3.
EMILY AND I lived separate lives. My days were wonderfully ordinary, full of movement and texture; fresh salmon dinners with crispy skin, long talks on the phone with Lucas, bike rides through the Baylands with my dad across crunchy salt and pickleweed. I cut out heart-shaped valentines with handwritten couplets for everyone in the office. I filed invoices, licked envelopes, sniffed the half-and-half to make sure it was still okay. I made drawings of telephone poles and funny looking birds and sipped coffee with cross-legged friends. On the outside, life had seamlessly carried on. Emily lived inside a tiny world, narrow and confined. She didn’t have any friends, appeared only occasionally to go to the courthouse, police station, or make calls in the stairwell. I did not like her fragility, how quietly she spoke and seemed to know nothing. I knew she was hungry for nourishment, to be acknowledged and cared for, but I refused to recognize her needs. I did not want to learn more about the court system, refused therapy. You don’t need it, I told her.
In the beginning I was good at keeping the selves separate. You would never be able to detect that I was suffering. But if you looked closely enough, cracks appeared. Many nights I went to sleep with my eyes leaking, arriving at work the next morning with eyelids swollen and taut. I began keeping one spoon in the freezer, pressing the cold metal shell to each eye as I brushed my teeth. I sealed blocks of ice into a ziplock bag, one hand pressing it to my face, the other on the wheel as I drove to work, listening to KQED. In the evenings, I’d come back to my sealed bag of lukewarm water in my cup holder, emptying it into the grass.
One day, I told my boss I’d be gone briefly in the afternoon for a doctor’s appointment. Is everything okay? I waved my hand, said it was just a checkup. When it was time, I drove down to the courthouse. During the car ride I transformed into Emily, letting the warmth of the day drain away.
As I pulled into the parking lot, the squat building looked impenetrable, unsympathetic, cold. The courthouse resembled an abandoned medical clinic, untouched since the sixties. Satellites and metal rods jutted off the roof. Two birch trees emerged from the dirt like bones, black branches dangling thin as hairs. I walked through glass doors to the security check, wiped my feet on a tattered mat. I noticed tangled cords on the ground, a Lysol spray can, two oranges, a metal thermos, a checkered grid of screens. Six deputies in beige uniforms, leaning back on stained rolling chairs behind a desk. I placed my purse in a Tupperware container and stepped through the janky security frame. I watched one’s hand sift through my bag. I stared down the white hallway, the harshly reflected fluorescent light that was trapped in textured plastic covers above. He pushed the bin back to me and I stood blankly on the other side of the frame. Do you know where to go? he asked. I shook my head. He pointed me to a directory on the wall. Fourth floor.
The elevator doors opened to more emptiness. At the end of the hallway were two wooden doors. The door on the right led to a small waiting room I would later call the victim closet. I would spend many hours inside it. The door on the left opened into a room of gray cubicles and bulky printers, behind which was Alaleh’s office. To the right of both doors was a long, narrow walkway that led to the courtroom.
I was going to meet Alaleh and my advocate, Bree, for the first time. My parents were on their way. I’d asked my parents if I should bring flowers to say thank you. They said flowers were something I could give them when this was over. But I thought this would be the first and last time we’d be meeting; I needed a prosecutor to negotiate the terms of the settlement and close the case. We did not know the end would be almost four years from now.
Bree was in her midtwenties. She had long auburn hair and freckles, her presence approachable and warm. Alaleh had dark hair, hazelnut skin, and a wide smile. She was wearing a fitted blazer, pointed heels green as spinach leaves. She seemed to be in her early thirties, with a kind vibrancy and natural fortitude. Each time I’d see her again, I’d notice dandelion yellow earrings, fuchsia fingernails, little flecks of color in this land of smoky grays. She’d been born to Iranian immigrants, a fact I’d learn later; her parents had opened an Irish pub, where she worked while attending law school.
