The Girl Who Cried Rape

“It is perfectly okay not to be okay,” It sounds poetic and important to my tired ears but the mouth that tells me is neither of those things, it is nosy and annoying. Nothing like her words my shrink Petunia stares at me waiting for her words to hit me and for me to have an ‘aha’ moment, which to her disappointment is not going to happen anytime soon.

Petunia does not look like most forty-year-old women in my small wealthy town, for one her forehead moves and she appears to be a natural ashy blonde. Unlike the majority of blondes around these parts that dye their hair to recapture their wonderful youth Petunia also does not dress as conservatively as most women in my town, but rather quite casual, with jeans and a sweater or cardigan most days.

“Who says I am not okay?” I ask staring Petunia right in the eyes daring her to look away to show some sort of weakness. Instead of admitting defeat she clears her throat and smiles at me crossing her legs at the ankles.

I sit with my knees pulled to my chest, Petunia has told me that I sit in a rather guarded position, and if she knew my truth I think it would all make sense to her but she doesn’t. So she won’t stop peppering me with questions about why I act so guarded.

“Are you okay?” She asks, I am the first one to look away. I show weakness as I pick at my black nail polish.

Petunia’s face, like every session, is hopeful, almost like my mothers, and it kills me to lie. She is always hopeful that today will be the day I tell her something more than stock answers and sarcastic replies.

And I think I might want to tell Petunia the truth, the whole truth, I really do… But, something always stops me and I can’t work out quite what it is, my fear that she too, a woman so close to my mother’s age and temperament, would label me a liar as well?

“I’m fine.” I lie, watching Petunia survey me,

“You seem… sad today, more than usual,” I want to look away and brush away this comment but I can’t because I think she is on to something, I am feeling awful because Eric and Jenna spent lunch time yesterday flirting and for some reason it made me prickle in annoyance and in sorrow. Which really makes no sense, I am both of their friends so why can’t I be happy for them?

Why do I feel… jealous?

It is not jealousy, well maybe it is but not for the usual reason, I do not think of Eric as anything more than a friend, I think I am just jealous because they are living a life I want. A normal life with love interests and crushes and harmless flirting, a life that terrifies me more than I can comprehend.

Yes, that is it.

I am just jealous of their normalcy; I am almost certain that is it. So why does it feel like a cop out, like something more beneath the surface is brewing inside me? I refuse to speak for the rest of my session, which is only ten minutes but still seems important. I am letting Petunia know that I don’t like her or her kind probing words and questions.

Back at school nearly two hours later I stand in the locker room tying my hair up for sport, my shirt rises and I quickly pull it down before I become labelled both a slut and an exhibitionist.

I glance around the thinning out locker room, everyone is making their way to the gym but I am lingering. I hate sport, I have two left feet and am constantly picked last due to my lack of athletic ability and my reputation, no one wants a dirty slut on their team.

Jenna is sitting on the bench in between the lockers and stares at me with big hopeful eyes. I know that look Tamara used to give it to me every time she needed something, which was pretty frequently covering for her when she snuck out to see Seth.
“What?” I ask,

Jenna pops a bubble of gum, “You busy Friday?”

“Huh?”

“Friday are you busy?” She asks again, my brain starts firing off excuses as to why I will be busy Friday night but Jenna talks before I can spit them out in terror, “Eric and I are going to the movies, and he asked if you were going… I kind of, well I sort of…”

“Jenna”

“Well I may have freaked for a second and lied telling him you are”

“Jenna!” I groan annoyed at the scantily clad girl, she is wearing a skin tight t-shirt she has tied up at the back with a hair tie and the smallest pair of shorts you can imagine with a pair of socks pulled up to her knees, her chucks stare back at me. I hate Jenna a little bit for being so free and open with her sexuality, it irks me that I, a very modestly dressed girl am labelled a slut when Jenna is revered by boys for her looks.

“You have to come so I don’t look like a liar!” Jenna pleads, I stare at her incredulously,

“Can’t you tell him I got sick or something?”

“Ryan!” Jenna replies in an exasperated tone, obviously my pulling a sickie is not an option for her. It seems plausible enough for me, plus I don’t want to be caught as the third wheel around Jenna and Eric flirting.

