by Chessy Prout
“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate you saying that. I wish I never went.”
“Yeah, so much has happened.”
“Honestly, it’s been really, really hard with the police, the hospital, school. It’s hurt me a lot. Some of the girls are ignoring me,” I said. “None of the guys are talking to me either.”
“That’s just like the way boys are,” O. Mac said. “We stick together.”
Jeez, how archaic.
“It’s been hard for me, too,” O. Mac whined. “I’m catching so much shit for this. Mr. Hirschfeld called me into his office and he contacted my parents. I was so scared when the police came up and knocked on my door and, like, started asking me questions.”
We turned left on the road behind the Upper and headed toward Kehaya. I looked up at the indigo sky to try and calm myself. I floated up there on top of a pile of clouds as the sun warmed my face.
“Yeah, I really turned my back on Owen by talking to the police,” he said. “I think I should apologize to Owen, too. I should call him.”
“What? Why would you do that?” I said, choking on my own breath. “You want to apologize to him for not lying to the police?”
“Yeah, I turned my back on my friend.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I hissed. “He’s the one who did something wrong. You should never feel bad about telling the truth.”
“But yeah—”
I cut off O. Mac before he could say something stupid again.
“Thank you for coming here and talking to me,” I said. “I hope things can get back to normal.”
I waved good-bye and stormed inside Con20. Was he expecting me to have sympathy for him because he felt guilty for being disloyal to the person who’d assaulted me? O. Mac was being disloyal to me! Did he have to have an internal examination done? No. He should shut the fuck up.
These kids cared only about themselves. Ivy and my other volleyball friends had glommed onto Sally, the bully who months earlier had tried to block me from dinner conversation before our winter formal. Now Sally was the ringleader of my “haters,” calling me a liar and telling girls on the field hockey team that I was to blame for Nash Bash getting delayed a week. Faith, as usual, was following Ivy’s lead and giving me the cold shoulder too.
I wished I could turn to Tabitha, but she had fallen away. She lived in a different dorm and had new friends. And to be honest, I was avoiding her for fear of ripping open old wounds.
I hid under the covers and sulked to Catie that I didn’t want to hang out with Ivy and Faith anymore. Catie said she would go talk with them and find out why they were being such bitches. She headed down the hall with a fierce look on her face. A little later, Catie returned to our room and cackled.
“So apparently the two of us are no longer going to be invited to any gatherings, because they feel like you’re a liar and have no integrity,” Catie announced. “Sorry.”
“What?” I winced, completely dumbfounded.
These were the girls who’d seen me moments after my assault, who’d helped me compose the brutal messages to Owen, and who, I’d later learn, told the police that I was shaking, in shock, and had pulled Owen’s head away from my vagina. I was the victim, not the villain.
But none of that mattered when I became a liability and threatened their rise to the top of the social stratosphere at St. Paul’s. The betrayal cut deep.
“What do these girls know about integrity, or self-respect for that matter?” I exploded.
I looked over at Catie, and my outrage morphed into guilt when I realized that my best friend was getting iced out because of me.
“I’m so sorry, Catie. This is all my fault,” I said. “You don’t have to be friends with me. I don’t want your life to suck because of me.”
“Are you kidding me, Chessy? This is stupid of them,” Catie said. “You’ll always be my friend. Those girls aren’t worth it.”
“Thank you,” I said, biting my lip. “I couldn’t do this without you.”
The next morning I raced into Buzz’s office, a typhoon of tears. I’d been stopping by twice a week, reduced to a ball of misery in a blue swivel chair. I rocked back and forth as I gave the latest headlines about Ivy.
“Am I really that terrible of a person? Why are they acting this way?”
“You’re a good person, Chessy,” Buzz said. “This is not okay.”
“I might need to go home for good if this continues.” I sniffled.
We called my parents together. Buzz did most of the talking as I blubbered in my chair. Dad booked a ticket to fly up that night. Before I left, Buzz reminded me that I could come to Clark House at any time, even just to eat meals.