I sat center, my mom on my left, my dad on my right. Alaleh sat behind a large desk, her window framing the tops of trees, her shelves clogged with manila files. I could see the leaves of trees outside shivering in the wind, but in here there was only stillness. Down below I saw Mollie Stone’s Market, remembering the display inside where mechanical corn husks and blinking cows sang while Tiffany and I clapped. It was surreal, seeing my hometown from the fourth-floor window, while I was sealed off from it. My mom had taken my hand into the soft envelope of her own hands, massaging the pressure points. I wondered if I looked like a child, holding her hand, but my mom’s primary forms of communication have always been touch and food. I’d noticed in American culture, some girls talked to their moms on the phone every day, sharing soup recipes, boy issues, the way to wash a piece of laundry. I was always fascinated by this kind of conversation. All my life I heard my mom typing English phrases into a small silver electronic dictionary that would speak aloud whatever word she was learning: Spaghetti. Irony. Pernicious. Massachusetts. This was the fifth voice in our house. She called toiletries, toilet treats. When she exclaimed, Jesus Mary and Joseph, I thought for so long she’d said, Jesus Marion Joseph, believing it to be his full name. I knew her accented English could be perceived as broken and simple, but it concealed genius. We were always getting boxes on the doorstep, and I’d watch her unwrap Chinese writing awards from packing peanuts, casually, as if unpacking pears from the grocery store. I could talk to her about death, love, foreign films, universal themes that transcended culture. But mostly, if she was worried about me, she’d make me a bowl of noodles larger than my head, or place her fingers on my temples, my stress slipping away beneath her fingertips.
Alaleh wanted to get a sense of my background. Did I live in Palo Alto, was I working, what was my experience with drinking? I said I had gone to University of California, Santa Barbara. I heard myself growing defensive, knowing UCSB was known for its heavy partying. I stated that I drank in college, mostly gatherings with the literature kids, people reading poems at the top of a ladder, Bowie-themed living-room parties. I was dating a guy named Lucas, yes, I’d blacked out before. I found myself rambling, unsure of what I was trying to explain. I wanted her to see that I was normal; that I drink, sure, but I didn’t like being penetrated while unconscious. She said she went to college too, she understood.
My dad began asking questions, I could hear his frustration slipping through. He gets this pinched, exasperated look on his face, the same one I’ve seen when our flights have been delayed. I mean what kind of guy, how could he, I just don’t understand, wouldn’t it be a little ridiculous if, you can’t really tell me this is going anywhere. Alaleh confirmed his incredulousness, no doubt, it’s unfortunate the way these things, I know it’s hard to, luckily we have many, best to wait and see, but she also hinted that this was only the beginning, that nothing was predictable. I would later learn she’d already run into Brock’s defense attorney, who assured her his client would be receiving a misdemeanor for disturbing the peace. War had already been declared, but I did not know this.
It was dawning on me how little I knew about this process, how blindly I’d agreed. I thought I’d spend the hour hiding behind my parents as they protected me in this harsh territory. Instead I felt myself shifting from their hands to hers. If we proceeded, I’d be alone under the microscope, on the witness stand, my mom wouldn’t be holding my hand.
My character was now an asset my DA would need. Investigators may be watching me. I had an image to uphold, could not be reckless. Be on your best behavior. I turned this comment over in my head. If I kept drinking, would the defense argue I was never affected? If I uploaded photos of myself smiling at a party, would the defense say I never suffered? And worst of all, if somehow I was assaulted again, would they say, well then clearly there’s something wrong with her, not Brock, to get assaulted twice?
After the meeting I sat in my car, couldn’t get myself to go back to work. I had not gotten the confirmation I wanted that it would go away. Sit tight, she’d said. This is a long, slow process. For now just go back to your lives. I’d told my boss I was at a doctor’s appointment, but it ended up feeling like a job interview. They were deciding whether I’d make a good victim: is her character upstanding, does she seem durable, will the jury find her likable, will she stay with us moving forward. I walked out feeling like, You got the job! I did not want this job. I wanted my old life. But let him walk away? I could not let it happen. Pressing charges was my choice, they’d say, but sometimes you feel you don’t have one.
Alaleh had requested the voice mail on Lucas’s phone, but I had asked if she could wait; he was visiting in a week and I wanted to tell him in person. They were intent on collecting evidence, while I was trying to keep my life intact.
I drove to the airport to greet him, a spark in my chest when I saw his head in the crowd. We drove off to buy snacks for the evening. When we parked and stepped out of the car, I just held him, my face turned so he couldn’t see. He thought it was a welcome home hug, began ruminating over which snacks we should get, while tears escaped from the corners of my eyes, funneling neatly into the corners of my lips; a water system I’d perfected. I’d been living with two teacups filled to the brim behind each eye, gotten used to a little spilling over every now and then. I wiped my face, then cast a vote for gummy worms.
