Night of Terrors

It’s Halloween, and this is college. A wicked combination.

I’m going to a fraternity party with my friends. I’m Marilyn Monroe, with my white dress and blonde curls. We’re excited, but I’m a lightweight, so Charlie and Dan are going to look out for me if I get too drunk. They usually keep me safe; I’m like their little sister. Especially Charlie, I trust him to keep me out of trouble if I get too drunk. But usually I go to their fraternity to drink, where it’s easy for them to keep track of me; however tonight we are going to a different frat house with more people. Tonight is going to be a huge party.

We get in to the party, but girls go through one line, boys through the other. Girls get in easily, and I’m in the house, surrounded by lots of people. Dan and Charlie are still outside, but I’m with Mary and Joanna. Joanna takes my hand and pulls me along so we can find some drinks, but Mary doesn’t want to drink yet, she leaves to go dance. We find a cooler full of something that tastes like watermelon and vodka. I start drinking as we make our way back to the main party, and downstairs to the dance room.

My drink is nearly gone by the time we make it to where everyone else is. I feel warm, and a bit tipsy, but I’m good for now. Joanna notices that my cup is now empty; we go to the bar now. She flirts with the guy handing out the drinks; we gets shots of vodka. The first one burns, the second one not as much. Another cup full of the watermelon drink and we head back to the dance floor.

I’m being clumsy, or maybe just pretty tipsy. Someone pats the top of my head; I look up and see Charlie. He smiles down at me and I feel safe here next to my adopted big brother. He may be a senior a solid foot and half taller than me, but he puts up with a silly freshman like me. I trust him, he’s not a lightweight like me; Charlie doesn’t get drunk enough to get into trouble like I can, but he can keep me out of trouble.

We go out to the dance floor, but everyone is drunk, and it’s more like a massive pit of people all grinding on one another. I don’t like this, some of these drunk boys are making me uncomfortable. I make my way out of the crowd, glad that being so short makes it easier to slip by all the drunken people. But I’m stumbling a lot, and I am feeling rather drunk.

I look out at the crowd, searching for an obscenely tall lumberjack, but I can’t find Charlie. Even Dan, who is taller than most people, doesn’t stick out of the crowd to me. I don’t see any of the friends I came with, and I don’t like this. Maybe they went upstairs. Yes, maybe someone is upstairs, because I’m really drunk and I need someone to make sure I stay safe.

I make my way up the stairs, tripping only once, and when I get up I see lots of people but none of my people. But that’s when he finds me.

He’s dressed in a suit, but I don’t know his costume, and I’m too drunk to care enough to ask. He puts his hand on my shoulder and turns me to face him. “You look a little lost, can I help?”

I don’t know him. I don’t recognize his face, but I can’t find the people I do know. “I just need to find my friends. I need Charlie.” I can hear my words coming out funny, a little slurred, and slow.

“Is that your boyfriend?” I try to look around again and search for my friends, but he is in my way.

I start to try and walk around him. “No. I just need to find him.” I start towards the stairs, going back to look for Charlie in the last place I saw him.

He stops me. “I’ll help you look.” And he takes my hand and now he’s leading me along. I want to object, but he’s taking me downstairs, where I think Charlie is. So I go along with him, feeling more drunk as time goes on.

We go downstairs, but instead of going to the crowd of people dancing, he’s pulling me the other way, down the hall where the bedrooms are for the guys in this fraternity. I don’t like this. “Where are we going? I need to go back.” I tug a little on my hand, but he doesn’t let go.

“You’ll be fine.” We’re walking away from the people, away from everyone. Where are my friends? Where is Charlie? I don’t like this, I want my friends, and I want to feel safe.

I can still hear the music from the party, but now he’s pulling me into a room, and he’s shutting the door behind us and I really don’t like this.

He sort of pins me against the wall and starts to kiss me. I don’t like this, but I guess there could be worse things than just drunkenly making out with a random guy, so I don’t get too mad. But now his hand is wandering down to the hem of my dress and I am not comfortable with this. I try to pull away but he just pushes against me more. Now his hand is up my dress and he has his hand in my panties and I really really want him to stop.

I squirm away and get his face off mine long enough to say, “I’m sorry, but I’m really drunk and I don’t want to do that.”

He just looks at me and says, “I think you do.” He starts it up again and he’s kissing me, but he’s making it go farther than I want it to. I really don’t want to be here, with him, and where the hell is Charlie or Dan or Joanna or Mary? They’re supposed to keep me safe.

He’s pushing me back now, and I don’t understand until I run into something a fall back, but it’s soft and it’s a bed. I crawl back a little and I try again, “Please, I don’t want to do this. I’m too drunk and this is a bad idea.”