I lumbered back to my room and found Catie. God, what would I do without her? I felt awful that she was losing friends because of my shit, but she didn’t seem to mind. Her full attention was on furnishing our room. She was still receiving guilt money from her dad. Catie had bought a new couch cover, a shelving unit, chalkboard tape, and a large computer monitor that we plugged our laptops into to stream Netflix. It was a creative work-around for the no-TV rule.
She charged pizza after pizza from Domino’s and Checkmate’s and had them delivered to school. Her dad, who sat on St. Paul’s board of trustees, was in the middle of a messy divorce from her mother. Catie and I commiserated about our crappy lives while shoveling slices into our mouths.
We nested together, shutting all the shades and hiding on the couch. We put on movies like The Fault in Our Stars and binge-watched episodes of America’s Next Top Model. I didn’t need anyone as long as I had Catie. But then I got a weird text from Ivy. Some adult must have talked to her.
Ivy: Hey I know this is gonna sound really scarry but can we please talk tonight because i know it’s been weird and I’ve been weird and it may have come across badly and I know you’re going through hell right now and I should be there for you and I’m sorry but I really just want to talk to you and appologize and like tell you why I’ve been so weird cause I want to move forward
Me: Yes, I agree it’s been an elephant in the room.
Later that night, Ivy swung by and awkwardly asked if she could come inside. She sat on my red trunk and shed crocodile tears.
“I’m sorry, but you don’t know how hard it’s been for me to know you, to know that this happened to you. People ask about it and talk about it.” She trailed off.
My eyes widened in disbelief. Of course I knew “how hard it’s been.” I was living it firsthand! I laughed inside and felt sad that she was this self-centered. And I realized in that moment that there are some people in your life who just don’t belong there. Ivy was one of them.
When I got back to St. Paul’s in fall 2014, many of my volleyball teammates and other classmates ignored me. I’m in the back with jersey number thirteen.
ELEVEN
Numb
I couldn’t stop the nightmares. I tried building a fortress of happy thoughts before I went to bed each night: Florida beaches, dressing up with Christianna, slurping noodles with Dad.
But as soon as my head hit the pillow, the castle walls came tumbling down, revealing the mechanical room, my underwear, his face. Sometimes I kicked and screamed. Other times I froze. Most nights, I woke up soaked in sweat. Catie couldn’t believe how often I was doing laundry. I cleaned her clothes too—a small consolation prize for sticking with me.
Getting through the days wasn’t any easier. My chest tightened whenever I was near the Lindsay building. My physics class was right outside the staircase that led up to the mechanical room.
One day while we were working on an assignment about the composition of pennies, I thought I saw Owen’s face in the window. I couldn’t talk. My limbs started to shake. My teeth chattered. A tear dripped down my cheek. I really wanted my teacher to notice. I wanted somebody to notice, somebody to care. Nobody even looked at me.
Buzz taught me coping skills to chop down the negative thoughts growing like weeds in my brain.
Journaling. Playing piano. Taking deep breaths. Breathing into a paper bag to stop the panic attacks.
I roared through her door one morning after listening to a speech about forgiveness in chapel. The rabbi talked about how she brought books to prisoners, talked with them, and forgave them.
“All I can do is forgive them,” the rabbi said.
I fumed to Buzz, “She can’t forgive people when she doesn’t know what they’ve done! She doesn’t know whose lives they’ve destroyed or who they’ve hurt. It’s not her job to forgive them!”
The idea that this rabbi or someone else could forgive Owen and set him free made my blood boil. He hadn’t shown any remorse or acknowledged any responsibility for his actions.
“I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him,” I declared.
“You might never forgive him,” Buzz said. “But have you forgiven yourself?”
I twirled that question around in my brain for a while. If I was truly honest, I still blamed myself for not screaming or kicking. For going there in the first place. But now, raw anger was displacing the shame. I was livid at Owen for doing this to me. I was enraged at my classmates for shunning me and calling me a liar. No one blames people who are beaten up and have their wallets stolen, but somehow my peers believed I was at fault for having my virginity stolen.
