’ve fed his hunger, and he is insatiable.

            Summer turns to fall. You start at your new school. He’s right there, at every break between classes. He wants to make out, constantly, always pushing past your boundaries. He won’t get you completely naked, not yet. He’ll get you down to nothing but your underwear, and then sneak his hand underneath, shove his fingers inside you. They’ll wiggle around, your heart roaring in your ears. Tears well up behind your eyes. Please stop, you’ll say. Please.

            He does. Apologizes. Says he doesn’t know what he’s doing. You believe him, even when he says, over and over, I want to fuck you.

            You’ll withdraw from him. The more he touches you without your permission, the further you slink inside yourself. He’ll corner you in his car, when he drives you home one night. You haven’t told me you loved me in weeks, he’ll say, his knuckles white where they grip the steering wheel, illuminated when you pass under streetlights. He’ll beg you for validation, for you to tell him you love him, you need him, you want him. And you will, huddled against the passenger door, your seatbelt cutting into your neck. You’ll tell him all these things, in between sobs, and it won’t be enough. He’ll park in your driveway, cut the engine. You know you can pop the lock and walk away, but you won’t. You’ll feel like you deserve this. You’ve brought this on yourself, by not being enough for him. When you tell him this, he’ll protest, but the way he makes you feel cuts deeper than his hollow words.

            You were always enough—more. He just couldn’t see it.

            He’ll be kind and respectful for a few weeks. Won’t try to push too far. Actually bothers to ask before anything. Stops when you say no. But this won’t last long. It never does.

            Come February, he’s shoving his fingers inside you again. Without asking. Too rough and too fast, he makes you bleed. You ache in a part of yourself you didn’t know existed.

            He pushes harder, telling you he’s going to marry you. You’re his soulmate. You’re stuck with him. Deal with it. Those words worm their way in too. Until part of you believes them, clings to them.

            One day, while you’re getting dressed in your room, he’ll come up behind you. Push you down on your bed. Express his disappointment that you’re already clothed. Climb on top of you and pull your clothes right back off without ever asking if it’s what you want. And always, always, he tells you he wants to fuck you. He whispers it in your ear that day, and so many others. He wants you. More than anything. Even when you tell him you don’t want to hear it. Even when his pushing triggers your anxiety, sends you spiraling into depression so severe you contemplate killing yourself. It would be easier than pushing back against him. You feel lost and empty, so far from yourself you’re not sure if you’ll ever find her again.

            You will. I promise you will. You just have to keep going.

            This continues without end in sight. The spring before you turn twenty-one, he wears you down into blowing him. Your stomach churns. You’ll think you’re going to throw up. You’ll wish you could. All over him. Maybe then he’ll stop wanting you.

            You won’t be able to let him finish. You’ll feel so sick, so broken, you’ll curl up in a ball and go to a place deep inside yourself. Where numbness and distance blanket you in safety.

            He’ll ask you to finish him off with your hands. Even as you’re fighting back tears.  

            And then, on a sticky July day, you’ll play him the Hamilton soundtrack. It’s one of the greatest things you’ve ever heard. You could talk about the historical complexities for hours. He won’t listen to it. Before Aaron Burr, Sir starts, he’s on top of you, pressing his mouth against yours with ferocity. When Maria Reynolds propositions Hamilton in Act II, he’ll have you spread out on his bed, naked, and he’ll growl into your ear, I want to fuck you.

            You’ll bite your lower lip. By then, he’s already standing, reaching for a condom. You will tell him fine, but you spit it out. Exasperated, as a parent giving in to a petulant child would be. As soon as he tries to put it in, you’ll wish you could take it back.

            The experience is miserable. You’ll hurt for days.

            He won’t let you get away with fucking just once. He tries three more times that summer before you withdraw so severely you get a phone call, threatening to break up, just a week after your parents pay for him to vacation with your family on the Cape. Those calls come with increasing frequency over the next year.

            It goes in cycles like that. He’ll wear you down, fuck you two or three times, then you withdraw until you’re bullied back into his arms.

            The gears in your head will begin to turn. They work slowly. In April you come to from a vivid dream, where you tell someone, some future partner in an invented dreamscape that your last boyfriend raped you.

            You awake with the certainty that this is true, that this boyfriend in your dream is your current one. But you’ll push this information away, too scared to confront it.

            But you will. Come July, the cycle once again reaches is nadir. He has you pinned under his body on his bed. His voice growls in your ear. Unless you say no, I’m going to do whatever I want.

            The word chokes you. You want to push him off you. To run and never look back. But you won’t move, limbs leaden, except to turn your face away from his, to hide in his pillow. You’ll go to that place inside yourself, where you’re safe, protected.

            I wish I could tell you what he does. But I can’t remember. Fingering, oral, actual sex. Just know you consent to none of it. That this tumult of emotions roaring inside you is real, raw. Deserved.

            Two days later, he will finger you without asking, while you stare glassy-eyed at the ceiling. You don’t say a word to him. When he leaves you lying there naked and alone, realization strikes. He just raped you. He has raped you hundreds of times.

            This story has a happy ending. You find your voice in a sea of heart-racing anxiety. You tell your friends. You get out.

            I’m telling you all of this not to scare you or to make you change your choices. But to let you know that you will survive this. That the despair you feel now is not forever. That one day you will wake up and not feel those shattered pieces of your soul stabbing you in the chest with every breath. You still struggle with anxiety, depression, and now post-traumatic stress. Nightmares and flashbacks overwhelm you some days. But you will survive this, as you have everything before now. You will find your voice in the midst of this tempest. And you will scream out above the furious roar. You were silenced for three years, and you will not be silent any longer. 

            You’re bright. Vibrant. You have a fire no one can douse. It feels like it’s gone, in the midst of those three years. In the weeks that follow your break-up. But I promise you it’s still there, lurking under the surface. You have so much ahead of you, so much more than him. You have wonderful friends, two published short stories, a place in an MFA program.

            It’s okay to hurt, to hate him. To hate yourself. But you don’t have to turn those feelings inward anymore. I know it’s hard to believe—so self-critical—but I forgive you. Us. For all of it. For staying silent. For that bone-deep terror that clung so tightly, it choked away our voice. For all those times we shoved our worries to the back. For all those things we did to hurt ourself when we couldn’t handle the pain searing inside. I forgive us. What’s important is we’re still here, that we have our whole future in front of us. We’re going to do amazing things. I’m sure of it.