I didn’t realize how much I’d craved being wrapped in the arms of another person. When we think of people fitting together, we may think of a man inserting himself into a woman, but there are many ways we overlook. The way ears are thin as construction paper, allowing me to press the side of my face against his chest. Fingers can be interlaced without getting tangled. One hand can create a tiny chair for one chin. We are designed to bend and fold, to comfort ourselves and each other. We have so many small parts that need tending to. After the assault, I felt this need to be touched, but wanted nothing to do with invade, inject, insert, inside, only wanted the intimacy of being wrapped up safely in something.
That night, as we lay on our sides, his knees bent perfectly into mine, I decided it was very possible I could lose him. We’d only been dating a few months, and I remembered my dad saying that in every relationship there’s a point of disillusion; the introduction of the first obstacle, where you decide to surmount it or part ways. Now I had this ugly, public mess latched on to me. I would leave the door open if he wanted to opt out of this nightmare.
I was still navigating how to love and be loved. If you ask me what experience I had with boys in high school, I’d tell you that one time I asked a guy to a dance by creating a trail of toilet paper through the school that led to me holding an index card that said, If you gotta go, go with me!
Before meeting Lucas, I had been in one long and serious relationship: senior year of high school there’d been a guy, half Japanese, kind eyed, intelligent, broad shouldered. All I understood was that at track meets, watching him arch his back over the high jump made me light-headed. Before graduation, all seniors cut class and hiked down a steep cliff into a sandy alcove, to a pop-up village of multicolored tents, everyone drinking, bonfires, falling asleep by midnight. At seventeen I’d never tasted alcohol, smoked, or kissed anyone. This guy and I were sober, sitting on a log in front of the dark water, as the world slept behind us. We talked until the sun rose. When my sleepy friends emerged from their tent flaps, they whispered, What happened? What’d you guys do? I shrugged and said, Nothing. They were disappointed. Nothing? But it felt like everything. We shared my/his/our first kiss in my driveway on my eighteenth birthday. I made these elaborate life maps, tracing back all that had to happen for us to be at the same school at the same time, trying to understand how the universe had crafted a perfect human and then given him to me.
He and I departed to college on opposite coasts, my school at the beach, his school in the snow. I wrote notes to my professor saying my “cousin” was getting “married,” then took off on planes to see him. I called them honeymoons with homework. He had a pet fish, and when its jaw could hardly open, he used his thumbnail to cut each pellet into bite-sized pieces. This was his level of attention, care. For the next three and a half years, I grew up protected, safe, and confident, sleeping in his room, where the pipes clanged with heat. At the end of college, something gave way. Our relationship became a Jenga tower, and one by one we began pulling out the pieces, the structure increasingly fragile. Right before my graduation, there was a school shooting, pools of red blood, the same weekend he was on a boat, a shimmering blue lake. I learned the divide between unthinkable violence and ordinary life was paper thin. We were cast into different universes; my side suddenly dark, his light. We fought, or rather, I screamed into the phone while he became increasingly mute. When we arrived home in Palo Alto after graduation, the tower tumbled, blocks spilling everywhere.
I’d heard about heartbreak in songs, sure, but holy shit, damn. There should be a name for that feeling. It really winds you. How to exist without this person? In his shelter, I was brave, loved. I emerged single, twenty-two, naive, and starving. The space that remained was cavernous and I vowed to fill it.
I remember people always telling me there are other fish in the sea, and I said, Yes, that’s where they fucking live. But he had been a rare species of lionfish, and I’d lost him. What do you do when you lose someone, or when they choose to lose you? I went through anchovies, stodgy bass, pompous angelfish, to replace him. Sex had always been a tender, sacred, monogamous thing. But that summer I learned it could be a slippery thing, a floppy thing. A wrinkly thing. A feel-nothing thing. A quick-as-a-blink thing. A terribly boring thing. An I-only-wanted-your-thing thing. As a young woman freshly out in the world, I realized I possessed a power. Or at least I thought it was power, as I let myself be consumed, swallowed whole, by fish.
