Page 90 of The Way I Used to Be
By 2:53 it was over. He let go of my arms. It was over, it was over, I told myself. When he ripped the nightgown out of my mouth, I started coughing and gasping. I had almost suffocated to death, but he couldn’t even let me have that—a simple bodily reaction. He clamped his hand over my mouth. He was out of breath, his mouth almost touching mine, his words wet: “Shut up. Shut up. Listen to me. Listen.” He held my face still, so that I had to look directly into his eyes. His eyes were the eyes he always had, but they burned me now, burned right into me. “Shhshhshh,” he whispered as he peeled away strands of tear-soaked hair from my face, tucking them behind my ears—like, gently—over and over again, his hands on me like it’s the most normal thing, like this was just supposed to be.
“Look at me,” he whispered. “No one will ever believe you. You know that. No one. Not ever.”
He pushed himself off me then, a burst of icy air rushing in between us as he sat up. He was leaving and it would finally be over. I didn’t care about what had just happened, or what would happen next, I only cared that it would be done, that he would be gone. I would be quiet, I would be still, if that’s what it took. I shut my eyes and waited. And waited. Except he wasn’t leaving, he was kneeling between my legs, looking down at me, at my body.
I had felt plenty ugly before, in general. But never ugly like this. Never as insignificant and repulsive and hated as he made me feel then, with his eyes on me. I tried to cover myself with my hands, but he tore them away and laid my arms flat against my sides, he put his hands on me instead. It wasn’t over, not yet. This was still part of it. I grab handfuls of sheets in my hands to make my body stay put, like he wanted.
He wasn’t even holding me down. Not physically. But he was holding me in some other way, a way that was somehow stronger than muscle and arms and legs. I couldn’t even feel my body anymore, not even the hurt, but I could feel his eyes on me, showing me all of the places I was ugly, all the things he hated most about me, all the ways I didn’t matter.
“You’re gonna keep your mouth shut,” he whispered into my mouth. I wasn’t sure if it was a question or an order. Either way, there’s only one right answer, I know. “I asked. A fucking. Question.” Drops of spit fly onto my face with each word.
I stare... am I allowed to speak? Wasn’t I supposed to be shutting up?
He grabs hold of my chin and a handful of hair and jerks my face up and down. “Yes?” he hisses, nodding slowly. I nod my head ferociously. “Say it.”
My voice doesn’t work right though; I can only get out the “s” sound.
“Say it,” he demands.
“’Es. Yes, yes,” I hear myself whimper.
“No one—do you understand? You tell no one,” he says with his mouth close to my face. “Or I swear to God. I swear to God, I’ll fucking kill you.”
I hear my voice, no louder than my breath: “Please, please, please.” And I don’t even know what I’m begging for—him to just get it over with and kill me or for him to spare me.
He smears his lips against my mouth one last time, looks at me like I’m his, and smiles his smile. He gets up. Then he’s back in his boxers. He whispers, “Go back to sleep,” before shutting the door of my bedroom behind him.
I put both hands over my mouth, squeezed my eyes shut as tight as I could, and tried to fix my brain to disbelieve everything it thought and felt and knew to be true.
I OPEN MY EYES.I’m breathing heavy. Then barely breathing at all. My heart races. Then stops altogether. I’m in my room. Not then, but now. And I’m okay.I’m okay. I’m okay,I repeat silently.
I stand up.
I pick up my phone.
I pace my room.
I need someone. I actually fucking need someone. Need someone now. But I have no one to call—no one. I have left myself with absolutely no one in the world who would ever care about what is happening to me right now.
But then I have a thought. A very stupid, masochistic thought, but now it’s there in my head and it’s one of those thoughts that once it’s there, there’s nothing that can be done to make it go away. My fingers press the numbers even though my brain forbids it, just like it was two years ago, just like no time has passed at all. The sequence of numbers ingrained in my bones and muscle, I dial.
I practice his name: “Josh. Josh,” I whisper.
I hate myself. It’s ringing.
“Hello?”
I open my mouth. But what words could ever, ever undo these things, what words could ever tell enough of the truth?
I hang up.
What is wrong with me?
I redial.
“Uh, hello?”
I hang up.
