IN JANUARY 2018, over one hundred and sixty young gymnasts traded bare feet on vinyl mats for flats and tile floors, to stand one by one before a podium to read their statements to Larry Nassar, his face covered in stubble as if dipped in soil. When the news appeared, I was chopping carrots and tofu, feeding Mogu, the TV on in the background. As the voices of these young women entered the room, I let everything burn, the steam rising as I sat mesmerized, watching them. Their words were made of steel. Even when their voices quivered, their eyes stayed fixed. I thought, if I, as a survivor, am made up of the same fibers as them, if it is true we are built of similar threads, I am unshakable. Something in my chest seared that day, I felt like I could lift a car, climb a mountain, I was proud to belong to what being a survivor meant. The power they exuded. Little girls don’t stay little forever, Kyle Stephens said. They turn into strong women who return to destroy your world.
Maybe Larry thought time had been on his side, mastering his technique as the years went by untroubled. But all that time they were growing stronger, looking for the right temperature to safely emerge. Still the source of their power was not lost on me; only after withstanding unbearable amounts of torment could that tone be achieved.
But something was different. My focus kept drifting to the mother who stood next to her daughter as she read, a somber shadow, face vacant and wordless in the background. The rows of parents in the audience, sunken and solemn. Rarely do we see the second ring of effect, this sharp contrast between the mighty, forceful daughters, and the sadder echo of their loved ones, insides undone. The scene was haunting. The role reversal, adults stepping back to watch their fifteen-year-olds step up and demand repair, while they were reduced to helpless onlookers. Behind every powerful speech, a second layer of thought seemed to play out in the parents’ eyes, a dialogue of guilt, perhaps, dense and heavy. An aching, you were too young to learn this, and still a questioning, what could I have done to prevent this.
When Grandma Ann asked my mom, What was it like when Chanel told you? my mom said four sentences:
I try not to remember.
My knees softened.
I was the one who drove her.
I should’ve turned around, driven my babies home.
Julia says, I was the one who invited you to the party.
Tiffany says, I was the one who left.
Lucas says, I was the one who spoke to you last on the phone.
How many times I have told them, you are the reasons I am still here, not the reasons I am hurt. I can still see it in my parents, the way, when the case is brought up, their faces become grave, like when clouds briefly pass over the sun.
Watching the gymnasts speak was the first time I permitted myself to see the inside of a courtroom on-screen. For the last few years, I had avoided courtroom scenes on TV, shows, movies, even cartoons involving legal proceedings. I saw a baby dressed as a judge on Halloween, the little black cloth, the gavel, and I hated that baby, and I hated the parents who thought it was funny, and I knew I was crazy.
I had deemed the criminal justice system too brutal, too time consuming. My faith was dimming. Where were we supposed to go to? Why is it so hard to hear a story where the victim is cared for, justice properly served? Then came Judge Aquilina. I’d never questioned the short time limit I was given to read my statement, until Judge Aquilina made time for one hundred and sixty-nine statements. She made it clear each one was important. She invited restoration and compassion into a space I had associated only with torture. Leave the guilt here. It doesn’t deserve any more of your family’s time. She shooed off the negative forces. Quit shaming and blaming the parents, she said. Trust me, you would not have known. And you would not have done anything differently. She said to the women, Leave your pain here and go out and do your magnificent things. I didn’t know instructions like this were possible. In court, the judge is the captain of the ship. My captain sunk us. She turned their ship, pointing them toward the horizon. It was my hope that Stanford could be that kind of an institution, willing to be a leader in protecting survivors.
I was born in Stanford hospital and when I was young I believed this automatically made me smart. I’ve biked through the palm and eucalyptus trees, beneath the red-tiled roofs. I still can’t name most of the buildings, but I can provide a tour of my memories, can point to any place on campus and say, This is where . . . This is where I sat at a foldout table selling Girl Scout cookies. In middle school I was self-conscious about my height, so Grandma Ann took me to the Stanford women’s basketball meet and greets to show me what tall women become. I wore my grandpa’s binoculars at every game, lassoed little towels when I cheered, loved the dancing tree mascot that looked like a massive toilet paper roll with googly eyes and floppy leaves. Stanford was where I took Chinese classes by the fountain, and a computer class where I learned how to type and edit videos; I created my first video about a fork that had superpowers (the Fork Master 3000, it could dig holes and comb your pet’s hair). Tiffany and I would find golf balls in the grass by the Stanford golf course, imagining they were special eggs, and take them home to incubate.
Around twenty students from my graduating high school class were admitted. To visit a friend at Stanford was common, attending silent disco parties or playing Apples to Apples over holiday breaks. Stanford was made up of friends, idols, teachers. I may never have been a student, but it was my community before I knew it was a university. It was home.
After I was assaulted, I was left in silence for ten days. A Stanford dean had my name, but nobody contacted me. Nobody said, How are you doing. Did you make it home okay. I figured that since I wasn’t a student, I wasn’t entitled to support. Still I hoped for an extended hand during that crucial period of time. I had not yet learned how to ask for help, but if it had been presented, things might have been different. I may not have spent so much time calling hotlines in my van. What I mean to say is I wish there’d been some display of care, some directing me to resources, some acknowledgment of what happened.