He just says, “You’re not too drunk.” And he gets on top of me, and I’m freaking out inside my head because I don’t know how to make this stop. I’m wasted, and I don’t think he is, but he’s stronger than me and I can’t make him stop on my own. Where the hell is Charlie? He’s supposed to be my big brother, he’s supposed to look out for me. I need him to find me, and save me. Has he even realized that I’m missing?

It doesn’t matter because this guy is on top of me, and I’m squirming in a sad attempt to get away, but he’s got me pinned down. And his hands are on me and now he has my panties off and his hand is down there while he’s still on top of me.

I don’t like this, and I need him to stop. I don’t want this, I didn’t say this was okay. Why is he doing this?

But now he’s pulling his pants down and now he’s inside me and it hurts. Oh my God it hurts. He’s not being careful, or gentle, and please just make this pain stop. All I can hear is him grunting on top of me, and my quiet whimpers in vain for him to please stop, but he doesn’t seem to care.

And it’s lasting an eternity when I just want it to please, oh god please, just stop. Please, make it stop. Please let this not be happening, let me be dreaming or so drunk that my reality isn’t real. Please just make this stop, please.

But it doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop until he’s done, and he lays there for a second while I’m frozen in a mix of shock and denial, just praying that he’s really done and will just leave me alone. He’s getting up now and I hear him leaving the room, but I’m closing my eyes because if I open them I will cry.

If I open my eyes I will see for myself that this is real and that no amount of imaging can ever make this un-happen. Because I am different now, I am broken. I feel empty, hollow, like I am nothing now but an empty shell of what used to be a person.

But I need to get up, and I need to leave this place and find somewhere safe. I lay there and I wait and I try to find in me somewhere the willpower to get up. But it’s hard, and all the thoughts are swimming around in my head and the same one keeps popping up, that “Oh my God. I got raped.”

Now I’m retracing my steps and seeing clearly my mistakes and now I’m getting mad. I hate myself for letting this happen, and I hate him for doing this to me. But my hate is consuming me and it’s branching out. I hate Mary, and Joanna, and Dan for all leaving me. I hate Charlie most of all though, because he is supposed to be my big brother. He is supposed to look out for me and keep me safe. He is supposed to make sure that something like this wouldn’t happen to me, but he abandoned me. Did he even notice that I was gone?

I open my eyes now because I will not cry. I will not cry because I am consumed with such burning hate that there is no room for me to feel anything else. Hate fuels me and so I get up and try to get my clothes back in order so I can leave this awful room.

I stumble my way through the hallway and back to the party room, where everyone else is still having fun, completely unaware of how my world had just been forever changed. They are all drunk and happy and here I am, barely managing to keep myself together. Because even hate cannot keep these other feeling at bay indefinitely, and need to be somewhere safe for when they do catch up to me.

I don’t bother looking for my friends, because right now, they are not my friends. Friends don’t let their friends get raped. Friends look out for each other and protect each other.

So I make my way upstairs, brushing through the crowd of people, with all their faces becoming blurs and I desperately try to escape this place. I get outside but now I do not know where to go. I want to be somewhere safe, but I cannot go home to my dorm like this. People I know will see me, they will ask questions, they will know something bad happened. But I don’t want anyone to know, I just need a place to hide away for a while.

So instead I make my way over to a different fraternity house, Charlie and Dan’s fraternity house. I know the house well, and I walk right in, making my way straight downstairs, to where Charlie’s room is.

I stumble through the hallway and I know that it was not a dream because it hurts for me to walk. I try not to cry as I open the second door on the left, the one I know well to be Charlie’s room. I walk in and go to his couch, where I’ve crashed on so many other nights, just none as terrible as this.

I curl my knees into my chest and I let my head rest on my knees while I let finally break down. And I don’t know how long I am sitting there, crying, and I don’t hear the door open and close so I don’t know how long Charlie stands there, looking at me, before he asks, “Jessie…?”

And I lift my head up but I cannot bring myself to look at him because we both now know that something is very wrong. I am instead staring in wonder at my white dress and the red blood stains that are now across it that were not there at the beginning of tonight.

I can hear Charlie step closer, and I can feel him towering over me. He waits, but when he realizes that he’s not going to garner any more of a response than me lifting my gaze slightly, he asks tentatively, “Jessie…what happened?”

This time, I take a shaky breath, and I force myself to look up at Charlie, with my face still wet with fresh tears. I can only imagine how broken and pathetic I appear, but still I manage to force out the answer that we both already knew, “I got raped.”