I thought he was my friend. We did Midnight Yells, ball games, and concerts together. We memorized Rocky Horror Picture Show and danced with lighters held high. We cried at Silver Taps.
He came into my home. I trusted him because he became family.
A lifetime later, I still feel the heaviness of his body as he pinned me to my bed. His invading tongue and beer breath made me gag. His fingers, shoving brutally up and into me, wounded. His laughter as he pushed away and ran upstairs warned me that he already had excuses. I was drunk. It’s just a joke. She didn’t even scream or fight.
I buried his betrayal so deeply that it became a wisp of nightmare. Something pushed down and away for so many years that I convinced myself that it never happened. Every time my gut recoiled because he entered the room, I repressed the repulsion and never looked for a reason. I told myself that he’d become selfish and cruel. That was enough reason for me to avoid him whenever possible.
Then I began reading my journals. All of the spirals, and notebooks, and bound volumes of my life. The words, my own handwriting, sharply focused that blurred trauma, making my own denial impossible.
I understand why women conceal, sometimes even to themselves, the harassment, molestation and assaults they’ve endured because these men have different roles than simply attacker. They are bosses or co-workers. They are husbands or lovers. They are fathers or brothers. They are friends.
Copyright 2018 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