Mom and Dad tried their best to support me, taking turns flying to New Hampshire every week. Mom wrote emails to administrators and gave suggestions to help improve St. Paul’s culture. She shared books with Mrs. Hebra about empowering women, like The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd.
Mrs. Hebra politely accepted the materials but tempered Mom’s expectations. “Susan, change needs to be organic.”
Whatever the hell that meant. Dad planted himself in the rector’s office and even offered to become St. Paul’s head of discipline. He was used to running a business with billions of dollars at stake. All he wanted now was to make the school he loved safe for me and for all the students there.
But the culture at St. Paul’s was too strong to dismantle alone. He tried to help me not lose sight of who I was and what I was fighting for. We’d sit together in his rental car and call Ron Bard, a family friend who was Tokyo’s soothsayer and a psychic who helped solve police cases. He’d been written up in Forbes magazine and had supposedly advised celebrities like Brad Pitt. I’d only met Ron once, but we called him Uncle Ron and I’d heard tons of stories about the things he foretold in our extended family.
“Chessy, the assault isn’t what’s going to hurt you the most. It’s the betrayal from friends and people you trust that will have the biggest impact on your life,” Uncle Ron explained.
I wanted to believe that the pain from the assault itself would ease over time. I still couldn’t be touched by my family. I wouldn’t let Dad hug me, and I almost threw Christianna over the side of my lofted bed after she tackled me during a visit with Mom.
“Please don’t do that, it really hurts me,” I scolded her. “I get scared when other people touch me. It’s not your fault.”
Christianna looked up with wounded eyes. My poor little sister was clueless. Sometimes I had no idea what was going on either. I had more and more trouble concentrating, not just with my mind but with my body.
I’d scratch an itch on my arm but feel nothing. I’d bang my leg against a table without it hurting. I fell during volleyball practice and it was as if it never happened. I dragged a brush across my scalp, but it seemed like I was brushing someone else’s hair. Why couldn’t I feel anything? I was so scared and thought I was truly losing it. It took weeks to muster up the courage to tell Buzz about the numbness.
“This is your body’s way of protecting you. It’s what your body did during the actual attack to get you through it,” Buzz explained. “It’s a common symptom for PTSD.”
During the summer, Dr. Sloane had explained that my panic attacks were related to my sexual assault, but she didn’t give a definite label. It was a relief to hear that the numbness was also typical. I wasn’t going crazy.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m floating,” I said to Buzz. “Like right now, I don’t feel like I’m here.”
“Okay, Chessy, we’re going to do some techniques to regroup and become present,” Buzz said. “Let’s look around the room. Over there, there’s a blue picture on the wall. Do you see what day it is on the calendar?”
“Yes.”
“And do you see sunshine coming through the room from the window over there?” Buzz asked. “Do you see I have both feet on the floor and a cold drink in my hand?”
“Yes.”
“Now, let’s do some tapping of our feet on the floor. First let’s tap our right leg, then our left. Now let’s tap our left hand and then our right hand.”
Slowly I reinhabited my body. I was relieved to be back, at least for now. Dad and Lucy were visiting for the weekend, and I hadn’t seen Lucy since she started at Georgetown.
She showed up covered in Sharpie marker from some kind of volleyball party the night before. I didn’t ask too many questions—I was just glad she was there. Dad and Lucy cheered from the bleachers during my volleyball game. At halftime, Lucy and I passed the ball on the sidelines for old times’ sake. Then we all got Thai food at Siam Orchid for dinner.
“I don’t want to go back to the dorm,” I said to Dad. “I’m staying with you guys at the hotel.”
Lucy and I hijacked the bed and watched episodes of Scandal as Dad snoozed on the couch. The next day was Ecofest, and I was reluctant to go.
“It’s all about taking photos, and I know it’s going to be people not asking me to take photos,” I said to Lucy. “I don’t want to be in a place where nobody wants me.”
“Just try it for a little. There are people who want you there,” Lucy insisted.