That summer, I never talked about the shooting, never talked about losing him. I got a job at a Chinese restaurant, trained to pack rice into take-out boxes for ten dollars an hour. My drink of choice was the bright blue AMF, short for Adios Mother Fucker. I said adios and the next morning my friend would tell me I’d cried uncontrollably in a way that scared her, said I’d been sitting on the edge of the bathtub, rocking back and forth, talking to myself, You’re okay, Chanel, you’re okay, it’s going to be okay. But I never remembered this. Drinking was disguised as partying, when I know now it had been a sad kind of surrendering. I could not process the new realities I’d been given, could no longer tolerate the feelings inside of me, and believed myself to be worth very little. I drank to turn off the light, a pocket of death, a toe dip in and out again, with the promise of awakening.
But I grew tired. I’d had enough of the self-loathing that came from tossing myself into this churning sea. When I finally landed a new job, I was introduced to stability. I loved my new office, the natural lighting, planes gliding by my window. I was given a work laptop thin as a piece of paper, so sophisticated, it meant I was worth something. I began staying in. I went on dates with myself, driving to Bernal Hill, lying on the curve of grass to read for hours, drawing gorillas at the zoo, going to movies alone. By the time the sullen, alcohol-sunken summer came to a close, I was beginning to believe that being an adult on my own was going to be okay, maybe.
Late one Friday night, I woke up to my friend calling. She was at a bar, a guy was bothering her, could I come be with her. I arrived, swatted the guy away. All of a sudden this wedding party poured in, groomsmen in gray suits and striped socks following a dancing bride. One came up to me. His name was Lucas.
He had grown up near Palo Alto, was now living in Philadelphia to begin his first year at Wharton business school. He was tall, lean, laughed easily, and was a few years older than me. He knew things I did not: Spanish, rugby, math, confidence. He had gone to middle school in Japan, knew the texture of alpacas in Peru, dipped his toe in every corner of this little blue earth. Palo Alto was just a speck! I learned he’d won a belly flop contest in high school, had frosted tips in fifth grade. He asked me out to dinner the night before his flight back to Philly.
A few months after we started dating, I’d just woken from a nap when he said, I love you, out of the blue, as naturally as if he were to tell me, It’s raining outside. It had been an uneventful afternoon, we’d gotten milk tea and egg custard tarts in Chinatown, he bought me a turquoise ring from a sidewalk vendor, and I wondered when, on this ordinary day, he had realized it. I smiled, but told him he was nuts. He said love like it was an exciting thing, when I knew it could be terribly painful. But Lucas did not seem to mind, he was coolheaded, patient, and I realized he was not just another fish.
In December 2014, he’d asked me to come visit him in Philadelphia. When I arrived, there were large white poster boards he’d bought me for drawing, a freezer stocked with ice cream. I still didn’t know what to call our relationship, only knew that when I met him, the background of his phone had been Machu Picchu, and now it was a photo of me, smiling while wearing his bulky brown ski jacket, a happy potato mesmerized by the snow.
In January 2015, my sister would come home. We would go out to a party, where I would be found on the ground unconscious. Fast forward a few weeks and here he was in Palo Alto, sitting at my desk working, the sun streaming through my blinds, while I lay in bed. Maybe the universe had loaned me his presence to show me love was possible again, and would now take him back, leaving me to deal with this new eruption. At twenty-two I was beginning to wonder if adulthood was just a series of endless losses. What benefits were there to growing up? How do you feel all these heavy things for the rest of your life? Looking at the beautiful day outside, listening to him typing, I did not want to tell him. I wanted to sit in my room, with the light pouring in, and enjoy the afternoon with the man at my desk. I wanted this moment, to take it and eat it and live in it for eternity. Yet I was about to ruin it.
Do you still have that voice mail? He stopped typing and looked at me. Why? he asked. I just wanted to hear it, I said. He continued looking at me. His phone plopped into my blankets. I wrapped myself up, covering my face as I listened to it for the first time. The transcripts record it as follows:
VOICEMAIL LEFT FROM CHANEL TO HER BOYFRIEND ON 1-18-15 @ 3:39:34AM [ET]: Hi. Mm, (inaudible) fucking (inaudible). Hi, (inaudible) your phone. But all m-males present (inaudible) or whatever, and I like you the m-most. (Inaudible.) So I (inaudible), uh-huh. Uh. (Laughs.) You’re, you’re a dingus, and you know that. Even though you work so hard, I’ll reward you in the summertime. If you work 24 hours a day, 24 hours a day out of 30, uh, how many hours a day, but however many hours you don’t work, or work you by, you know what. But I’m making funny stuff. I, I like you, I like so m-much, and I want to, I want to tell you that. (Laughs.) Okay, byeeee. I, I like you so much, more than you think of me. Okay, uh, bye, (inaudible).
