It Happens All the Time

by Amy Hatvany

  “One of them does.” The truth was, from the moment Heather left my freshman year and my illness started to get worse, it had always just been Tyler and me. He was the only person who stayed by my side, who didn’t seem to condemn me for what I’d gone through. Even Daniel hadn’t understood me the way my best friend did. And now I’d lost them both.

  Vanessa didn’t say anything, making me realize that my mother must have already told her some of my history. About Tyler. I shook my head, feeling a scratching sensation in my throat. I coughed to clear it, and a few tears escaped. Damn it. I might as well stop with the bullshit small talk. I reached for the tissue box on the burled wood table between us and wiped the corners of my eyes.

  “I didn’t go to the police,” I said, tucking my legs up under me as I tore off bits of the tissue I held and let them land on the pillow in my lap. I kept my head down. “I didn’t go to the hospital and have an exam. There’s no way I could prove what he did.”

  “What did he do, Amber?”

  I shook my head again. My mom kept using the word “rape” to describe what Tyler did to me, but I still couldn’t quite label it that way myself. The circumstances that led up to that moment in the bedroom at the party were too muddy—I was too complicit in what had occurred.

  “Did you want to have sex with him?” Vanessa asked. Her voice was low, a therapist’s well-practiced, soothing serenade.

  “I thought I did. We’d been flirting a lot since I got home from school, but I was engaged to Daniel, and even though I was having second thoughts about getting married, I never should have gotten so drunk. I shouldn’t have kissed Tyler or danced with him the way I did.” I’d had these same thoughts so many times over the last couple of months, I didn’t know how I could believe anything else could be true.

  “Amber. Our society always seems to blame the victim, not the perpetrator, for a sexual crime. It says a woman shouldn’t dress provocatively or drink alcohol or have any kind of flirtation or interaction with a man because that means she is asking for him to do whatever he wants to do to her, even after she tells him no. Just because you were kissing him doesn’t mean you were asking for more.”

  “But I followed him upstairs. I let him put me on the bed and push his hips against me. I could feel what he wanted to do.” I shuddered briefly, repulsed by the memory of that moment, repulsed by myself, for being stupid enough to let it happen.

  “Nothing you did makes what Tyler did to you okay. If you told him to stop at any point that night, and he went ahead and had sex with you anyway, then what he did was rape. If you had oral sex, and after that, he forced his fingers inside you or had intercourse with you when you didn’t want it to go that far, then it was rape. If you two had been sleeping together for years, and this one time, you told him no, and he went ahead despite that, it was rape. Tyler raped you, Amber.”

  I shook my head, still struggling with the guilt I felt that I’d led him on.

  “You’re not responsible for this,” Vanessa continued, looking at me intently. “Yes, you were drunk. You might have kissed him. Everything about your behavior and your words might have said yes, but the moment you changed your mind, the moment you withdrew your consent either by physically struggling to get away or by telling him no, he was committing a crime. But the fact that you were drunk means that you were incapable of giving consent, so even if you hadn’t struggled or said no and he had sex with you, it was still rape.”

  Her words struck a chord deep inside me. I’d never thought about the fact that being drunk had taken away my ability to give consent. Tyler should have known that. He should have realized that the state I was in made what he was doing to me wrong. Instead, he took advantage of how weak I was. He ignored my pleas for him to stop what he was doing—he let me struggle and cry and then he had sex with me anyway. Hearing Vanessa describe this as rape sounded different to me, somehow, than when my mom said it. Maybe both of them were right.

  “Whether or not you decide to go to the police,” Vanessa said, “you are entitled to be furious about what Tyler did to you. To be full of fear and pain and have moments where you wish he was dead. And I am here, if you want to work through all of those complicated feelings. You just have to give me a chance.”

  My eyes welled up again as she spoke, and this time, I couldn’t hold back the tears. “It doesn’t matter,” I said, my voice crackling. “No one would believe me. He’s, like, the nicest guy around. He’s a paramedic. He saves people for a living. He’s never hurt anyone.”

