My Dark Vanessa(109)

“Should I be nervous?” I ask.

“No,” he says quickly. “Or, I don’t know. It’s just, I caught wind of a rumor about your old high school, something about an English teacher being inappropriate with a student. I heard the story secondhand, don’t know any real facts, but I thought . . . well. I don’t know what to think.”

I swallow hard. “Did your friend tell you about this? The one who works there?”

He nods. “She did, yes.”

I wait through a long beat of silence, plenty of time for him to offer the truth.

“I guess I feel a little responsible,” he says, “knowing what I know.”

“But it’s none of your business.” He gives me a startled look and I add, “I mean that in a good way. You don’t need to worry about it. It’s not your problem.”

I try to smile like my throat isn’t squeezing into a fist, cutting off my air. I imagine Taylor Birch crying on a sofa, confessing to Penelope the sympathetic counselor—Mr. Strane touched me, why did he do it, why won’t he do it again—but my brain goes too far, ends up back in Strane’s office. Hissing radiator, seafoam glass.

“Look,” I say, “it’s a boarding school. Rumors like that happen all the time. If your friend hasn’t been there very long, she might not know what to take seriously and what to ignore. She’ll learn.”

“What I heard sounded pretty serious,” Henry says.

“But you said you heard it secondhand,” I say. “I know what actually happened, ok? He told me. He said he touched her leg and that’s all.”

“Oh,” Henry says, surprised. “I didn’t think—I mean, I didn’t realize—you’re still in contact with him?”

My mouth goes dry as I realize my misstep. A good victim wouldn’t still talk to her rapist. Strane and I still being in contact throws into question everything I’ve let Henry believe. “It’s complicated,” I say.

“Sure,” he says. “Of course.”

“Because what he did to me wasn’t rape rape.”

“You don’t need to explain,” he says.

We sit in silence, my eyes lowered to the floor, him gazing at me.

“You really don’t need to worry,” I say. “What happened to that girl is nothing like what happened to me.”

He says ok, that he believes me, and we let it go.



The first week of March a manila envelope arrives in the mail, addressed to me in Strane’s blocky hand. Inside, I find a three-page letter and a stapled packet of documents: a photocopy of the statement he and I signed on the day we were found out, dated May 3, 2001; handwritten notes from the meeting he and Mrs. Giles had with my parents; a poem about a mermaid and an island of stranded sailors that I vaguely remember writing; a copy of the withdrawal form with my signature at the bottom; a letter about me, Strane, and our rumored ongoing affair, addressed to Mrs. Giles, written in a hand I don’t recognize until I see the name at the bottom—Patrick Murphy, Jenny’s dad, the letter that set the whole thing in motion.

I lay all the documents across my bed, one paper after another. In the letter addressed to me, Strane writes,

Vanessa,

I’m not doing well over here. I’m not sure how to take your silence, if you’re trying to communicate something by not communicating, if you’re angry, if you want to punish me. You should know I’m punishing myself plenty already.

The harassment mess is ongoing. I’m hopeful it’ll be sorted out soon, but it might get worse before it gets better. There remains a possibility someone might contact you with the aim of using you against me. I hope I can still count on you.

Maybe I’m a fool to put this in writing. The power you hold over my life is immense. I wonder how it must feel to go about your day, masquerading as an average college girl, all the while knowing you could destroy a man with one well-placed phone call. But I still trust you. I wouldn’t send an incriminating letter if I didn’t.

Look at the documents I’ve enclosed here, the wreckage of six years ago. You were so brave then, more a warrior than a girl. You were my own Joan of Arc, refusing to give in even as the flames licked your feet. Does that bravery exist in you still? Look at these papers, evidence of how much you loved me. Do you recognize yourself?



I transcribe the letter and post it on my blog without any context or explanation other than, at the bottom of the post, in all caps: CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW IT WOULD FEEL TO HAVE THIS ARRIVE IN YOUR MAILBOX? A question posed to nobody, anybody. I rarely ever get replies to my posts, have no regular readership, but the next morning, I wake to an anonymous comment, left at 2:21 a.m.: Cut him out of your life, Vanessa. You don’t deserve this.

I delete the post, but more comments start to appear, always in the middle of the night, waiting for me when I wake up. A line-by-line critique when I post a draft of a poem; Gorgeous left in response to a series of selfies. I reply, Who are you? but never receive a response. After that, the comments stop.

*

From my bedroom doorway, Bridget asks, “Are you coming?”

It’s the start of Spring Fling, a week of day drinking and blowing off classes. There’s a party that afternoon on the pier.

I look up from my laptop. “Hey, look at this.” Turning the screen, I show her Taylor Birch’s latest photo: a close-up selfie, her lips turned downward, eyes rimmed with black liner. When Bridget doesn’t react, I say, “That’s the girl who’s accusing him.”