02/2007

I was at the library when my phone rang – all the way around and up the spiral staircase to the very back wall where the books have thinned and the shelves are mostly bare, inhabiting the cubicle in the far back corner that overlooks the courtyard – it was peculiar, considering I keep it on silent mode and, ironic, considering I’d almost left it in the car because the battery was dying…but turned back & threw it in my bag at the last second. I glanced at the incoming number as my fingers went to dismiss it. ‘Unknown Caller’. This inexplicably triggered an overwhelming compulsion to answer. I took a quick, apologetic glance around  – but there was only the echo of empty aisles – so I yield to the universe… and against all logic, I answered the fucking phone.

I recognized his voice immediately. The shock physically jolted me out of my chair and I just kind of stood there, paralyzed in panic. My heart is racing,  head is spinning, hands are trembling…I guess I could have hung up? or my phone battery could have coincidentally taken that moment to just do it for me, but it continued to hold out as my voice shakes and I asked him what he wants. There’s only silence and I start feeling nauseous, I paced toward the bathroom – fear gripping me by the stomach while I waited for his answer; but he just says that he will call again later – and the line cut out. I flipped the phone closed and wondered…should I save his number though, just in case? “child molester – cell”? Too brash?

I sat back down and looked up at the open laptop screen in front of me; the cursor, ignorant of the goings-on of the rest of the world, blinking away as consistently as always…which irrationally irritated me (the incessant. fucking, repetition) so I flipped it closed as not to see it anymore & stared out the window instead – much the same as I remember sitting on his bed staring out his window…detached, devoid of all feeling; if I could just focus on the trees hard enough, there wasn’t room in my head for anything else. I don’t know exactly how long I sat there, waiting for a sense of normality to set back in – but it never did and I eventually gathered my things and left. The drive home was a blur, the afternoon sky matching  the haziness I felt, the familiar streets leading me without much conscious effort…several hours passed, mostly spent pacing back and forth through the house & then, he called again. The unfamiliar numbers flashing across the screen, the ring almost daring me to ignore it this time – I did hesitate and consider the option, briefly – but my desperate curiosity, predictably, won out.

I can tell he’s crying.

He starts to ask if I remember…but stops short and never specifies, just takes a breath and carries on. He says he’s sorry for “everything”. That he’s hated himself every day of his life for “what happened”. That it kills him. That he just wants to “fix” it, to make up for it. He says he just needs me to know how badly he’s felt, all this time. Then he paused for a moment, before culminating on what I can only assume was his one true objective – his need for my forgiveness.

& I’m not sure exactly what feelings are warranted in this situation (is this supposed to make me feel better? am I supposed to be grateful? am *I* supposed to feel empathy, for *him*?)…and what if I don’t? What if I just feel exploited, and angry…and suffocatingly small. All these words raging in my head, that I couldn’t will out of my body – reeling in a sort of limbo, being too much and, at the same time, not possibly nearly enough:

You say that you’re sorry for “what happened”? Fuck you. At least be sorry for what YOU DID. Own it, you fucking coward. Say you’re sorry for molesting me. Because no – I don’t remember “everything” – I was a fucking child…and isn’t it convenient that you waited all these years and now that I am out here on my own, legally an adult, you’ve come back to confess & get my forgiveness? What about me? Where’s my absolution?  Who is going to forgive me? Your apology isn’t going to change what I did, or what you did to me; it isn’t going to “fix” “what happened” – it isn’t going to do a goddamn thing. At least, not to my benefit. I don’t matter now any more than I did then; I am not a person to you so much as a thing to be used to get what you want. Because, if you asked me (which, you didn’t) – I don’t want your bullshit apology, and I certainly don’t want to fucking console you…what I want, is for you to actually say the fucking words; I want you to feel the weight of speaking them into existence, to take responsibility for your actions. I want this to be yours, I don’t want it to be mine anymore. I want you to tell me that I am the victim. That you abused me. And that you abused me because you wanted to, not because I wanted it. Tell me that I didn’t deserve it, that you took advantage of me simply because I was accessible to you & that it’s not my fault.I need you to tell me, because I don’t know “what happened”…I only know what I experienced, and in my head it’s confusing and blurry and fragmented. So tell me “everything” you did to me – every sick, disgusting detail, so I can vomit it all back out of my system once and for all. Tell me that you manipulated and lied to me.  That you are the reason I’m fucked up…that it’s not just who I am – you fucking did this; you defiled my body and depraved my mind and you fractured my entire being. & you really think that what I want to hear, is how bad YOU’ve felt? Without even acknowledging any of the damage you did to ME? Fuck. You. Abusing me was a choice you made and I can’t even begin to describe how bad it feels to be the object of that choice – to have my sense of self ripped apart, a war between brain and body and I’m losing battle after battle, betrayed by both sides; my entire existence being in a body that was capable of attracting you to it. I’ve starved it to skin and bones, I’ve tried to bleed it out line by line, I’ve run until the breath in my lungs burned like a fire in my chest. But it will never be enough. I am still not empty. I am still not clean. I am still not strong. I am still just a girl with a smile on my face, and ghosts in my head. Their echoes so loud that I come back to them. Every goddamn time.

I guess I could have hung up? But, I didn’t. I listened, and I gave him what he wanted – the only words available to me – and flipped the phone closed. Because that’s what I’m supposed to do.

Honestly he could have demanded literally anything from me, and I would concede, because there’s no one here to stop him; no one here to stop me. & There never has been.

This morning when I woke up, I could still pretend that none of it was true – that it was all in my head. But I’m relatively certain that the only logical thing to do now is to go get drunk and fuck around until none of it matters anymore. Right?