My Last Innocent Year(58)

“Do you really think I raped you?” he asked.

I leaned against the counter, felt the hard edge press into the small of my back. Did I? I didn’t know anymore. Everything Zev had said so far was true: I had gone to his room. I didn’t say anything. He thought I wanted to. I thought I did too. The confusing part was, this wasn’t what I thought rape looked like, the thing I’d been taught to steel myself against ever since I was young. This was sex in a dorm room in New Hampshire, a room with a river view. And I didn’t even say no.

“Do you, Isabel? Do you really think that?” Zev’s face was so close to mine I could count every eyelash. It felt like the old days, Zev challenging me to explain myself, presenting a hypothetical for me to puzzle over. And now, like then, I couldn’t. My belief system was fuzzy, even when it came to my own body. I thought about all the times Zev had sought me out because he wanted to talk to me, because he thought I was interesting, different from the Sally Steinbergs and Gabe Feldmans, different from the Debras. I sometimes wondered why he tolerated me when he found everyone else at Wilder unbearable. Maybe because I was poor and my father sold smoked fish for a living; he told me once I had a “shtetl mentality” he found refreshing. Sometimes it seemed like Zev was the only person here who saw me, really saw me, and maybe I’d let him fuck me to thank him for that.

The refrigerator door was hanging open, the mildewed shelves bare except for a bottle of vermouth, a carton of milk, and a jar of maraschino cherries. Zev’s face looked bluish and pale in its light. I knew he was waiting for an answer, but I didn’t have one. If he had accused me of only knowing how I felt about a thing, in this case he was right. I didn’t know what to call what he had done to me. I only knew how it had made me feel.

“I don’t know,” I said finally.

“You don’t know?” he said. “Then why’d you go to the dean?”

“The dean? I didn’t go to the dean. I thought you did.”

“Why would I go to the dean?” He took a step back, like he smelled something bad. Maybe it was whatever they were mixing in that bowl. Maybe it was me. “You know what, have a nice fucking life, Isabel Rosen. Oh, and by the way, there’s a rumor going around that you’re sleeping with a professor. I thought you might like to know.”

The words landed the way I imagined he wanted them to. My breath became short and shallow. There was a sharp pain under my rib cage. Zev pulled off his wig, and I realized that no matter what he had done to me, I would always be the one unpacking that night, wondering what I might have said or done differently. Even then, I could taste the shame that would follow me for a lifetime. It was gritty, like sand on my tongue. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and thought I might be sick.

Zev balled up the wig in his fist and tossed it across the room. “Score!” he yelled as it landed in the mixing bowl with a plop.

“What the fuck, man?” The girl with dreadlocks looked up, a tongue stud glimmering in the dark cave of her open mouth. “Hey,” she said, pointing at me. “You’re bleeding.”

I touched my face. My nose was bleeding. I covered it with the boa and ran out of the kitchen. Debra and Crashy were still on the dance floor, slow dancing with Amos. He was cupping Crashy’s ass with his hands.

“I’m leaving,” I said to Debra. She looked up sleepily, then saw my face.

“What happened?” She pushed Crashy away as Zev came out of the kitchen holding a roll of paper towels. “Wait—did he hit you?”

“Debra, no—”

“Of course it would be you,” Zev said, raising his hands to the ceiling.

“Why are you even talking to him?” Debra asked me.

“Debra, stop.” I wiped my face with my hands, refusing the paper towel Zev offered me. Somewhere in the middle of everything, Amos slithered away. This was not the kink he was after.

Zev turned to Debra. “You’re a real piece of work, you know. What you did, it basically ruined my senior year.”

“Oh, boo-hoo, it ruined your senior year,” Debra said. “How do you think her senior year was, after you raped her?”

“Debra, stop!” I said again.

“Why don’t you ever let her speak for herself?” said Zev. “Isn’t that what you feminists are always on about? Women’s voices, women’s choices?”

“You don’t know shit about feminism,” Debra said, taking a step toward him.

“Shut up,” I heard someone say, quietly at first and then louder. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.” The string of words echoed through the room, rising over the music and the din. It took me a second to realize it was me.

“You heard her,” Debra said, folding her arms.

“No,” I said. “You shut up. You never stop talking. You never listen. You’re like a wall of sound.” She reached for me, but I pushed her away. It felt good to put my hands on her.

Outside, the air smelled fresh, like grass and daisies. I sat down under a tree, felt the wet ground seep into my jeans. My hands were sticky and coated with glitter and blood. I pulled off Crashy’s scrunchie and let my hair fall over my shoulders. The tickle of it down my back reminded me of Connelly, and for the first time all night, I allowed myself to think about him, to wonder what he was doing, if he was thinking of me.