In the morning, I was sore. Everywhere. Sore and raw. And numb. Emotionally, I was dead to the world. I went to the bathroom and realized he hadn’t used a condom. That made me freak out. I took a shower and went to the library, not even showing up at work to tell them I wasn’t going to make it in. I was desperate. I couldn’t imagine getting pregnant and having his child. That had clarified everything to me, what he was, what I didn’t feel for him, and that it had all been one big, horrible joke at my expense. It didn’t fucking matter that I had felt nothing for him. I should have just followed my instincts.
I asked the librarian if there was anywhere where I could get the morning after pill. She’d told me about a free clinic five miles away. I walked there and saw a doctor. He’d taken one look at me and asked me if anyone had hurt me. I said I wanted the medicine and needed to leave. He questioned me a couple more times before dropping it. He was very kind to me. I’d wished I’d had the state of mind to thank him. I never could bring myself to go back there.
Once home, I took the first pill. Twelve hours later, the cramping was already starting and I took the next one. By the next morning, I’d laid in the bathtub, water running over me as blood poured out of me, circling around the drain before it fogged down in tendrils of red. It lasted for a whole day and I thought I was surely bleeding to death. I didn’t know if that was normal or not. But I couldn’t tell anyone and I didn’t have a phone anyway, so I just laid there. I’d missed two days of work.
That next morning, I’d woken up cold, exhausted, my body still sore, but I’d put on my dress and gone to work. Even though I probably looked like hell, Pam had given me a verbal lashing, in front of everyone. Where I normally would have cried, I squared my shoulders, looked up into her eyes and told her off. Right there. I’d meant what I said as an insult, but something happened. People in the diner laughed. Pam’s lip had twitched. And I thought of another line and gave that to her. People laughed harder and I went back to work then, acting like nothing had happened, even though I was really daring her to say something more to me the whole time.
That night before I left, I looked her in the eye and told her if she ever humiliated me in front of everyone like that again, I’d leave the next instant. She had grunted and said not to let the door hit my ass on the way out. But I realized then that she didn’t mean it. She needed me as much as I needed her. Things changed between me and her that day. And somehow, she had more respect for me. And while I pretended to have less for her, my affection for her grew.
I dropped the prepared pierogies in the boiling water one at a time, watching as they floated toward the surface when they finished cooking. The music played on and my thoughts turned back to Chad and how it had ended. I’d graduated that day. While my confrontation with Pam made me see I had a backbone, putting Chad in his place had been a defining moment in my life.
After he raped me, I was dreading that moment when I would see him again. I was mostly numb, but somehow completely miserable, going through one day at a time with this nameless anxiety I didn’t know what to do with. At the time, I didn’t even accept that I’d been raped. It took a few weeks for me to realize that’s what had happened. I was so used to just handing my body over to Chad, so convinced that I was the problem all the time that I thought I was probably making a big deal out of nothing. I mean, hadn’t I let him into my apartment? Hadn’t we had sex before? And it’s not like I’d told him to stop. I hadn’t even put up a fight. Those were the kinds of things I found myself saying inside my head and it made that feeling inside me even worse.
Then I saw him at the grocery store. I’d taken one look and walked right back out without him noticing me. He’d been laughing. Laughing. The hatred I felt. I can’t even describe how much I hated him. I hadn’t felt a thing through that depression beyond sheer misery, unless I was waking up terrified from a nightmare. I didn’t even smile anymore, not real ones that I could feel in my eyes. And he was laughing. That’s when I realized I’d been raped. Not only had I been raped, but I knew he had known exactly what he was doing to me. He had taken something from me violently to show me who was in control. He had punished me for standing up to him. And he got off on it. I went home and went about my business again, but I obsessed over him. I thought about him constantly, every single day, hating everything about him.
It almost made me crazy. I wanted to forget him. I wanted to get over it. But I couldn’t. And one night, it dawned on me that I really hated myself. I’d let him in. I’d given him me. He’d guilt tripped me into taking what he wanted and I’d just let him have it, like a complete fool. I thought back on it, realized how manipulative he was. He would bring me things sometimes, little presents. Things I didn’t even want. And then he’d act like I owed him. Or he would tell me that he needed me, needed his weekly chat sessions with me so he could vent, loved to hear me play, made me feel special without actually doing anything, and then he’d take what he wanted and go. We never hung out outside my apartment. He never took me on a date, not that that would have made what he did acceptable, but still, why hadn’t I noticed that? It should have been a sign. He didn’t know anything about me because he never asked and I was too busy talking about him. And that’s when I realized, our “relationship” was about two things. Him and sex.
So I got a gun.
I knew he’d be back. It’s funny that I spent our entire relationship feeling like I was inadequate, but with the perspective I gained from hating him, and therefore not giving a shit about his feelings anymore, I realized he was the one with addiction, the obsession. He had needed me and the whole time I’d been wishing he would leave me alone. It was only a matter of time before he showed himself. I knew he couldn’t stay away from me. And I would be ready. I wasn’t going to be a victim ever again.
