VISIBILITY Magazine Issue 03. (April 2018) | Page 18

My Sister’s Rape The world is sticky with a heavy haziness that obstructs my mind and inhibits its ability to come to clear conclusions about reality. The air seeps through my body’s crevices and into my brain, slowing my neurons. Thinking, moving, almost even breathing are all too onerous of tasks for me to manage. If we don’t have control, what’s the point? I thought that more than anything else we controlled our bodies. They seem to be the only things we have even some semblance of control over, and for that to be violated seems like an atrocity. Our body is the way we engage in the world, the thing that houses our soul, and for someone to trespass in our soul’s home feels nearly unspeakable. And yet it must be spoken about. My sister was raped. She was at a party and had felt particularly undervalued that week, so when the boy’s gaze lingered on her, she was flattered and overcome with a sense of worth. They talked. She knew his friends. She opened up to him; told him about her recent struggle with depression, about the process of healing from a severe eating disorder, and about her experience walking in on our father with another woman. He told her about his parent’s divorce and personal struggle with self- love. Another boy, her crush, witnessed this intimate exchange, and in an attempt to get back at her, started kissing one of her friends — because what do you do when you feel hurt and ignored? You play games. Jealousy’s irrational hands had an unmitigatable hold on her. Do you want to go to a room with me, he half asked, and dragged her away from the party without giving her a chance to respond. In a bathroom with full length mirror, it happened. Her face in the reflection, the only way to process what was happening; the only way to know that she was crying; the only way to know that he saw her crying too. But he didn’t stop. Too shocked to scream, too scared to say anything. I’ll buy you plan B, he said. Oh, how considerate. What a saint. You really do live up to your Instagram bio: I treat women with respect. 16