Life Underwater

As Andy and I drove back to campus from a little diner the morning after he raped me, it began to snow.

He pulled up outside my dormitory and I was struck by an overwhelming sense of grief and emptiness. The sky was gray and dull, and the leaves that covered the ground looked muted and colorless as they blew listlessly about. I began to tear up, gave him an awkward hug, and said goodbye. In a daze, I got out of his car, walked up to the front door, and let myself in. I heard him drive off before I’d made it inside.My room was exactly how I had left it. There were my plants on the windowsills and my paper lantern in the corner. My bookcase filled with books; my dresser, top drawer ajar. On my desk, an empty bottle of wine and two glasses, from when we were still having a good time. There was my bed, unmade, though I hadn’t slept in it. On the floor, the air mattress I’d set up for Andy to sleep on, with my pillows and comforter in a crumpled pile, the cheap yellow fitted-sheet I’d purchased at Walmart, exposed and dirty. Still in a daze, I began to methodically clean up. I cleared off the tops of my dresser and bookcase. I stripped the sheets from the air mattress and stuffed them in my laundry bag. Bending down to pick something up off the floor, I see the used condom at the bottom of the paper bag that once contained the wine and feel like gagging. Waves of shame and disgust crash over me and my cheeks sting with embarrassment. I crumpled the bag into a tiny ball, and hid it under other trash in a communal garbage bin in the kitchenette outside my room.Recalling the month following the incident, I remember very little. It did not occur to me that I had been sexually assaulted, but I had a powerful sense that something was very wrong. I felt like I was underwater; I was either frantic and drowning, or experiencing my life in a muffled way, as if through aquarium glass. I did not mention what had happened with Andy until a whole month later, when I told my best friend Margot over text. Looking back, it strikes me as odd that I did not immediately say anything to Margot about the experience because we are close confidants, and typically share details of our personal lives with one another. By then I had already convinced myself that not only had I wanted it, I wanted to try to give him a chance.

Recalling the month following the incident, I remember very little. It did not occur to me that I had been sexually assaulted, but I had a powerful sense that something was very wrong. I felt like I was underwater; I was either frantic and drowning, or experiencing my life in a muffled way, as if through aquarium glass.

“So I slept with Andy obviously because I can’t say no.”Revisiting the exchange over a year later, I feel both invalidated and vindicated by my words. They seem to confirm my greatest, darkest fear — that not only was the assault completely my fault, that actually I had wanted it. However my pathetic attempt to justify having slept with him, and coming a month after the fact, remind me that I may not have believed what I told her. So many times over the next few months, as I caught myself explaining to a friend about how I wanted to give him a chance, I thought, why am I saying these things? He makes me sick to my stomach. Why am I forcing myself to be with him?“So the sex was pretty bad, but he really likes me, so I guess it wasn’t terrible? It’s really flattering that he’s so into me. He’s just really sensitive and a sweet guy. He makes me feel in control.”I have absolutely no fucking idea what I was thinking when I wrote this.Was it flattering when he begged me for sex after I gave him every excuse for why I didn’t want it? Was he just being sensitive when he cried and complained about how women always reject him, forcing me to comfort him and explain over and over why I wouldn’t sleep with him. Was he being sweet when he pinned me down and rubbed his erection into my crotch after I told him to stop multiple times? Did I feel empowered and in control when I finally broke down and let him fuck me, knowing that if I didn’t I would be trapped in my room with him all night while he continued to beg and cry and harass me?