  “That you know of,” Vanessa said. “And, Amber, he hurt you. The world is full of seemingly nice guys who assault women. Guys who don’t have healthy attitudes about women and sex in general, who see sex as something they’re entitled to, who hurt women and don’t even know they’re doing it because we don’t educate our young men on how not to become rapists.”

  I thought about Tyler’s parents then, about the parade of women Jason had plowed his way through over the years—the crude and sexist comments he always made around his son, and the way he constantly made Tyler feel like he would never measure up. I thought about Liz, that however nice she might be, she was also way more concerned with getting her own needs met than with meeting Tyler’s, or teaching him anything about what a healthy relationship should look like. I was certain that neither of them had ever had a conversation with Tyler about how not to rape a woman—if they had, he definitely would have told me about it. I doubted that there were many parents out there who had this kind of conversation with their sons, the same way girls are talked to about not walking alone to their cars at night, or how to not dress “suggestively” when they go out so men won’t get the “wrong idea.”

  “A man doesn’t have to be evil in order to sexually assault women,” Vanessa said. “Most rapists don’t look like what we’re programmed to believe they should—they’re not greasy-haired monsters who jump out from behind the bushes and tie up their victims in their basements. More often, they’re someone’s typical father, husband, brother, or son—but what they do to women is monstrous. Just because Tyler is ‘nice’ ”—here, she made air quotation marks with her fingers—“doesn’t mean he’s not capable of rape. Clearly, he is, or you wouldn’t be talking to me.”

  “But what’s the point of going to the police if he won’t go to jail?” I asked. My thoughts were scrambled, pulled in a hundred different directions.

  “I’m not saying you have to,” she said. “I’m happy to just help you here, in this room. But I will tell you that I’ve worked with many women who’ve been through exactly what you’re dealing with now, some of whom ultimately decided to file a report with the authorities, despite knowing the odds of getting a conviction were low.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Don’t most women just end up getting retraumatized by the judicial system, having to relive what happened to them over and over again? Their sexual histories questioned and their reputations torn apart? What’s the point of going through all of that if the guy gets away with it anyway?” My body ached, the same way it had the moment Tyler rolled off of me. I felt the stabbing sensation between my legs the same way an amputee might feel ghostly pain in a missing limb. Every time I allowed myself to think about that night, it all came rushing back—I was in that strange house, stumbling down the stairs, desperate to find a way to get home. I didn’t want to do this. I thought I was fine. But now, I found myself hoping that Vanessa would tell me there was another way, that she had a magic formula to piece my shattered insides back together. I wanted her to make me feel whole.

  “The point is, that for some women, going through the process of telling their story to the authorities is cathartic. It gives them a chance to release some of the blame they point at themselves and pin it on the person who actually deserves it. And, most importantly, it creates a record, so that if their attacker ever does the same thing to another woman, there’s a better chance she’ll be taken seriously and he’ll be indicted.”<
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  I’d never thought about the fact that Tyler might have already done this kind of thing to other girls. I hadn’t considered that he might do it again, in the future, to someone else. The full weight of these possibilities crashed down upon me, and I knew I had to do something. I knew going to the police would hurt me more than it would hurt him. There has to be something else. Some way to make him pay. And if I was sure of anything, it was that sitting in a therapist’s office, dwelling on what he did to me and whining about my feelings, wasn’t going to be it.

  Tyler

  It was a warm afternoon in late September, almost three months since the party on the Fourth of July, and Mason and I were working a rare day shift, covering for another paramedic team who were both down with strep throat. We had just grabbed lunch from a food truck downtown when a call came over the radio, asking us to proceed to a local park, where a ten-year-old boy had shimmied his head through the bars of a wrought-iron fence and now couldn’t get it back out.

  “What the hell would possess a kid to do something like that?” I asked, as we tossed the remainder of our meal into the trash and headed back to the rig.

  “He probably just wanted to see if it would fit,” Mason said.

