This Will Only Hurt a Little(19)

For a few years, I pushed it down and my narrative mostly was, “Oh yeah, when I was fourteen I lost my virginity to some random seventeen-year-old I was dating in his car.” But then, at my senior prom, I was in a deep red wine–fueled conversation about losing virginities with a friend’s date when he abruptly stopped me and said, “Dude. That guy raped you.”

It was hard for me to wrap my head around that word. I mean. No. Not really. Rape is what happens to girls in alleys screaming no. I unbuckled his belt. And I followed him to his car. And I got in. And I didn’t say no. And I didn’t say stop. And I blew him after the fact. And I called him all the time. And I was obsessed with him. And I said we were dating. And I told him we should do it again. And I was a slut. And I was a slut. And I was a slut.

And I unbuckled his belt.

I wish I had some definitive thing to say about what happened. What it was. What I call it. Or what it meant then and what it has meant to me the last twenty-four years of my life. How it has fucked me in the head again and again, almost always in new ways. Showing up when I least expect it. In college! Night terrors in the months before my wedding! As I’m pushing my baby out of my vagina with no pain drugs! And how it has fucked with all of my relationships, both sexually and emotionally. But it has never been one thing to me. And it certainly has never stayed one thing for long. Even to this day. Even as I’m writing these words. How I feel about it changes yearly and monthly and weekly, sometimes hourly. My only hope is that my girls grow up in a culture that truly understands consent and that they’re never left to question if violence means someone cares for them.

? ? ?

Last year, my therapist asked me if I knew where Trey was or if I ever looked him up. My answer was immediate. No. I’ve never trolled Facebook or Twitter or Instagram for him. Which, if you know me, is a little weird, since I initially only got on social media in order to look up people from my past. So that night, while Marc put Birdie to bed, I did. And there I found him, smiling with his wife and their two little boys. I clicked to her page. He’s the love of her life. “Dreams do come true!” she wrote under their wedding photo. “I finally got my happy ending!”





TEAR IN YOUR HAND


(Tori Amos)


I was raised Catholic and I loved church when I was a kid. I loved taking the body and blood of Christ. I loved listening to the priest give his sermon, trying to always make it relatable and modern. I loved putting dollars in the little wicker donation basket and passing it down the aisle. I loved lighting a tea-light candle at the little altar and saying a silent prayer for someone who needed it. My mom was a lector at our church, and my sister and I would sit together as kids, pressing our legs into each other’s to keep from laughing as my mom over-enunciated the scripture in front of the parishioners: “THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE!”

When I was little, I wanted to be an altar boy, and I remember my mom arguing with Father Brian about why they should let me, even though the church hadn’t technically allowed girls to do that yet. But I had pretty much stopped going to church by the time I was in high school. It was hard to find the value in sitting there. I thought God had abandoned me in the back seat of an SUV.

Ben Miller was also raised Catholic but had ditched it in his teen years, for reasons different than mine, obviously. He wore pants that were bigger than his head, and they hung super low, suspended like magic under his flat ass. His head was shaved and he was prone to acne, especially around his nose. But he had a smile and eyes that melted my soul when we would talk in the halls or when I would “happen” to walk past the breezeway between third and fourth periods because I knew he would be there smoking with his friend Grant.

He had a girlfriend—a really scary girl named Samantha, who seemed like she would kick your ass for looking at her the wrong way. (In fact, I later based Kim Kelly on her.) But I knew they would eventually break up and he would be mine. I was sure of it.

I had to do one session of summer school that year. Considering the emotional toll of the year, I’m surprised I didn’t have to do more. Ben started showing up at noon to skate in the parking lot of our school until Dennis, the security guard, would run him off. Sometimes I would walk with him over to Chop and Wok and we’d eat egg rolls in the 105-degree heat. He started calling me at night when he’d get off work, and I’d stay on the phone with him for hours. He told me he wanted to kiss me every time he saw me.

“But you can’t,” I said. “You have a girlfriend.” (And I really didn’t want to get my ass kicked.)

“I know,” he said with that irresistible smile of his. “I gotta take care of it.”

A few days later, Kendra called me with the news. She knew before me, because Ben told his friend Grant—who she was now dating—that he’d broken up with Samantha. That night, we all walked from Kendra’s apartment to Denny’s, and on the way back, Ben grabbed me and kissed me.

I was in heaven.

Afterward, I went home and called him, and we talked until we were both falling asleep on the phone.

“So, listen,” he said. “I want you to be my girlfriend. You know, like officially.”

My heart was beating out of my chest.

“Yeah. I mean. Yes. I would like that so much.”

It was June 9. We spent every moment we could together. I would stay on the phone with him until two in the morning and then wake up at six for summer school. I was running myself ragged but I didn’t care. I was so in love with this boy. I have no idea the things we even talked about. Jim Croce? The Grateful Dead? His asshole dad? What his relationship with Samantha was like? How my ex-boyfriend was a real jerk who wasn’t very nice to me?