Even though Jenna has been nothing but kind to me I am annoyed, really annoyed. Anxiety bubbles within me, reminding me that going out Friday night is not as simple as it seems. I have not been out for a social reason since the beginning of summer holidays when everything, my life included, changed.

“Fine” I groan, worrying my bottom lip between my teeth. I don’t want to go out but now I am stuck, if I pull out Eric will think Jenna is a liar and that is the last thing she wants, since they are so close now. I prickle with jealousy for the second time today and it annoys me, frustrates me because I just want to be normal.

“How do you get away with wearing that?” I ask Jenna as we make our way out of the locker rooms and to the connected gym. Jenna glances down inspecting herself,

“I normally don’t,” She tells me with a wink, I smile at her in humour, not quite up to laughing at the moment, “Usually I get kicked out of gym and sent to the principals, but he is kinda cute, in a middle aged mad guy way so I don’t really mind”

I don’t laugh this time because I don’t like Mr Candy, he is a hurtful man who does not care for his students. A few days ago Tamara put yoghurt in my hair and labelled me a loser, I was sent to the nurse to wash my hair and then to Mr Candy, who told me to expect this kind of behaviour because kids are mean.

I knew what he really meant however, that I am a liar and trying to discredit his winning football team, that I was a slut who deserved this kind of treatment. I don’t tell Jenna any of this, the sting still remains though.

Jenna does get sent out of gym and I spend the hour miserable. I want to get out of the class like Jenna and get away from these evil people, we are playing dodgeball and it seems every ball is cantered on me and thrown in my direction, most times connecting, to the happiness of the opposing team.

By the end of the session I am on the verge of tears and bone dead tired. I stand under the water of the shower, once everyone has left for lunch, longer than I probably should, trying to work the kinks out of my shoulders and focusing on forming bruises from the brutal session.

I walk with wet hair to my locker in search of clothes and the roast beef sandwich my mother had packed me this morning, only to find neither. At first I think I must have the wrong locker, but I double check the number and it is right, my clothes and lunch are missing.

I make my way, towel sticking to my skin, around the locker room going back to the showers and finding my clothes and sandwich under the running water of shower stall one. I bite my lip with such force I whimper and taste blood, one lone tear falls from my eyes.

Fuck.

I reach for my clothes smeared with water and my sandwich my mother had so lovingly made, and fight back a wave of tears and nausea. Under my clothes floating in the water sits a lonely photograph, I know what it shows before I turn it over. I know it holds my shame and attack.

I flip it over and find a naked picture of myself staring back at me, the picture makes me physically crumble to the floor. I am not sure how long I stay like that in a state of between consciousness and unconsciousness, maybe only a single minute of maybe a whole hour. I honestly don’t know. I do know if Jenna hadn’t shown up I would have stayed like that waiting for my someone to save me, luckily that is just what she did.

My fist hurts, throbs from clutching the photo so tightly in my hand. I just sit and wait, for what I am not sure but I think I will know when it comes, and I do, my saviour comes in the form of a frantic Jenna.

“Shit.” She says rushing to me side, I tear my eyes off my wet clothes and to Jenna’s concerned face, she looks so angelic under the harsh light, her make-up a little too heavy but pretty nonetheless.

“Fuck Ryan, are you okay?”

I do not know how to answer her question. I am so not okay it is funny, I let out a stilted laugh, Jenna frowns at me wondering how I can possibly find this funny. I don’t know how to verbalise how far from okay I am; the words won’t come.

“Ryan?” Jenna asks sounding more and more frantic as the seconds pass, she kneels down next to me, I notice her jeans are getting wet and I feel obligated to tell her this,

“You are getting your pants wet”

“Fuck my pants” She says in a jumble of words that take a minute to make sense to me.

I stare at her with a bleak expression. I think they have finally broken me. My heart and soul feel different like a crack separates them from their other half. I think they have finally won. I want to lay here and die. For once I don’t think about my hurting parents but rather my hurting heart, and I am ready to die. I wish Jenna would leave me alone.

