Me Too

You are told through scrolling videos on Facebook that automatically play while you sit in the bathroom at work “taking a shit,” but your pants are still up, buckled, and zipped, that if you have been cat called while walking home from a bar that you should be part of the “me too” movement, and you feel obligated to give your statement because what girl hasn’t been walking in the dead winter of Michigan, with her bare legs showing, toes sticking out of the tips of her booties, and nothing but a light jacket on your arms because she didn’t want to get her two hundred dollar down coat stolen when she wanted to dance instead of sitting at the bar and getting hit on and still manage to get a whistle or two from a drunk homeless man on the way back to the car? The snow lightly falling on your face, and it wouldn’t be so bad if the wind would just chill for the five minutes it takes you to walk to your car. But you grew up waking up early on Sundays to put on a dress and some flats to be early to bible quiz so you can practice your speed at the buzzer, answering questions on break point, attend adult service for two hours, and from December through April, you spend your Sundays from 12:30 to at least 6 backstage preparing for play productions, wearing old english costumes, or costumes from the middle east during the time of Jesus’s life while playing James Bond with your friends in the bathroom. We sat in the back rooms of the church putting together skits, human videos, choir practice, using each other as props, bouncing ideas off of each other, and finally finishing with ensemble practice. On Wednesdays, you brought your quarters, signed in, you did your lessons, memorized the bible verses, participated in the projects, and by the time you graduated high school, you had whispered repeatedly underneath your breath all the things that cannot separate you from the Love of God in your sleep, feeling the heat radiating off of the iron barrel every morning as you curled your hair and enunciated each syllable, covered your hand over papers and repeating to the “s” every word on the yellow pages of the twenty point questions.

Your Facebook feed is full of the hashtag, and the statements of the Larry Nassar survivors makes you feel lucky you never hurt your back badly enough at a meet that you had to sit on that cold table as he subtly closed the door, slowly muting the floor music, hiding you from your mom, who was at every meet, but just because you never stumbled upon the creep doesn’t mean there wasn’t another creep, about your age, long brown Bieber hair, in a black welding shirt, smiling at you through all the cracks between the seat and the windows on the bus, offering his Gatorade and bag of chips to you on the bus, and carrying on conversations with you at breakfast.

He would place his hand on the arms of girls with hair that resembled string cheese, and had purposefully drawn raccoon circles around their eyes, as he complemented them on her hair, and when they would leave you would tilt your head and ask “really?” But the bell would ring and he would follow you, asking why you asked him that, and you would explain, and you would hug as the time was ticking down till the second bell. You would ask him to a dance, he would deny and then after stating that Zack was willing to drive two hours to come to a dance with you, he would change his mind, invite you over while his parents were out. He would start a fire with you by his pond, talk about your goals for the future, point out different shapes in the clouds and without your permission lean over you and place his lips on yours. He bit your lip, rubbed his hands over your waste and up your side, and you would pull his hands away from your chest, as your lips separated and met again. In the moment your heartbeat was up, there was a wet and warm feeling in your underwear, and you didn’t even know what exactly it was, because at eighteen you had your first kiss and nobody ever talked to you about that. Did it happen to everyone?

Your friends post statuses about their experiences, some going into detail, others talking about forgiveness and healing, offering an open ear for anyone who would need it. The lights of the little screens in front of you burn your eyes; you beg your fingers to move, to get a coherent thought together. Tell your story! Do it! You can hear your professor pushing you, scratch at this, dig it up, feel it on your skin, and feel the stiffness of your fingers as you pass out from writing. Lose yourself in it again. You want to push yourself, you want to open up about this. Just open Word and start going, but what about your boyfriend's parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles who may mistake the post for his actions instead of the actions of some high school boy from five years ago? What about all the girls in high school that looked at you and called you Jesus because you protected your virginity, the ones that encouraged you to be with him and when he cheated on you, they pushed him into lockers, tripped him on the stairs, and handed back the flowers he gave you on valentines day one wilted rose at a time. What about all of those who warned you that he would do it again, that he would keep whispering in your ear "please" as he slowly moved his hands up your shirt.

No.

But that word never meant anything to him.

Fast forward to your freshman year of college. He would come up to visit, get you out of your clothes despite you shaking your head. He would keep kissing you, press his naked body up against yours, something hard rubbed between the lips of your vagina, and he would whisper again "please." The nauseating feeling would come over you as you would shake your head in disgust. No, I didn’t even want to be naked with you. You would try to scream, but the words couldn't come out. How could they? You were excited to see him just thirty minutes ago. You were the one who kissed him, grabbed him by the back of the head and pulled him onto your bed. You’re the one who let him touch your breasts under your shirt, let him pull the shirt off you. You let him pull your pants off even though you were saying no.

He would put it at the entrance and give a little push. You would dig your elbows into the bed and pull your body away, yelling NO! For the final time, and out of frustration, he would shimmy his body down yours, placing his fingers inside, pulsing them in and out, his tongue, warm, wet and wiggling on you as you tried to push his head away, but he resisted and persisted. Your arms weren’t long enough; you couldn’t get your leverage to push him away, and because you were able to achieve his goal, he saw it as an accomplishment, but as you got dressed in silence and said your goodbyes, you questioned whether or not it was what you wanted. And you thought that even though he ended it because of lack of sex, that what you did was on your terms too, but the weeks that followed included “Celebrate Recovery” every Friday, while sitting in a room with your mom and six other ladies over fifty, as you told bits and pieces of your story, and the number of times you thought about it, still wondering if you made the decision for it to happen, or if he did. But being glad it was over.

You are told through scrolling videos on Facebook that if you have been cat called while walking home from a bar that you should be part of the “me too” movement, and you feel obligated to give your statement because what girl hasn’t gotten a whistle or two from a drunk homeless man on the way back to the car? But as you lay in your bed on your grey sheets, white and gold comforter over half of you you with one leg sticking out as you scroll through all the statements on Facebook, you look at your naked body air drying, in the draft of the fan, and the naked young man laying next to you with his head on your stomach, his penis air drying in the draft of the fan. You think about the carefulness he exhibits as he slowly wipes your hair away from your face as he rotates his hips into you. You think about the million times he asked "are you sure?" You nodded, your eyes barely open at five in the morning. You didn’t want to wait until after your first day in Mackinac, you wanted do it then. Instead of answering, you just simply asked if he was going to leave you after, and he shook his head. Of course not, as you gave a nod and he pushed.

The candle flickers over your shoulder, he turns his head on your stomach, looking at you, one hand on your leg, his elbow between your thighs, rubbing your knee with his thumb. In this moment, you recall the innocence at the start of your relationship, people walking you through the steps of flirting, giving you cues across the room to place your head on his shoulder, the night of cards and spaghetti, the game everyone played at the Halloween party—keeping a tally of the amount of times you two kissed. The moment when you two were walking back from practice and you realized you were going to spend the rest of your life with him, as the snow was falling and you were discussing when you would say the “MAGIC” words, because the both of you knew, but you wanted to do it right. He gently smiles; setting his phone down and reaching up to tenderly touch your cheeks, and grace his fingers over your lips. You set your phone on the bookshelf, the obligation fading. He lifts his head, you rotate, gliding your fingers over his stomach, down his body, gripping his hard dick, and you find that the only movement you feel comfortable being a part of is the one that ends with his orgasm.