  “That’s what she said,” I quipped, hoping to get a laugh out of my partner. Things had continued to be strained between us, even though I’d done everything in my power to be more focused when I was on the job. Some days, when my mind spun with fear that Amber still might send the police to my door, when my heart raced and I felt like a fat boulder was sitting on my chest, the only way I got through work was by taking half a Valium before I got to the station. I’d made good on my promise to myself to only take it when the pressure inside me was unbearable, when I knew I was at risk of cracking on the job, so I hadn’t yet run out of the ones I took from the woman’s stash. But I was getting close, and I didn’t know what I’d do when they were gone.

  Mason didn’t laugh at my stupid joke. Instead, we climbed into the ambulance, not talking as he drove us to a park on the south end of the Guide Meridian. It didn’t take long to treat the boy from the fence; the firefighters in attendance had already used bolt cutters to free him, so all we had to do was check him for serious injury, of which he had none, and then administer a couple of ice packs and ibuprofen for the slight irritation and swelling around his neck. His parents were there, too, and signed a waiver stating they didn’t want him to be taken to the ER, so after they drove off toward home, Mason and I climbed back into the ambulance, where it felt like it would take a wrecking ball to knock down the wall between us.

  “Hey,” I said, hoping I could find a way to get through to him. To make things go back to the way they used to be between us. “Can we talk?”

  “About what?” he asked as he stuck the keys in the ignition. He didn’t look at me.

  “I don’t know, man. We used to hang out. We were friends, we joked around. Now you barely say anything to me unless it’s about the job.”

  “We’re partners,” he said. “That’s what we’re supposed to talk about.”

  “Come on, Mason. You know what I mean.” I wanted him to tell me that everything would be fine, that something else was bothering him and that’s why he’d been keeping me at arm’s length. I wanted him to tell me that he didn’t think what Amber said was true.

  “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

  “Tell me what’s going on with Gia and the baby. Go have a beer with me like we used to. Let’s talk about what an asshole my dad is. Anything but this stick-to-the-facts bullshit.”

  He waited a moment before responding, and when he did, it was with a look full of strangled disgust. “I can’t do that, man. Too much has changed. I can work with you, I’ll do my job, but that’s it.”

  This time, I was the one who needed to wait before speaking. I kept my eyes glued on his, trying not to look away. “Because of what happened at the party.”

  He bobbed his head. “I can’t pretend that I didn’t see how shaken Amber was. How she’d been crying. How she didn’t want me to touch her. I should have realized she wasn’t just drunk. She was in shock.”

  I slumped back in my seat and dropped my gaze to my lap, feeling sick to my stomach, when a thought crossed my mind. “I take it you’ve told Gia about all of this.”

  “She’s my wife. I tell her everything.”

  I looked at him again. “So is this coming from her? Some kind of female solidarity thing? Did she tell you we can’t be friends anymore?” The words came out nastier than I meant them—like something my father might say—and witnessing the stormy look in my partner’s already dark eyes, I realized that I’d crossed a line.

  “Screw you.” He spat the words. “It has nothing to do with Gia. It’s coming from me. I’ve been doing this job way longer than you. I’ve seen women right after they’ve been attacked. They look just like Amber did that night.”

  I waited, trying to absorb what he meant. “You think I raped her.” My voice was quiet, full of fear.

  This time, my partner didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, man. I do.”

  Fuck. Even though I’d worried all along that he felt this way, I hadn’t let myself believe it until now. Until he said the words. “So I guess that’s it,” I said, fighting the rising tide of nerves tingling beneath my skin.

  Mason didn’t answer; instead, he started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, back onto the street. We didn’t speak, even as he parked the rig in its spot at the station house, where we would wait until another call came in. As we walked up the stairs to the lounge, I thought about what I should say. I wanted him to tell me that he’d made a horrible mistake. But the only thing that came out of my mouth was one question, to which I wasn’t sure I really wanted the reply. “What do you think I should do?” I asked, and he stopped at the top of the stairs, turned around, and stared at me, long and hard.