The words were indistinguishable, my voice sliding like butter in a hot pan, dragging from one to the next. Anyone who spoke to me would immediately have known I was incapacitated. Plus the message held my truest truth; even when my mind was muddled I had wanted Lucas, had called to deliver a sloppy valentine. I thanked blackout Chanel. Then I felt the eyes: starting a message with fucking would be a mark on my character. The defense could use this to prove I was vulgar, profane. If I wanted to be a good victim, I’d have to clean up my language. So many new standards I’d need to uphold.
I looked up to Lucas observing me. What’s going on? he asked. I shrugged. Nothing, I said. It scared me the way he looked at me so intensely. I watched him adding it up in his head, clicking his laptop shut, climbing onto the bed. We sat inside a mass of silence. Were you raped?The way he said it out loud, the bluntness of it, shocked me, the words too strong. I shook my head. I don’t remember.
He laid back in the pillows, staring straight ahead, somewhere distant. What happened, he asked. Nothing, I said. That’s not nothing, he said. Well, two guys stopped it, I said. They think it was only fingering. I don’t remember, but the guy ran away. They caught him. I still didn’t know how to tell my story. I smiled. How creepy it must have looked, how badly I wanted to appear unfazed.
I knew it, he said, I knew it, I had a bad feeling, I should have stayed on the phone with you. You were alone, I should’ve stayed on the phone with you, I didn’t know what to do. I shook my head to say no, this was not the reason it happened. I wanted to dissolve, watching the news sink into him. He was quiet for a long time. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you, he said. It was impossible, but right then I let myself believe it. I put my head on his chest, and he continued looking straight ahead. Hours and hours we spent like this, folded over each other in the quiet afternoon, the sun burning outside without us, the whole day taken.
He could have left, decided it was too much. But he crawled right next to the pain, planted himself. No matter what happens, I’m here. Later he’d tell me he read the police reports on the plane ride back to Philadelphia, had become nauseous, unclasping his seat belt, sidestepping down the aisle, to vomit into the tiny sink basin. I thought of him in that little bathroom, its folding accordion door, the line of people waiting outside while he heaved the images of my body out of him. Loving someone is a painful thing.
I recently asked him about all of this, after writing out the chaotic timeline of how we met, all that followed. I said, How were you willing to date me, when all that stuff was going on? He said, Because, you. I pushed back, Yeah, but what about the assault, my drinking, all of it. He said, What about you as you?
In late February, I was called into the police station before work. Detective Kim said the purpose was to dig into the relationship. I pulled into the parking lot, fog still hanging in the eucalyptus trees, and was led into the same small room with cream of mushroom–colored walls, the black recorder on the table. I had learned to be skeptical of this little thing. I was asked for Lucas’s full name, how long we’d been together, at what point it got more serious than just talking, FaceTiming, email, and texting, if we had an intimate relationship, if we were exclusive, where he was from, how we met, how often we communicated, when I had last seen him before the assault, if I’d seen him since. I was then asked what my feelings were for him.
My answer to all of these questions was Brock Turner fingered me while I was unconscious. But I thought hard, trying to specify our exact timeline; the frequency of visits, the exchange of I love yous, the meeting of my parents. We’d gone ice-skating in Union Square, did that prove we were a couple? I didn’t know. I was self-conscious that somehow some of these answers could be wrong or insufficient. What was important, what was not, whose job was it to judge? Until then I’d never contemplated how to present love as evidence. I’d never documented the precise pacing and development of our relationship. I had just been living it as it was unfolding. Living, as people do.
I asked how this information would come up in a trial, would I be quizzed on it? If Lucas would have to testify, would our answers be cross-referenced? I asked if there would even be a trial. He said it was way beyond him, that it was still too early to even seriously talk about any of that. But he predicted that with all our new evidence, Brock would want to start backing out of the spotlight to begin rebuilding his life in private. That’s what I would do if I were him. I was comforted by this.