“Jenna” A deep voice calls, I look up expecting Eric to be standing there, he always seems to be around in my true moments of weakness and sorrow heartedness. “Did you find her? Is she okay?” I wonder for a moment who they are talking about before I realise, belatedly, that they are talking about me, because they are my friends and they care.

I don’t feel quite so broken anymore.

“She’s okay,” Jenna calls but I want to tell her I am not, it seems pointless though, I think she can tell I am not doing so well. Jenna’s eyes search my face as she asks me simple words that seem so difficult to answer, “Right? You are okay right?”

“I don’t have any clothes” I say instead; Jenna looks at me with a frown of concern. I swallow wishing this were all some sort of horrible nightmare.

It isn’t.

“Eric” She calls, I move closer to her pulling my towel tight around me in fear, I can’t let Eric see me like this, half naked, my heart beats against my lips and I fight a wave of nausea speaking frantic words,

“No, please don’t bring him in,” My breathing shallows and I feel faint at the thought of Eric seeing me so vulnerable.

“He won’t, it’s okay” Jenna assures me rubbing my back in soothing little circles, “It’s okay,” She whispers looking around, “Come on, you’ll wear my clothes and Eric can drive you home and you can change,” I nod never having felt so grateful to one person in my life.

“Thank you,”

“It’s fine” Jenna tells me still staring at me with a frown of concern,

“No” I force myself to say, “I’m serious, thank you”

I am reminded of the day we met and how she told me with a note that she is broken too, watching her now I doubt she is anywhere near as broken as I am and that makes me sort of happy in a sick sad sort of way.

I shove on Jenna’s jeans, as she puts on her sports uniform hastily, my clothes, including my sports uniform, sitting in a wet pile on the bench. “I much prefer this to those” She tells me with a smile I know she doesn’t mean trying to lessen the tension in the air.

Jenna’s shirt is too short I realise as I leave her behind following Eric to his car with five minutes to bell, my house is a good ten-minute drive away. I want to tell Eric he doesn’t have to drive me that he can stay but I can’t, mostly because I need him, I need his friendship and this kind act desperately.

“What happened?” Eric asks once we are seated in his car, I look up at him and want so desperately to be honest, about everything, but I can’t. My world is turning in on itself the longer I keep this secret yet I can’t divulge it no matter how much I want to.

“I don’t… Someone put my clothes under the water,”

“Why would someone take your clothes”

I flinch back in anger, he wants the truth and I cannot give it to him, it makes me angry. I take that anger out on Eric even though he really doesn’t deserve it. “Stop pretending you don’t know! Stop acting like people haven’t told you”

I know I am trying to push him away but I am just so confused, on one hand I love his friendship and presence in my life and on the other hand I resent him for being here for me, and I cannot understand why that is,

“I don’t believe what they say”

“Why? You don’t even know me!” We are both yelling at this point out chests heaving with each ragged breathe. I both love and hate Eric in this moment for caring about me enough to doubt what people are telling him.

“I have never seen someone so completely destroyed after having sex, with their best friend’s boyfriend or not, something else happened.” That takes the wind out of my sales, I want to argue but I can’t. He is right.

Eric is… right.

“It wasn’t sex” I tell him quietly staring out my window because looking him in the eyes will make me cry, of that I have no doubt.

“What was it then?” Eric asks staring at me, begging me to look back to make some sort of contact with him, explain everything away into a neat little pile of truth and sense. But I can’t and I won’t. I refuse to pull him any further into this.

“A mistake,” I whisper, my meaning to the words far different from Eric’s, my attack is no longer sitting in front of Eric waiting to be realised but sitting in the front of my mind waiting to be uttered. Something has changed between Eric and I, I feel the undercurrent and it unnerves me.

In therapy a few days later I ask Petunia a question that has been on the forefront of my mind for the past few days, “Can someone start remembering things they have forgotten?”

“Yes, why is this happening to you?”

“No,” I lie. I know Petunia knows I am lying, but Petunia doesn’t press it. I think she thinks I will tell the truth when I am ready, but I don’t think I will ever be ready.

“Sometimes our minds in an effort to protect our sanity repress memories we are not ready for and sometimes when our mind believes we are strong enough we start to remember”

But I’m not strong enough I think, I am not strong enough.