I hitched into the city and I bought a .22 from some guy because it was cheap and so were the bullets. I bought a bunch and practiced every night after work in the field next to my house. It was calming. It gave me something to focus on and there was an instant reward when I hit the target. I got pretty good at hitting cans.
A couple weeks passed, and I knew he would be leaving for college soon. He’d told me all about it. The scholarship he got, the things he had to do to get ready to play football on a college team. I began to wonder if maybe I’d been wrong and he wouldn’t show. But one night, he knocked on my door. I waited in bed, making sure I’d really heard it, even though I knew I had. It came again, and I got up. I walked to my bag and slipped my gun out. I held it at my side so he wouldn’t see it, the metal fitting snug in my hands, feeling like it belonged there. By then I was fond of my gun and everything it represented to me.
I opened the door, and there he was. I didn’t feel a thing besides dread. Until he turned and I realized he’d been smiling. When he saw me, his face instantly changed, full of apology. That hatred flared through me again, so strong, all I could do was stand and stare. It was worse than I thought, his awareness and manipulation. All I could chant in my head was, how could I be so stupid?
“Rachel, I’m so—” he’d started.
His voice snapped me awake, and I pointed my gun right at him. When his eyes had registered what it was, he stumbled backward, almost falling over.
I’d said the line I’d rehearsed. “If you ever… come near me again, Chad, I will kill you.” My voice had been shaking, but I meant every word. My gun pointing at his face was evidence of that.
He was so stunned he just stood there, his eyes wide.
I’d screamed, “Get the fuck away from me!”
He’d straightened, looked at the gun as he raised his hands, then started to say something.
I aimed just to the right of his head and pulled the trigger. The explosion sent a popping noise into the night air.
“Jesus Christ!” he’d yelled, coming completely unglued.
I’d never seen him like that. If I hadn’t been so pissed, I might have laughed.
I repeated my command in a
calm, even voice. “I said, get the fuck away from me.”
“You’re fucking crazy!”
I aimed the gun at him, pushing it forward, and he nearly fell down the stairs he tried to get away so fast. And that was that.
The sad thing was, it didn’t cure me. For some reason I thought it would, but it didn’t. Where it was awkward to be touched by people before, I hated it then. In the beginning, it was really bad. If I felt skin on my skin, I’d flinch. My muscles would go tight. I startled all the time. Someone would call my name and I’d about hit the ceiling. I had nightmares for a long time. Every single night in the beginning. Sometimes they were vividly Chad, other times they didn’t make any sense but they would still upset me. They faded, but even now, every once and a while, I still got them. And for a while, I still hated him and myself. I stopped singing and playing completely, something I’d never done in my entire life. Not even after my grandma died. I stayed depressed for a long time, thinking back on Grandma Ro, knowing that empty blah was how she’d lived those last years of her life. It made me even worse. When I wasn’t working, I just laid in bed. I didn’t eat much. I lost weight. I’d never been a big person, but it was enough that people at the diner made some comments about it.
It took a good year for me to get things under control. I started with my apartment, because there were things about it that reminded me of Chad. I saved up enough to fix it up. I redid the couch first. I bought the rug. Then I convinced the landlord to really let me dig in. I got in over my head and decided to redo the floors. They were real hardwood. I sanded them down and finished them. It took me a long time, but I was so surprised by my work that it motivated me to do more. I sanded down the cabinets and painted them. I painted the walls. I hung curtains. I even replaced the vanity and sink in the bathroom with one I found at a garage sale. It’d taken a few trips to the hardware store, where I had this one guy who’d give me advice, but I got it done. Over that year, my apartment turned into a home. And I was so proud of it. I’d never done something like that before.
Eventually I started going to the library again on my days off instead of lying in bed. I picked up my guitar almost a full year later. I started playing old stuff. Then I started learning a new song here or there off the radio. Finally, I started making up new ones again, just like I used to. And gradually, I let people back in. Not outside of work. Not that close. But I started to goof around with the locals and I picked on Pam mercilessly. I loved people. I loved the different games I had with them. Becky had come into my life, with her desperate need for a reliable babysitter, and then I finally did have company outside of work. And then there was Roy. Even he helped when we first started hanging out. That had been what really pulled me free. People.
I stood at the stove, all my pierogies boiled and waiting for the next step; getting pan fried in sautéed onion and bacon. The pork chops were in the oven. The veggies were hanging out in a pan, waiting for me to flick on the burner. The bacon was all shredded and ready, but I had to chop the onion. My eyes were really sensitive to them. Sam usually chopped them when we lived together.
I chopped away, tears starting to flow down my face. I readjusted my foot against my knee as I stood on one foot at the counter, tilting my head back to try to stop the flow of fluid. I wiped my eyes then on my shoulder, thankful I’d put on my work apron just in case. I finally finished and was about to add it to the pan when I heard a knock at the door.
My heart dipped in my chest. I looked at the clock. Fifteen ‘til seven. He was early-ish, but that was fine with me. I had to keep myself from skipping over to the door. I opened it up and there he stood, looking so freaking handsome my heart was nearly in my throat.
