The Girl Who Cried Rape

Sometimes late at night I hear my father in the lounge room watching old sitcoms, occasionally I will sneak down and sit on the stairs watching him and the shows as he laughs at a simpler time. I am reminded of this as I sit silently at the large oak table with my parents picking at the pasta in front of me. I don’t think my parents are talking, they are fighting I think, over what I am not sure, they try to never involve me in their fights.

The only reason I realise they are fighting is because my father is nursing a scotch, and every few seconds he takes a sip, a tumbler sits next to him so he does not have to move to refill his drink. My mother is on her third glass of straight vodka, she is currently sucking on an olive, she puts them in there sometimes and I have never understood why, she doesn’t even like olives.

I am drinking water, and I have taken three sips so far, the water is cold and hurts my front teeth. The pasta we are eating for dinner is hot, but I spoon some more into my mouth, it burns my tongue. I swallow it without chewing and begin to choke as it lodges in my throat and refuses to move.

“Ryan?” My mother asks, staring at me from behind her raised glass. She looks almost watery against the vodka and I wonder if she drinks enough will all the water in her body be replaced with poisonous vodka she is drinking so heartily, “Are you alright dear?”

I slap my chest and manage to catch my breath, finally, the pasta is gone deposited in my stomach waiting to be digested. But my heart still races and I cough some more, grabbing my cold water and drinking it until I can count my heart beat. My mother is still waiting for an answer and even though the pasta is gone and I can breathe I answer, “No,”

“Well sip your water honey and you’ll be fine,” But she is wrong, I won’t be fine because everything is so awfully and utterly wrong. I am losing Eric and I miss him terribly.

That night I sit on my roof legs pulled to my chest waiting, for what I am not sure, for Eric to show up though I know he won’t. I haven’t shaved my legs in three weeks because I am so scared of the razor and how pretty and inviting it looks under the bathroom light. I trace an old scar on my knee waiting hopelessly for Eric to see me and come and join me.

Eric has been ever so slowly disappearing from my grasp. Every week he has a new excuse as to why he can’t help tutor me or hang out. He is always tired from practice or he is talking to Amanda. Amanda is a brunette cheerleader not so unlike I used to be, who has white teeth and the brightest smile I have ever seen, it distracts from her rotten insides.

She was once one of my best friends, the third instalment to me and Tamara, but the second the word broke about me and the pictures of that night surfaced she turned against me. I should have realised Eric would like the girls in their short skirts who wear blue face paint to all of his games, that cheer and hug him after he scores his first touchdown rather than avoiding eye contact, and barely being able to smile.

I guess I should have expected this but I didn’t. Stupidly I have been caught by surprise that Eric, my Eric likes a girl… A girl who isn’t me. It leaves an unsettling feeling in my stomach but I chalk it up to the windy night air. I am so lost in thoughts and tracing the scar on my leg that I don’t even realise Eric is next to me,

“Hey,” It has probably only been five hours since we last spoke but it feels like we haven’t spoken for weeks. It feels like there is a thousand miles of distance separating us and not matter how fast I run I can’t quite catch up to him.

He grabs my cold hand and holds it in the darkness, and it almost, almost feels like it used to. But there is something stuck between us now, someone stuck between us and I know Eric is thinking of Amanda and how soft her hand must be compared to my rough one. I want so desperately to tell Eric that I miss him but it all gets stuck in my throat. He smells like Amanda, like vanilla and evil, he is no longer mine. He is hers and no matter how many words I offer him they will never amount to what she is,

I am nothing and she… Well she is fucking everything.

I pull my hand from Eric and sit up clutching my knees to my chest, Eric sits up and stares me. I see how his dark lips are a little swollen and I realise belatedly he has been kissing her. I think I am going to throw up, bile is rising, it is hot and painful, he has kissed her and I am nothing. I am nothing I realise as I choke on spit, I am reminded of my mother telling me to sip my water, without a word I slip away from Eric and down the trellis climbing into my room and collapsing on the floor desperate for the water my mother promised would fix me.

I am nothing, nothing, nothing.

I hear Eric climb into my room behind me but I barely take notice because I am crawling on the floor to the bathroom for a drink of water. He shouldn’t be in here; this is my room. MY ROOM! He has no right to come into my sanctuary and make me sick, he needs to leave.

“Go away Eric,”

“What the hell is going on Ryan?” He asks rubbing a hand over his lips, the ones that probably taste like Amanda and her ever present pink lip gloss. The one that sticks to her teeth and her hair, is now stuck to Eric and I cough again, everything is spinning.

I am nothing, nothing, nothing.

And Eric, Eric is everything, everything, everything.

No! Amanda is everything not Eric. I shake the intruding thoughts away from my mind and focus on standing up and finding that water. I find a drink bottle from earlier in the day and chug down the water, unlike earlier it does not settle my throat and my racing heart. It sits heavenly in my stomach and I think it might be drowning my heart, is that even possible? For your heart to drown?

Eric reaches out and pulls me towards him, “Are you alright Ryan?”

“Did you fuck her?” It falls from my lips and I am nothing, nothing, nothing.

“What?” Eric asks reeling from my words,

“Amanda, you know she fucks on the first date right?”

“What are you talking about?” None of what I am saying really makes sense it is instead like vomit, I have words pouring out of leaving me feeling sick and empty. The words, also like vomit cannot be controlled, I pull away from Eric seething,

“Amanda. Did. You. Fuck. Her?” Eric is staring at me with shock because this is not the timid Ryan he knows, no this is Ryan from before, before that night who is heartbroken that the boy she likes kissed another girl. And for the first time I admit it, I like Eric, it feels good not to pretend, to be honest with myself.
“Of course not Ryan,”

“Did you kiss her then?”

“What?”

“Did. You. Kiss. Her?” I say it slowly and I am shaking, Eric frowns at me and takes a step closer I want to move back, away from Eric but I don’t. I am mad because Eric is wonderful and underneath all the vanilla I can smell jellybeans.

“What does it matter?”

Yeah what does it matter? I ask myself, but I am too far gone to listen to that girl that I am now. The one that is warning me to let it go to walk away from Eric and all this anger, because anger means I care and I cannot care. I cannot like Eric; I cannot like a boy after what happened to me.

“Did you kiss her?”

“Why do you care?” All my anger gets caught in my throat and I don’t know what to say. I am stuck with my mouth opening and closing, listening to the sound of my breathing waiting for some brilliant response to come but it never does. All that does is a timid and meek, “I don’t”

“Then why are you yelling at me?”

“I’m not yelling… I’m just”

And then Eric kisses me.