We Are Us

Wearing only a pair of squishy flip-flips on my feet and a towel wrapped like a turban around my head, I’m naked beneath my pale pink robe.

My pulse races as I set my shower caddy down on the floor and begin towel-drying my hair, the pain from my raw, scratched scalp the only thing keeping me from passing out.

“Poppy,” he begins, “I want you to know that I feel badly for what happened last night. I should have known you were drinking too much. I should have realized you were acting…” He pauses, shrugs. “Out of character.”

I think of the doctor with his argyle socks and the condom he’d dropped into the trash bin. I hear his last piece of parting advice in my ears. Stay away from whoever this belongs to, okay? I’d nodded, agreed.

I didn’t seek out Tucker. But he’s here, offering an explanation for what happened last night. Only the two of us were there, but my memory is locked inside my mind. I can practically hear it rattling around inside my brain, like a puzzle piece that’s fallen through a grate. If I could, I would bang my head against the wall, remove my skull from my shoulders and shake it until the truth falls out.

But I can’t.

“And I want you to know that I’m not mad at you, or anything. I meant what I said last night—I can be your friend. I want to be your friend.”

Mad? At me?

My breath hitches in the back of my throat. I’m almost positive he said the same thing to me last night.

But friends don’t take advantage of each other. Friends don’t… do what he did.

There is only one thing I want from Tucker right now. “My necklace… Have you seen it?”

“Your necklace?” He pauses long enough that I feel an obligation to look his way. But I don’t. I can’t. “Oh, the one you were wearing last night?”

“Yes. The moonstone pendant. It’s gone.”

“That’s a shame. I saw how attached to it you were.”

“Could it have come off in your room? Or while the EMTs were working on…” A wave of vertigo slams into me, but I resist its pull. If there’s any chance Tucker has Gavin’s necklace—I want it back. I may have lost Gavin, I can’t lose his necklace too. “Can you check?”

“You saw the way I keep my things. If it’s there, I’d know it.” Tucker stands up and starts walking toward me. With each step he takes, my heartbeat kicks up a notch, the roaring in my ears growing louder, drowning out any further questions about Gavin’s necklace. “Listen, I hope we can get past this. It was a mistake, one I won’t ever make again.”

Tucker’s hands lift, his fingers threading through my still wet hair and pulling me into the well of his chest. Every muscle in my body locks down, oxygen evaporating from my lungs. I can’t scream. I can’t run.

But my brain is working on overdrive, replaying Tucker’s words over and over. One in particular.

Mistake.

I don’t dismiss it. I don’t ignore it or bat it away.

Mistake.

I find myself reaching for it like a warm blanket on a winter day. Drawing it around my shoulders like a shield. Last night doesn’t have to be a four-letter word. R-a-p-e.

No. Last night was a mistake.

An error made from defective judgment, deficient knowledge, or carelessness.

A misunderstanding.

Tucker rubs his hand over the terrycloth covering my back as a lone tear, possibly the only one I have left, slides down my cheek and into the corner of my mouth.

I am standing between two doors, marked by two different labels, leading to two very different places. Do I choose r-a-p-e, or mistake?

But… Am I really choosing? Haven’t I already made my choice, back in the hospital?

I didn’t consent to the rape kit, therefore I am not a rape victim. Even if I wanted to walk through that door right now, to wrap my hand around the knob, cross over that threshold—the door wouldn’t budge. It’s been sealed shut by what I didn’t say, what I chose not to do.

And, really, does anyone want to walk through that door? No. No one does.

So, I back away from it, this door marked by the four-letter-word I can’t say. I embrace the power of this new word, this new place.

Mistakes don’t come with trauma. They don’t require counselors and kits.

I can move on from a mistake.

I am not ruined.

I am not broken.

I. Am. Not. A. Victim.