Stanford’s absence became a constant presence as I drove around Palo Alto. The assault harmed me physically, but there were bigger things that got broken. Broken trust in institutions. Broken faith in the place I thought would protect me. Their apathy, their lack of apology I could live with, but what troubled me most was their failure to ask the single most important question: How do we ensure this does not happen again? They had treated my assault like a singular, isolated incident. After Brock voluntarily withdrew, they called me once, to inform me he was not allowed back on campus. Other than that, little seemed to be set in motion. My assault came and went. But nothing is ever that simple.
Brock was not one bad apple, he just threatened to expose the greater, underlying issues of sexual violence on campus. Stanford should have taken the opportunity to conduct a systemic review of procedures and policies. To make sure that when a victim is harmed, there are services in place to take immediate action. To reevaluate safety on campus. To make survivors feel supported. They should have said, It mattered, what happened to you.
A few days after my statement went viral, Stanford came out with a statement of its own: There has been a significant amount of misinformation circulating about Stanford’s role. In this case, Stanford University, its students, its police and its staff members did everything they could. They said when they’d learned my identity, the university reached out confidentially to offer her support. When I read their statement, unapologetic, almost prideful, Stanford takes the issue of sexual assault extremely seriously and has been a national leader in taking concrete steps . . . it was lemon wedges in the wound.
Jennifer J. Freyd, a Stanford alum and psychology professor, wrote an open letter to the administration. She condemned their self-congratulatory and defensive stance. She discussed a term I’d never heard of, institutional betrayal, which can cause victims harm that occurs above and beyond that caused by the sexual violence itself. The irony is that institutional betrayal is not only bad for those dependent upon the institution, but comes to haunt the institution itself.
That summer, Michele was on the news pointing out Stanford’s lack of apology. She said my assault wasn’t unpredictable, wasn’t random, they’d created a condition for it. She was protected by her tenured position, allowing her to openly criticize their practices. I assumed it was futile.
The news of the statement had swelled and passed, the summer had come and gone. On August 31, 2016, two days before Brock would leave jail, I received a call from Michele, good news. A woman in a position of power informed Michele that Stanford wanted to apologize and pay for my therapy. I will call this woman Appleseed. Eating one apple seed is harmless. But eat enough over time and they can be toxic, subtle and corrosive, impossible to break down. Appleseed said she’d email me the document; all I had to do was sign it to receive the money. I said I refused to receive any money until they agreed to meet with me, to talk about how my assault was handled and understand what they could do better in the future. Michele suggested that we accept the offer before Stanford could change its mind.
It angered me, that this call was taking place two days before Brock’s release. I questioned their motives, incentivized to clear their name and avoid negative publicity before the media swelled around my case again. I went to Lucas, what do I do. He said, If they’re serious about it, the offer will be there in a few days. He also asked what the catch was. So I asked about the catch. We need a commitment from you that you would not bring litigation.
I finally understood I was visible not as a person, but a legal threat, a grave liability.
I wanted to turn my nose up, I don’t need Stanford. Who is Stanford, Michele said. You realize Stanford is a multibillion-dollar corporate trust. You can’t personify a complex organization. It was a brand, an experience they sell you. The same way Mickey Mouse is a grown man, getting paid to mutely stand inside a suffocating, rigid shell, coated in black fur with thick, white gloves. At the same time, she said Stanford was not a monolith, it was made up of different people with different motives. There are people you are allowed to hate, and there are people who are trying to help you. Listen to the ones who are trying to help you. Michele believed in Appleseed, in potential for reform. Michele had an idea to replace the dumpsters with a garden accompanied by a plaque with a quote of my choosing. I thought this would be nice and agreed.
On September 2, 2016, I opened the news on my phone, watched Brock walk out of the glass doors of county jail in a button-down shirt, lit up with bulb flashes and budding microphones, before he was neatly tucked into an SUV. I knew it was coming. But that summer I felt I’d blinked, and he was out again. Online I found people posting lists of things that were longer than his sentence. Average life span of a sea monkey. The time the Macarena stayed in the Top 100 (Odyssey). My leg hair in the winter (HerCampus). The amount of time I wait for a text back (conniethegoat). Moms conversation when she runs into her friends (amy).
I clicked on another video of him checking into a hotel with his parents, cameramen swarming him, Do you have anything to say to the victim? For a second I held my breath, listening. He stood in front of an elevator, wearing sunglasses, looking down at his feet, his lips a thin line, his parents scoffing. I don’t know what I was still expecting.
I had to get out of my house. I jogged to a diner. A man sitting at the counter smiled and said, Are you from Colorado? I realized I was wearing my Colorado sweatshirt. Beautiful state, like you. I’m from a little town north of— I walked away into the back patio. I ordered blueberry pancakes, six of them. When I came back in and passed the man, I stared at him, grabbed powdered sugar, maple syrup, returned to my table in the corner. I’d learned by now how to tie myself back to reality, filtering my world down to a set number of immovable, tactile facts: I am eating delicious pancakes. The sun is out. I am warm. I see pink begonias.
