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.
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