He walked me back to my car, said it was good to see I was doing better. I thought back to the morning he met me and nodded. The fog had burned off, it was bright, I was late for work. I liked Detective Kim, around him I felt safe, and he always seemed sincerely apologetic for collecting fragments of my life. I also enjoyed talking about Lucas, could go on as long as he needed.
But as I sat in my car, keys in my hand, I realized Lucas was a wonderful part of my life outside this mess, and now he was being recruited to a crucial role inside it. All my little stories, my private and intimate moments were being typed up and sent to Brock’s defense attorney, available for reporters to read through, where the sweetness would be diluted and reframed. I already wanted everything I’d said back, to take every word home with me. The line between what was mine and theirs was blurring.
I was thankful to have Lucas. But it bothered me that having a boyfriend and being assaulted should be related, as if I, alone, was not enough. At the hospital it had never occurred to me that it was important I was dating someone; I had only been thinking of me and my body. It should have been enough to say, I did not want a stranger touching my body. It felt strange to say, I have a boyfriend, which is why I did not want Brock touching my body. What if you’re assaulted and you didn’t already belong to a male? Was having a boyfriend the only way to have your autonomy respected? Later I’d read suggestions that I cried rape because I was ashamed I had cheated on my boyfriend. Somehow the victim never wins.
And what if I’d been assaulted the summer before, in the aftermath of a broken relationship? What kind of questions would the detective have asked? Oh, my dating life? Yes, well, I went to dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant with one guy on Tuesday, but slept with a different one on Sunday who’s never taken me on dates, but was wearing cool socks that evening. Yes, I did go home with a guy who has a tattoo of a beheaded pigeon who still texts me at two in the morning. Yes, I did order four Moscow Mules, yes, they were all for me. Would I have had any credibility? Would my private life have been exhibited to show that I was too loose, my lifestyle indecent? I would never have been able to explain they were my choices, but choices made during a period of sadness and low esteem. We all have different ways of coping, self-medicating, ways of surviving the rough patches. To deny my messiness would be to deny my humanity. I don’t believe there is such a thing as an immaculate past or a perfect victim. Yet now I felt I was being upheld to an impossible standard of purity, worried that failing to meet it would justify Brock raping me. His attorney would simplify, generalize, and mislabel my history.
In other blackouts, I was responsible for acting a fool. But waking up to an empty McDonald’s bag and crumbs on my chest was different than waking up with dried blood and clothes missing. In the obscurity of the blackout lived a pivotal difference. Rape required inflicting harm on somebody. The moment I was violently dragged into his story, my story stopped. When I was finally out of his hands, or rather when his hands slipped out of me, I was released back into my life. But it was during that brief passing over, that period where he took the reins, where I lost everything.
I began showing up to work later and later, sometimes coming in at noon with no explanation. How did other victims manage this back-and-forth between worlds, the rotation of selves? You can’t fawn over your coworker’s photos of Maui by morning, slip away to battle your rapist by noon. It required two entirely different modes of being; different worries, rules, bosses, emotions. If this continued, I wouldn’t be able to go and come back, but I was not ready to quit my job and give up my life yet. I prayed he would give up first.
Every time I received a call from an unfamiliar number, my head filled with heat. I was wary of investigators, tracking me, listening. Months passed. I had not told a single friend. Every email about the case brought on a surge of stress; it was not distracting, it was mindwiping, I’d forget what I was doing, my mood sinking the rest of the day.
My hospital bill arrived, just short of a thousand dollars. My dad called me into the living room, asked me if I knew anything about getting reimbursed. I told him about restitution, how Brock would be court-ordered to pay it off, but only at the end. It would be paid back, I promise. But I wondered how many costs would accumulate. I learned it was expensive to be assaulted.
Another letter appeared at home stamped with The County of Santa Clara court seal. It asked if I wanted Brock tested for HIV and provided a form for me to fill out. I didn’t know, was I supposed to? Would he be mad at me? Would he know I was the one who requested it? Can’t you do these things without asking me? I never responded. When a friend came over, I quickly slipped the letter off my desk. My way of dealing with it was to not deal with it, to throw away the incoming letters, to refuse to research what this process might look like.
