He Must Like You

by Danielle Younge-Ullman

  And he also isn’t.

  People are full of contradictions. Someone whose politics you hate might spend their spare time rescuing puppies, or knitting sweaters for orphans. Someone who sexually harassed you might have saved a ton of people from poverty and losing their homes. Someone who assaulted you might get you free legal advice from their mother.

  Contradictions, yes, but at the same time, I made a plan to confront him, and just because he’s done something nice doesn’t mean I shouldn’t follow through. Even if the thought of it makes me feel like I swallowed a bowling ball.

  “You all right?” Kyle asks with a concerned frown. “You seem a little . . .”

  “Look,” I take a breath and then let it all out in a rush. “I’m messed up.”

  Kyle looks at me with questioning sympathy, and waits.

  “I don’t know how to say it diplomatically, and it’s off topic, but I’ve been really . . . upset . . . about the night we spent together.”

  “Upset?”

  “Yeah, upset.”

  “Look,” he says, “I get it—it was a one-off for you. That’s fine.”

  “No, that’s not it.”

  Kyle frowns, definitely clueless.

  “It’s because I said I didn’t want to have sex,” I say. “I said it clearly and more than once. I said ‘no’ and you just . . . pushed ahead and did it anyway.”

  Kyle’s mouth opens, then closes again, and he gives a sharp shake of his head.

  “I realize I went along with it,” I continue. The bowling ball is dread, and it feels like it’s rising through me, up from my gut to my chest and toward my throat, where I feel like it might choke the life out of me. Still, I’m committed, and Kyle is waiting, wide-eyed and looking truly horror-stricken, for me to continue.

  “I went along with it,” I repeat, “and I know we were both drinking and so maybe things were fuzzy. But I know I said no, and that you heard me say it, because you responded. I don’t think I gave you any indication that I’d changed my mind, either.”

  Kyle’s face is morphing into an expression of shock and disbelief.

  “What—”

  “Just listen!” I say, my voice like a knife to pin him in place and shut him up. “I’ve thought about this a lot and read up on the definitions of what is consent and what isn’t. I’m fully aware of the many factors that look bad on me in this situation—all the reasons people wouldn’t think you were at fault and three-quarters of the world would just call me a lying slut and dismiss everything I’m saying. So you don’t have to say any of that.”

  “I wasn’t, but—”

  “I let you sleep over, I made out with you and got naked with you in my bed and did a lot of sexual things with you—things that often lead to having sex. And when it happened I didn’t fight. I only stopped you to get a condom. And from then on I participated.”

  “You didn’t just participate,” Kyle bursts in, “you had a good time! I mean I was drunk, but I clearly remember you enjoying it.”

  “Yes,” I say, cheeks burning, but holding firm. “All of that is also true.”

  “So . . . ? I don’t get it. We had a great time. Both of us had a great time.”

  “But I said ‘no sex’ and you said ‘okay’ and then later when it looked like sex was about to happen, I said ‘wait, no, wait,’ and you said ‘okay, relax,’ or something to that effect, and then when I had relaxed because I was trusting that you understood the boundary, you just went shoving on past it like I hadn’t said anything. It shouldn’t matter what happened after that. It matters that I said no.”

  Kyle’s jaw is clenched so hard I can see the muscle twitching, and I realize that I should have had backup in place for this situation, or someone with me.

  “You’re saying I raped you.”

  “I’m saying I didn’t consent to having sex with you. Which . . .” I exhale forcefully, “yeah, that’s what they call it.”

  “I’m not—I don’t . . . honestly I don’t even . . . okay, I do remember you saying ‘no sex’ at the beginning, but I don’t remember . . . I just remember having fun and things getting pretty wild, and being so into it. I am not a rapist, Libby.”

  “Maybe not usually.”

  Kyle slams his hands down on the truck bed and makes a short, but anguished, howling sound that’s more pained than scary.

  “Settle down, Kyle!” I snap. “I’m not saying you’re the guy who comes jumping out of the bushes to attack someone. And I don’t think you’re a guy who’d violate a passed-out girl beside a dumpster, or roofie someone’s drink. You’re not that.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “In a way it feels like . . . you know how with murder, there’s a hierarchy: first degree, second degree, manslaughter? This would be more like . . . manslaughter. The manslaughter of rape.”

  “But you let me.”

  “Because I wasn’t expecting it!”

  “You wanted me, though. I know when a girl wants me.”

  “I wanted you . . . the way someone might want a piece of cake, but decides it’s not the best thing for them at that moment,” I say, quickly adapting some of the material from Dahlia’s presentation, substituting cake for tea. “My mouth might be watering over a piece of cake but if I make the choice not to eat it, or if I just swipe some of the icing with my finger, should someone then shove an entire piece of cake in my mouth? And if they do, even if it tastes good and I end up swallowing it, is that okay?”

  “No, but . . . but you could spit the cake out, and nobody’s forcing you to eat the whole rest of the cake after that,” Kyle says, gesturing to himself as he says “rest of the cake.”

