Reckoning, Part 3

It is bewildering to think that you understand the narrative of your existence and then discover that there are a couple of major details that you missed. I feel like I’m revising an essay except it’s my life. I’ve been thinking a lot about the kind of men who manipulate a woman into having sex with them. When I thought back to my assault by J (from Reckoning, part 2) I remembered the times I would see him at parties planting himself near young girls from the undergraduate program. I realized I was one of those girls once, only a few years older.

It was a calculation.

Sooner or later, when a girl has had enough to drink, she begins to respond to your flirting. And maybe you hold her arm and purr into her ear as she stumbles to your house.

Does it feel good to bring someone home who is wasted and unsure?

I doubted myself for writing publicly about this. I am completely in the middle of processing these nights. Normally, I need distance before I can bring something to the page. I told myself I shouldn’t speak about this before I’ve processed it. It felt irresponsible somehow. But there’s something about needing to see the words written down to understand that they are real. That the questions I have in my mind about what happened are vestiges of a culture that wants to gaslight me. I can’t bring myself to use the “r” word. It feels too harsh somehow and as I say that, I know that’s just another piece. I’m writing about this now because I need it to feel real. I need witnesses.

On another night, at another party, with another man from my program, I found myself too drunk to drive home. O had been dancing with me, trying to maneuver me, I later realized. I didn’t remember walking up the stairs but suddenly, we were in my room and my face was in his lap, his pants off. He held my head down. I went along with it. When I told my therapist this she said, that’s a common trauma response. When I stopped, he told me he had a girlfriend overseas, a guilty look on his face. It was as if he had decided that we were both complicit in this betrayal. It wasn’t his first time. I knew he had a casual relationship with an acquaintance of mine. He left and I remember feeling dirty. Like I had just done something fucked up. I called my ex, the only person I knew would be up at 3 a.m., and cried.