My rape kit still hadn’t been tested in the crime lab. They told me it would be expedited due to media pressure, but months later I was still waiting. I figured it had something to do with results showing up slowly, some DNA sciencey who knows what. But I was told it was because of the backlog of kits. There were hundreds in line before me, some kits kept so long they grew mold, some thrown out, the lucky ones refrigerated. Immediately I felt ill. How could that be; this was not fruit rotting, it was little pieces of us in each one, an indispensable story. It also meant there was a population of victims in my vicinity, disguised in their everyday lives, going to work, refilling their coffee, eyes wide at night, waiting.
Most nights I avoided going home after work, wary of questions as simple as, How was your day. Instead I parked my car downtown, walking along the lane of lit-up trees on University Avenue, taking comfort from others while being alone. One night, I passed a metal newspaper box, saw Brock’s name in the upper-right corner. I slipped out a newspaper and trotted to my car. I clicked on the weak light, flipped the pages open, found an opinion piece a Stanford student had written. She asked why, in the Turner case, there was so much focus and condemnation of the victim’s alcohol consumption. I could hear the soft plops of water on paper as tears fell off my cheeks. She was asking questions, pushing back, a hand reaching out in an attempt to lighten the heavy thing I’d been carrying. I folded the newspaper into fourths, tucked it into my purse for safekeeping.
Every time I stayed out late, I received texts from my mom, Mama can’t sleep until you’re home. This was new. Growing up I’d never had a curfew. Now my parents asked where I was, how I was, who I was with, when I was coming home, the boundaries of my adulthood shrinking.
One day I received a call at work: no semen found. A tiny knot unbound in my chest; I was penis-free. Thank you! I said, my coworkers in close proximity. You have a nice day too. Since there was no penile penetration, five felony counts would be reduced to three; rape charges were dropped while sexual assault charges remained. My celebration died down as I realized how this would appear in the news. People would say, See! They were wrong. Soon they’ll throw out the rest of the charges too. How come the victim doesn’t pay for the crime of false accusation? The DA is after him, sad his reputation was already ruined. Sickens me to see an innocent person used as a scapegoat. When will she apologize?
The hearing was set for June 8, 2015. The preliminary hearing would be like a minitrial without a jury, to determine whether there was enough evidence to merit a full trial. Tiffany would be missing finals week, would need to take her exams early. She had planned on telling her professors it was a “family matter,” but in three of the six tellings, she had broken down while the professor held her, stared at her, or patted her. It was embarrassing, she told me. I’m tired. I needed to tell my boss in order to request time off. I admired her deeply; still I was nervous. I’d now be perceived differently, aware of everything commenters had called me: sloppy, irresponsible, reckless.
Sitting across from her in a glass-walled room, I struggled with where to begin. Have you read about the Stanford swimming assault . . . It was me. Her mouth parted slightly. I could never get out more than eight to twelve words before the walls of my throat began to ache. I looked down at the table, my eyes burning. She asked a few questions in a gentle tone, but I kept shaking my head, holding my breath, until her voice faded away. I waited for something to happen, perhaps talk about scheduling. But when I looked up I saw a tear rolling down her cheek. I felt a small shock, something inside me awakening and softening. I was not in trouble. I was not stupid. It was sad, she was sad. I was stunned.
On May 5, Alaleh informed us we’d have to reschedule the hearing due to the defense attorney’s unavailability. The options for resetting the court dates stretched into September. I didn’t know this was possible. My company was small, how would I explain my strange absences? Everyone thought I was taking time off in June, but now I’d have to tell them I’d be gone in July or August or September. Tiffany would also have to inform a new set of professors during fall quarter. I’ll be in touch about the next court date, Alaleh said. If anything comes up, please feel free to call me. We’d later discover the hearing would fall even later. This was part of the madness of the system; the illusion of structure, plans never followed.
How long would I have to live my double life, pretending things were going smoothly? I was behind on work, a pile accumulating on my desk. I couldn’t catch up and I couldn’t keep looking at that pile. Some days I would sit and stare at the screen and do nothing. Every morning, I had to work harder to talk my limbs into moving. Imagine a skeleton, tossing its organs inside its bony shell, sealing on its skin. Strutting into the world with a Hello! Doing fine, thank you. How are you? I’ll have it to you by the end of the day. Yes! That’s too funny, ha ha, good-bye. Holding myself together long enough to go home and fall back apart, rolling into the corners.