  “True, but the point is—”

  “Also!” he interrupts. “If the cake, once it’s in your mouth, is so good that you go ahead and eat the rest of it, then maybe the person who snuck you that first piece was right—you needed that cake.”

  “Oh!” I sit up tall, now furious. “So they’ve done me a favor?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Why does that person think they have the right to take the choice away from me?”

  “Arghhhh.” Kyle presses his hands to his head for a moment and squeezes. “This is so messed up.”

  “Very.”

  “I really liked you,” he says. “I still like you. And the funny thing is—or maybe it’s not that funny—but I felt so used waking up in this parking lot in my truck.”

  “You felt used?”

  “But I tried to shake it off. Then I thought it was weird that you were so cold to me at work, after. Now at least I know why. But I showed up the other night and again today because I felt bad about what happened to you with Perry, and about all the garbage online that’s happened since then. And I gotta be honest—on Sunday? Watching Perry and how all over you he was, I wanted to beat the crap out of him.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t just jealous of someone besides you doing things to me without my permission?”

  “What the hell!” Kyle shouts.

  “Quiet,” I hiss, eyes darting around the parking lot and back of the plaza.

  This . . . is not going quite as well as it did with Boris.

  “What do you want from me?” Kyle hisses back.

  “I want you, and every other clued-out person of the male species, to understand. And not do it again—to me or anyone else.”

  “Oh, so this is for my own good.”

  “It is for your own good because guess what? You’ll have a better chance of getting to have sex with someone more than once if you don’t start out by raping them. And a better chance at not being accused of rape—a circumstance many people might consider inconvenient, and is entirely avoidable via getting people to agree to have sex with you.”

  “Fine,” he says.

  “And not constantly trying to push past
their boundaries.”

  “Fine, fine, I get it,” Kyle says, almost shouting again. Then he scrambles off of the flatbed and backs away from me like I’m a bomb about to go off.

  “And it’s also for my own good, because I’m not okay about it. I haven’t been okay since it happened, and I needed to tell you. It wasn’t without consequence.”

  “Okay, okay. But. Just. I need . . . a break . . . from this conversation.”

  “I’m not enjoying it either,” I say, and hop out too, keeping as much distance as possible between us.

  “So I’m gonna go,” he says, hands in fists by his sides and looking like he’s either going to punch something, burst into tears, or both. “Is that allowed?”

  “Don’t be an ass,” I snap.

  Then he blows past me, throws himself into the driver’s seat, slams the door, and revs the truck engine like every idiot macho boy ever. Moments later he’s roaring out of the parking lot, and away down the street toward the highway, the rear gate still open, and leaving a stream of spilling coffee and doughnuts behind him.

  That was fun.

  I stand there a minute, trying to slow my too-fast breathing and pull myself together.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have used the words “rape” and “rapist.” Maybe I did it all wrong.

  But . . . is there a right way to confront someone about sexually assaulting you? One in which they don’t get upset? Doubtful.

  I really should have had someone there to support me or keep me safe in case he flipped out, though. That was not the smartest. My gut instinct about Kyle is that he’s not a violent person, and we are somewhere somewhat public, but if I’m ever in this situation again (please let me not be!) I won’t do it solo.

  Still, I spoke up. I stopped avoiding it, and confronted it. Hopefully this will go some way toward the processing I need to do to get over it, and help me get back to kissing Noah without having creepy flashbacks.

  And Kyle’s reaction, just like Boris’s, isn’t my problem. It’s not my job to make him feel better about this, no matter how supportive he’s been over the Perry thing.

  I start to walk. The air is fresh, it’s spring, I will look for crocuses and tulips pushing up out of the earth in people’s gardens on my way home, and calm the hell down.

  I’ve just reached the front of the other side of the gas station and stepped onto the sidewalk when I hear the sound of an engine and look up to see Kyle’s truck driving back in my direction, now at a more judicious speed.

  He pulls up beside me, window down, and an apple cruller falls out the back onto the pavement.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, stiff-faced.

  “Sorry for what?”

  “For not making sure you . . . wanted . . . er . . . were agreeing . . . to have sex. I never meant to be forcing you. That’s not me. Or it shouldn’t have been. And man, my mom would castrate me if she ever found out I did that. Anyway, I’m just trying to wrap my head around this. I remember it differently, but mostly I don’t remember, and you do, so . . . I’m really sorry.”

  “Okay.”

  “You don’t have to forgive me or anything.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Right.” He grips the window ledge and stares forward. “Right, okay. This is unbelievable. Because, as you know, I’ve been reading all about this stuff, never thinking it would apply to me, or to anything I’ve done. And all along . . . I’m basically no better. But, okay. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Thank you for apologizing, though,” I relent. “And not trying to make me out to be a liar. That helps.”

  “Good.”

  “Good.”

  We stay like that for a few long, awkward moments, then he says, “Also, um, your purse is still in here,” and gestures toward the front seat. “And . . . I still want you to take the binder.”

  “If it didn’t fall out,” I say, glancing rearward, “and isn’t soaked in coffee.”

  Kyle’s eyes widen in realization, then he curses, turns off the truck, and gets out to check the back.