“Hey,” I said, stepping to the side to let him in.
“Hey,” he answered as he stepped in past me. He took one look at my eyes then, and I saw a twitch of unease.
A twitch of confusion entered my brain before the realization dawned on me. “Onions.” I gave him a pointed look.
He returned it with a smile. “It smells good in here.”
“Thanks.” I saw the wine bottle in his hands then. The other held flowers. “This is probably a bad time to tell you I don’t drink.” I saw his face fall for a fraction of a second. “But I do take flowers. Especially from you.” I stood on my toes and kissed him on the cheek, holding my lips there longer than I needed to.
By the time I lowered myself back down, he was beaming at me. He offered me the flowers and I took them, holding his eyes with mine before walking back into the kitchen as I smelled the roses. They were lavender. I knew that wasn’t an accident, and it made my heart ache. The last time I’d seen roses that color was in the little outdoor markets in Brooklyn. I gently laid them on the table and went back to what I was doing so everything would come out on time. I scooped the onions up with my knife and tossed them into the pan, added some butter and turned the heat on. I paused to take in Grant. He was nervous. I again wondered how he could be nervous. He had no reason to be.
I was about to say something when he asked, “Can I do anything?” He stood next to me, watching me work. He was wearing a polo shirt, a blue one that brought out his eyes, and brown pants. He looked freshly showered and smelled delicious.
“Keep me company?” I asked, turning my eyes up to him.
His shoulders loosened some. His eyes fell on my hair, noticed the flower, and his lips twitched into a smile. He liked what I’d done to fix myself up for him.
I watched the food now, placing the pierogies into the pan to crisp up a little bit. I checked the pork chops and turned on the heat under the vegetables.
“You look beautiful,” Grant said as he watched me.
It took me a second to find my tongue. “Thank you. You’re looking pretty good yourself.” I flipped a few pierogies and then looked up at him. I raised an eyebrow as I leaned in. “And you smell good, too.”
I saw what I’d hoped for, his dimple coming out some.
“So I know there are different types of riding…” I started, trying to get a conversation going. “What type does your dad do?”
“Western. Like how we rode today. With the saddle horn.”
“And your mom?”
“English.”
“How’s it different?”
Grant snagged a fragment of bacon off a plate. “There’s no saddle horn, and the saddle is smaller. There are subtypes within English and Western riding. She raises and shows hunters. Jumping horses.”
“That sounds like fun.”
“Yeah.”
His tone suggested it left something to be desired. “It’s not?”
He looked at me for a second before eating another vagrant piece of bacon. “I would say I don’t fit into that world very well.”
“Oh yeah?” I felt my eyebrows rise. “Why not?”
“Too stuffy for me. I like to ride in jeans and a T-shirt.”
That fit the man I was getting to know. “So does Hank have a subtype?”
Grant’s eyes crinkled at the sides as his lips turned up. He noticed that I remembered his dad’s name. It dawned on me then that I didn’t know his mom’s name.
“He does. He raises reining horses. But he does other stuff, too. He teaches a lot.”
“What are reining horses?” I tossed the vegetables a few times, hoping I wasn’t going to under or over cook them. I tended to neglect them. Sam had been the master of vegetable cooking.
“They’re supposed to be extra sensitive to the reins, and other contacts like your legs and seat. They move away from the reins instead of relying on direct pressure like how we rode today. They’re supposed to be fast and agile, but also athletic.”
I listened to his warm voice describing these things, excited that I’d tapped into a subject he talked about so freely.
“What do you mean by seat?”
“Where your butt meets the saddle… pretty much.”
I didn’t quite get it, but I still had other questions for him. “Yo
u said he also does other stuff? And he teaches a lot?”
“Yeah. He teaches barrel racing and pole bending. He used to be really big into that, or at least he had a few students who were. Now he mostly teaches that stuff for fun.”
“What’s barrel racing?”
Grant hesitated, and I looked over to see him smiling at me. “You haven’t been to a rodeo, have you?”
“I haven’t.”
He looked at me for a beat. I could tell he was going to say something flirty. “I thought you said you’d assimilated to the South.”
I bit at my cheek. “I guess I could still use a bit more assimilating.”
“I think you’d like it.”
I liked the meaning implied in his words. “Well, you were right about a lot of stuff today. I bet you’re right about that, too.” I started pulling the food off the stove, putting everything into dishes. Grant fell into things then, completely at ease, helping me put things on the table. It felt totally natural and really nice. For a second, I remembered wondering if things would be weird. They weren’t at all. Grant lit up my whole place, his easy energy warming every inch.
We talked, laughed, ate, and flirted over dinner, picking up right where we had left off throughout the day. Except that it was different. We were definitely in a more intimate setting. And we both felt it. But by the time dinner was done, our nerves were a distant memory, and far from deterring us, it made things more exciting.
“So…” I said, looking up at him.
He froze. “Yeah?”
“Do you have room for dessert?”
He leaned back slightly in his chair. “It’s going to be tight, but I can make it.”
Call Me Ana: A Novel Page 11
