What Makes a Phenomenal Woman?

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It was a sunny day, one of those days that felt like autumn in the middle of a cold winter. It was as if God wanted to remind us that nice weather was on its way if we could just be a little more patient. We all traded in our heavy jackets for university hoodies and sweatshirts. There were more hellos than teeth chattering as we walked slower to class because we weren’t running from the cold air.

I remember how beautiful it was because there’s nothing about that day I can forget. Conversations between friends, honking horns and music from car radios floated up my window sill as I lay in my apartment frozen. I could hear everything outside because the silence in my apartment was deafening. Buttons bounced on the floor like raindrops as he ripped off my shirt. My hand hit the steel post of my bed so hard that I could feel the bruise form, the blood tighten and the skin swell. His hand held on to my wrists above my head while the other one pulled down my capris and my panties in one swoop like he had done this before. The strands of my hair were caught in the grasp between our three hands. I wanted to move to ease the discomfort of my scalp but I was frozen. Staring out the window, wondering when the time would come that someone would start looking for me.

And he had the nerve to call me beautiful. There was no beauty in my face as I laid there convincing myself that I was no virgin and this would be painless if I could just breathe through it. If I could be as quiet as possible he would forget that I’m even there and it would be over sooner than it started. But I was there and when he forced himself inside of me, I was convinced I saw heaven outside of that window. Every second felt like a century and every nerve in my body was paying attention to the sex it wasn’t prepared to have. My vagina burned like hell on a hot plate. Back and forth, back and forth my body screamed, bled and cried itself into submission. It was then that I knew I had more than one virginity to spare. This was not sex. This was not the birds and the bees. This was about the snakes that you only see when the grass is cut. This was about monsters that don’t hide in closets under the cloak of the night. This was about guys in your class studying the dimensions of your body instead of their syllabus. This was rape, a cold and silent rape, familiar and foreign all at the same time. This was the kind of rape that nobody talks about. The kind that has his phone number, the kind that’s friends with him on facebook, the kind that everyone would ask, ‘how it happened’ instead of ‘how are you.’

He left, quietly as he came and as innocent as a man on death row. With my eyes glued on the clock, finally the time had come for me to resume the life I was living before he invited himself in. I went to work, cried in the bathroom for five minutes and walked right back out. I wasn’t supposed to be there. The girl that was supposed to work would never make it.

“I need to see a doctor.”
“What’s the problem hun?” The nurse took one look at my bloodshot eyes and my stammering teeth and her whole body shifted.
I took a deep breath still trying to swallow the kiss he left behind.
“I need to see a gyn.”
She put her warm hands over mine and asked, “Have you been assaulted?”
I just nodded. The word assaulted couldn’t even describe what I had been through.
“Come with me.”

She led me to a private room to lay down. When her hands touched my knees to signal for me to open my legs, the first tears fell. This was real. Rape kits only happen to people who have been raped and there I was – rape victim number 157. The words abrasion, tearing and bruising floated in the air above me as she scraped the lining of my vagina. She waved bright lights on my inner things, cleaned under my fingernails, combed through my hair, fed me pills that looked like a deadly combination of skittles. It was like being raped all over again with unfamiliar hands in delicate places. I just closed my eyes and waited.

I haven’t told more than ten people to this day. There’s never a good time to reveal something of this nature and I’ve learned that no reaction is suitable. I don’t want anyone to look at me like I was broken nor do I want anyone to ask me why I didn’t press charges. There is no justice for shame this heavy. It took me months to even say the word ‘rape‘ and it took even longer to come to terms with the fact that it happened to me. No courtroom, no verdict, no guilty plea will ever give me back what he took from me because in reality it’s still hard to define what’s been taken. Even therapy hits a wall that can’t come down. You don’t get over being raped, you get through it. You learn how to deal with the nightmares and the fear. You learn how to cope with the attack. You learn how to have sex again. You learn how to subdue the victim you were and become the survivor you were meant to be. You learn how to love yourself after a time when you couldn’t even bother looking at your own reflection.

Years later, I haven’t made any leaps or bounds. I still get scared sometimes, I still wonder what I could have done differently and I’ve never worn those clothes again. I just fight the battle of the day I’m in. Today, I’m just trying to get to work on time, tomorrow, it will be trying to get my five-year-old to school on time. Rape victim number is 157 is gone, but me? I’m still here and there’s too many people in this world to love, starting with myself.

Tags: assault, college, overcoming adversity, rape, recovering, sexual assault, sexual violence, violence