  “Admit what you did,” Mason said. “Deal with the consequences. And then get some fucking help, so you never do it again.”

  • • •

  We didn’t have any more calls that afternoon, so at the end of my shift, around nine o’clock, I drove toward my apartment, the buzzing undercurrent of energy beneath my skin convincing me that being home alone was the last thing I should do. I kept hearing Mason’s voice, a record stuck on repeat: Admit what you did. Deal with the consequences. Get help. I thought about driving to the police station and asking to speak to a detective. I imagined describing the events of that night, taking the blame for what went wrong, even if the details were still disjointed inside my head.

  I can’t do it, I thought, as I directed my truck downtown, eventually parking near the Royal, a popular bar. I can’t say I did something I didn’t do.

  I strolled inside, and saw that the establishment was already full of students and a few twenty- and thirtysomethings playing pool, shooting darts, and dancing to what sounded like eighties cover hits. Winding my way through the tables, I found an empty stool at the bar and sat down.

  “What can I get you?” the young male bartender asked. He couldn’t have been much over twenty-one himself.

  “Pyramid Hefeweizen,” I said, taking out a ten-dollar bill from my wallet and setting it on the counter. “With lemon.”

  “Coming up,” the bartender said, throwing a white towel over his shoulder and grabbing a clean glass pint for my drink.

  “You know only girls take lemon in their beer.”

  I turned to see where the voice was coming from, and smiled when my eyes landed on an attractive woman with wavy black hair who had dropped down onto the stool next to me. She wore a blue dress with a short, fringed skirt, and high heels. Her long legs were tan and bare. She looked too polished and professional to be a student, possibly a few years older than me.

  “Is that so?” I asked. I told myself I’d come here for simple distraction, that I wasn’t looking to meet anyone, but I knew that was a lie. I’d already taken a long run that morning, and hal
f a Valium before my shift. Clearly, I needed something else, and since Whitney hadn’t moved back into my building when school started again, I needed someone else.

  “It is,” she said with a mocking, solemn nod. “You might want to change your order.”

  “No, I’m good,” I said, leaning my head a little closer to her.

  “Comfortable with your masculinity, are you?”

  “I am.” I grinned at her, letting the rush of pheromones I felt sand away my sharp, nerve-racked edges. The bartender delivered my beer, and I made a show of taking the quartered lemon off the edge of the glass, squeezing it, then dropping it into my drink.

  The woman laughed and held out her hand. “I’m Kylie.”

  “Tyler.” I took a swig of my drink, and then glanced around the bar. “You here alone?”

  “No,” Kylie said, and she nodded her head in the general direction of the pool table. “I’m supposed to be having a drink with my boyfriend.”

  I ran my eyes over the four men she was looking at. Two were younger college students in baggy jeans—obviously not her style—and the other two were clean-cut, banker types, wearing black slacks and dress shirts with their long-sleeves rolled up. The one with blond hair looked back at her and waved.

  “He’s not doing a very good job of it,” Kylie said, lifting her glass in response to his gesture. “He didn’t even give me a glance before turning his attention back to his pool game.”

  “So you’re trying to make him jealous?”

  She smiled, a coy, flirtatious thing. “And what if I am?”

  “Then I say we should give him a show.” I gulped down almost the entire contents of my glass, grabbed Kylie by the hand, and pulled her to the dance floor. The DJ had just started playing a slow song, Foreigner’s “Waiting for a Girl Like You,” so I held her close, slipping one of my legs in between her thighs, and pressing my cheek against the side of her head. I moved her with ease, running my hand up and down her delicate back, dangerously close to splaying my fingers on top of her ass. I wondered what Mason would have said if he’d been there, if he’d accuse me of behaving the same way I had with Amber at the party. But I told myself that that didn’t matter. Besides, Kylie had been the one to approach me; in fact, I was doing her a favor. I just wanted to dance, to lose myself in a feeling other than the constant state of panic I’d been in. Like Whitney, this woman was an opiate in human form—immediately soothing, a perfect, temporary reprieve.