I put on a blue-and-white-plaid flannel and tried to look the part of a happy prep-school kid. While I was listening to the musical acts at Ecofest, my friend Harry came over. He was one of the few guys besides Dylan who hadn’t ditched me.
Harry sat down between my legs, leaned his head backward onto my chest, and stuck out his tongue as he snapped a selfie. I was uncomfortable and squinted my eyes so they almost closed shut. I tried to scoot back without him noticing.
In recent weeks, Harry had been dropping by our dorm room a lot, especially when Catie wasn’t around. We’d do homework together and sometimes he’d ask how I was feeling. I’d share how hard it was to adjust to school and how scared I was that everyone at St. Paul’s hated me.
During one vent session, Harry listened sympathetically, then slid closer to me on the couch and wrapped his arms around me. His hand lingered on my back longer than it should have and his hug felt suffocating. He’d done this a couple of times. I needed him gone and now.
First I messaged Catie and asked where she was.
Then I turned to Harry. “I really have to do my chem homework on my own. But thanks for stopping by.”
I liked Harry but not in that way. I didn’t know if I’d be ready for that way ever again.
I took Buzz’s advice and played the piano to try and lift my spirits. I loved practicing music from my childhood, or learning pop songs by ear. Catie had invested her dad’s money in a big pair of speakers, so I continued my music therapy in our room, belting out Broadway tunes with Catie, or losing myself in melodies from Cat Island.
I missed those kids so much. Sure, it was draining at times, but I had never felt more at peace. I had found my own version of heaven. It was a feeling so inexplicable that I didn’t try to share it with others because I could never do it justice. I needed to work harder to find that peace here at St. Paul’s.
I was grateful for my family, Catie, Lilly, Dylan, the authorities, Buzz, and Dr. Sloane. And I was thankful for my determination and strength. I was breathing, walking, eating, and living comfortably. I was learning Japanese, singing with the Madhatters, and playing piano.
I felt especially Zen after a late-night piano session an
d went to fill up my water bottle in the lobby of the music building before heading to my dorm. Suddenly I heard a guy snarl loudly, “Get out of here!”
I saw Jake, a senior football player, lying on the couch getting a blow job from a girl with bleached-blond hair. I froze.
“Yo bitch, what the hell! Get outta here!”
I couldn’t speak. I sprinted to my dorm, clutching my half-filled water bottle. I was so pissed. I should have flipped on the lights or alerted security. Instead I called Mom.
“They’ve ruined every place. Now even the music building isn’t safe.”
Dad lost it when he heard about the football player yelling at me for interrupting his blow job. Each day was a new, horrifying revelation for Dad that he had sent his daughters into danger. The adults were nowhere to be found, and the boys were running wild. He didn’t understand how the community he trusted, the school that helped shape him, had completely lost its way.
I turned sixteen at the end of October, but I was in no mood to celebrate. I called Mom crying, utterly defeated by the coldness I felt from my classmates.
Mom knew I needed a pick-me-up, so she spilled the beans: Arielle, my best friend from Naples, was planning a surprise visit for my birthday! Mom placed a giant pink bow on Arielle’s head so I couldn’t miss her in the audience of my Madhatters a cappella concert. Mom kept trying to surround me with love—the week before she’d given Catie her credit card to throw me a surprise dinner at Siam Orchid. Even Ivy came.
They were decent distractions, but a court date scheduled shortly after my birthday overshadowed everything. I was terrified that Owen would hunt me down while he was in Concord, especially after Harvard had rescinded his admission. Buzz promised me that he was banned from St. Paul’s and there were safety measures in place.
The next week Dad spent hours with the prosecutors hammering out a plea bargain that involved minimal jail time for Owen and no registration as a sex offender. I would receive an apology and Owen would have to go to counseling. Dad spun this as a positive development, one that would allow us to avoid a trial and focus on healing. All I really I wanted was for Owen to acknowledge what he’d done and to get help so he never hurt another girl. And I needed everyone else—especially the kids at school—to know the truth.