  I follow.

  One coffee cup is still lolling there on its side, milky coffee trickling out. The doughnut box is there too, but empty, and the binder’s right at the edge of the open gate, and likely would have fallen out at the next turn.

  Kyle picks it up and inspects it, still swearing under his breath, and then wipes the bit of coffee that spilled on the cover off onto his shirt, leaving a brown mark across his chest.

  “Bit of coffee, but it’ll dry and it’s all still legible,” he says, then passes it to me, grabs the coffee cup and doughnut box, and slams the gate up.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll get your purse,” he says, taking the garbage, opening the passenger door, and settling it on the floor, before taking my purse off the seat and handing it to me.

  “Hey, I can take you home,” he says. “That was a dick move to drive off and leave you here.”

  “It was, but I’m fine. It’ll only take five minutes to walk.”

  “I see how maybe you don’t want to be alone with me,” he says, and hangs his head.

  “I came here alone with you, Kyle. And depending what happens we’ll be back working together at the Goat, so . . . I mean we’ve cleared the air and hopefully we can be professionals about this. Can we try that?”

  “Fine. Fair.”

  This time when he leaves he does it with deliberate calmness, closing the truck door carefully, not revving the engine like a testosterone addict, and driving away like a fairly reasonable person.

  Huh.

  25

  SHINING ARMOR

  Dad’s still on the phone when I get back, and Mom is in a barely controlled frenzy. She’s cleaned up the broken dresser pieces, vacuumed, bought flowers (??), and is huffing back and forth, and up and down the stairs like there’s some kind of urgency. I finally corner her in the garage, where she’s trying to arrange the bins.

  “What’s going on? I thought you were trying to drag all of this stuff out through tomorrow and ideally even Monday, and now you’re zooming around like it all has to be done right this second. What are you going to do with Dad tomorrow? And in general?”

  “It’s all under control,” Mom says, swiping hair out of her face with her forearm.

  “Sure,” I say.

  Then, for hours it seems, she’s cooking. A lot. Like maybe her next plan is to feed Dad into a food coma. Speaking of which, there are loud snores coming from the basement, where he has conked out, finally exhausted from all his shit disturbing.

  I seek refuge on the porch, in a chair with a book, and am just starting the second chapter when a car pulls into the driveway, and then someone is getting out of it.

  Someone I recognize and can hardly believe is real.

  Jack.

  Jack!

  Jack, whom I have not laid eyes on in over two years and have missed so much and begged to come home so many times and was so furious with the last time I talked to him.

  I surge up out of the chair, the book falling onto the porch floor, and two seconds later I’m tackling him, nearly knocking him over, and he’s laughing, arms around me.

  “I’m so mad at you,” I say, still squeezing him.

  “I know,” he says, squeezing me back and lifting me off my feet.

  Finally he puts me down and we stand there, studying one another.

  “You’ve changed,” he says.

  “Yes, I’m ancient and jaded now,” I say, and he grins. “And you’re a . . . really grizzled beach bum who doesn’t use enough sunscreen.”

  “Ouch!”

  “Seriously, you’re still in the doghouse,” I say, trying to glare at him.

  “Even after coming all this way?”

  “Well . . .”

  Jack in person is hard to sta
y mad at. There’s something grounding and calming about him. He has a warmth, a twinkle, a way of listening that makes you feel heard.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You asked me to come.”

  “I’ve been asking you that for two and a half years. Was it just that you were waiting for me to say the magic words?”

  “You mean ‘fuck off, Jack?’” he says with a glint of amusement in his hazel eyes.

  “Yeah, those ones,” I say with an unwilling smirk.

  “Listen, Libby, I’m so sorry,” he says with sudden urgency. “I went online right after we talked and I saw . . . well, later I read up on Dad’s . . . activities, which are extremely worrisome, but first I saw all the stuff about you and Perry. The videos, the blog post, the photos. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I was telling you.”

  “But you didn’t say it was you! I would have had a totally different reaction if you’d told me that.”

  “That’s not actually a point in your favor, Jack.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “It means that if it were just some girl, you wouldn’t—never mind that right now. You were saying?”

  “Just . . . I’m just so sorry that happened to you in the first place, and about all the mess that’s come since then, and that I didn’t give you the benefit of the doubt. And as for the rest of it—Mom and Dad—you’ve been telling me things are bad, and I didn’t really get it. But for you to be that upset, and hang up on me, it shocked me. And then when I realized the full extent—”

  “You still don’t realize the full extent,” I say, cutting in.

  “Regardless, I haven’t wanted to come home since I left—have not been tempted at all. But I just suddenly knew I needed to be here. So I got on a boat and then a plane, and I’m here to help. If I can.”

  Part of me wants to tell him that Mom and I have things under control, but you would have to have a pretty broad definition of “under control” to consider that true.

  “What is it you think you can help with?”

  “Dad,” he says. “I hope. Seems like he’s circling the drain, you know? To be spending his time that way. It’s screwed up. And maybe I can talk him out of booting you from the house in July.”