Home was no longer home. Home was hell, steering clear of the courthouse, the sprawling Stanford campus. I felt ridiculous fearing places I knew to be objectively safe. I could not stop reading comments online. By now I’d grown deaf to the warmhearted ones, while the harsh ones grew louder. I always told myself I wouldn’t read any more. Then maybe one or two. But they trailed in like ants, a single one appeared, suddenly I noticed a line, and then they were inside all my bowls and boxes and left-out spoons. They were faceless dots, swarming, subtle, incessant, always reminding me I could never eliminate them. Me and all of these ants.
Lucas was about to move to Los Angeles for his MBA program’s summer internship. He offered for me to join him. I thought of the jogs in the sand along Venice Beach, the late-night ramen. But I needed to prove I could find my own way forward.
In our living room there’s a portrait my mom framed of the poet Pablo Neruda, who I always thought was my great grandpa. Why else did we have an old man on our wall? For my whole life, art and writing were my steady ground. Grandma Ann always said I was born with a pencil in my hand. I draw when I’m upset, when I’m bored, when I’m sad. My parents let me draw directly on my walls, inking sumo wrestlers crawling out of chimneys, eggplants with long arms. On physics tests when I blanked on an answer, I’d draw a man shrugging, saying I simply do not know, using test time to shade the bags beneath his eyes. In college, I stacked my bookshelves with Rumi, Woolf, Didion, Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver, Banana Yoshimoto, Miranda July, Chang-rae Lee, Carlos Bulosan. I slept in the library. I learned printmaking, spent nights in the print room carving linoleum blocks, inking the barrels, staining my apron, watching the sun rise. When I wrote, when I drew, the world slowed, and I forgot everything that existed outside it.
Growing up, there were times my mom left us for weeks for writers’ residencies. I remember this vividly because my dad would serve the same canned peas and chicken and rice day after day, while we waited for her to come home. Finally, we would drive through unfamiliar hills to a gallery opening in a forest, the adults in flowy clothing and lipstick, crackers with those teeny-tiny neon-orange fish balls that made me gag. My mom told us how she’d write all morning, hike in the afternoon, ticks latching on to her socks, and I thought how could you leave us for blood-eating bugs and seafood caviar? One time I asked her why she’d left, and she said, I want to be who I am. It was sort of impossible to argue with that.
In Palo Alto, I was beginning to feel acutely that I was not fitting into old patterns of myself, who I was or who I thought I would be. I wanted a place where I could create, a corner of the world where I could disappear. I chose the smallest state, as far away as possible from California, to live with people I had never met. The Children’s Book Writing class was full, but no matter. I would leave my job to enroll in a printmaking workshop, From Light to Ink, three thousand miles away, at the Rhode Island School of Design for the summer. The woman in the admissions office was named Joy, just like the nurse. I took this to be a good sign. My parents asked the usual questions, what about safety, are you sure, what will you do when you come back, but they understood. By now I had enough saved to pay my own tuition, rent, flight. I assumed the trial would conclude by the end of year, and my savings would last me until then. When I wrote my name on the RISD application form, signed the check, sealed the dark yellow envelope, I lay on my carpet, overcome. My dad peeked in to see how I was doing and I said, I’m so happy.
Before I left, there was one person I wanted to tell. Claire, a close friend of mine, with freckled skin and a tiny nose ring, was about to move to France to work as an au pair for a year. We had spent her last weeks sitting in her car, eating ice cream and listening to French cassette tapes. I was always waiting for the right time. But maybe there would never be a right time; all I knew was that I was running out of it and I would have to tell her now. She had gone through something similar when she was only eighteen, called the police, completed the rape kit, but even after she did everything victims are instructed to do, she was informed it was not enough to more forward. In my room I told her. She immediately leaned over and put her arms around me, and strangely I did not have to say much at all. She understood. She pulled back, looked me square in the face, and said, This is your opportunity.
For months I’d regarded this case as a burden that had been placed on me, one I wanted to rid myself of. I was frustrated, why do I have to do this, I don’t have time. But in her eyes this was a chance. This was what she’d tried to do four years ago, only to be met with impatience and apathy, only to be worn out and set aside by authorities, until her best choice had been to leave, to force herself to forget. There had been a time she had tried hard to get to the place that I was in now. I had somehow reopened the way forward. You’re the one who’s going to do it. And I thought of her at eighteen, and I thought of what the guy did, and I understood what I had to do, understood now what it meant.