Brock was out and life kept moving and I was entering some kind of negotiation with Stanford. I was tempted to turn down the money entirely, my pride too big. Mostly I feared the guilt and shame and stigma that arrives when any victim receives any sum of money. But if my sister wanted therapy I wanted her to have that option. If I turned down the money and she came to me for help, what would I say? Go to Dad? Make him work longer hours? I wanted to be able to take care of them, to give them something good for once. If I accepted, would I be leaving all the other victims on campus behind?
After a year and a half of court proceedings, I’d never received a penny from the criminal justice system. Now that all was said and done, I was supposed to file for restitution, submit my hospital and therapy bills, which Brock was court ordered to pay. But since he was unemployed they said a payment plan would have to be set up, he’d pay it back little by little over the years. I wanted all ties to him cut. Plus he already viewed himself as the victim, and if he received an invoice in the mail, I worried his appeal attorney would be motivated to antagonize me further.
Michele had introduced me to a lawyer who laid out our options, all of which boiled down to two or three more years in court. As he explained how a deposition works, how my statute of limitations was almost expired, the logistics turned to murky water in my head. I knew I did not have it in me. Stanford was offering $150,000 total, which would cover therapy for my sister and me for a handful of years. Victims receive heat when given any sum. Few acknowledge that healing is costly. That we should be allocating more funds for victims, for therapy, extra security, potential moving costs, getting back on their feet, buying something as simple as court clothes. As Michele pointed out, Preventing assault is so much cheaper than trying to address it after the fact.
I requested there be a case manager, someone who exists exclusively to serve the needs of the victim, keeping them informed, ensuring adequate support. The lack of support I’d experienced would not happen again. I needed them to review the policies they had in place around contacting victims after rape. I wanted training for the Department of Public Safety on campus so they could better inform victims of the court process and their options, especially when it came to pressing charges. Also please add lighting to the dark back area of the fraternity.
Michele requested additional well-lit areas and video surveillance in outdoor and high-risk areas. She advocated for even more systemic remedies, assessing cultures of sexual violence within athletic programs, reviewing practices in the fraternity system, working on data transparency, making it more inclusive and expansive.
The meeting took place on September 6, 2016, four days after Brock was released from jail. I was aiming for tempered rage, strong conviction. Go in, make demands! I went in, shook hands. How quickly my face crumpled. I said a few lines before forgetting what I’d come in to say. I did not intimidate anyone or assert anything. It was as if my chest had one tiny pocket of air, as I whispered about how I wish someone had helped me. Michele confronted her, lambasting Stanford for failing to reach out in the aftermath of the assault. They had my number and name, they knew how to find me. Appleseed apologized.
Appleseed said that at the time they did not have a clear practice on how to connect nonstudents to resources. She said they wanted to respect my agency and anonymity. She said they’d tried to help me, had a note that they’d offered me mental health resources, but I never came in.
My mind dug through old memories, when, when did they do this? Was it that late night, sitting in my locked car in the Ikea parking lot? I’d sifted through my workbag, found the number for the Stanford hotline. I told the lady to just sit with me, I needed to know I was not alone. When I finally calmed, the lady on the phone told me she didn’t know the policy for nonstudents, but I could come in, could show up at the office the next day, just tell them who you are. When the call ended, the faceless woman was swallowed back into the void and I was left with questions. If I went in, who would I be seeing, would I have to come out to a person at the front desk? Would I be randomly assigned a therapist? I could not call the hotline back, I would have been linked to a new responder. Part of not seeking help was the self-consciousness about where I fit in, the hesitation I heard in the woman’s voice, we don’t usually do this, but . . .
I thought the hotline had been confidential. I was suddenly embarrassed, realizing this whole time it had been my fault, I didn’t come in. Plus I was not even a student, there was no protocol, what were they supposed to have done with me? The paper was printed, signed while it was still warm. Appleseed was late for something, and when the door closed I understood that was it, I’d signed away what she needed. Michele was optimistic, this would be an ongoing conversation, but I worried the promises around the money had been fluff.
I returned home that night, turned it over in my mind. The night I’d called I’d already hit a dangerous low and reached out in desperation. She had missed the point; responding to a hotline call is different than taking initiative, extending resources to the victim earlier, stepping in before she unravels. I tried, I should have said back. That was me, not you. I called you. I should have pushed back. Hadn’t I already felt echoes of this in the court system? Chanel not seeing that. The subtle gaslighting, the shifting of blame and burden back onto the victim.
I had gone into the meeting seeking an open, personal conversation about making amends, reasonable requests, discussing solutions. I should have realized that from a legal perspective, they were not incentivized to admit to dropping the ball. Appleseed was also under pressure, speaking on behalf of stakeholders and lawyers, acting as a spokesperson for the university.
That night I felt sick, went to sleep early. At two in the morning I woke up vomiting into our new wicker basket, congealed liquid dripping through the cracks of woven wood. I took off my clothes and laid in fetal position on the bathroom mat, crawled between toilet and shower, my cheek pressed to the drain. It felt like someone was cutting up the insides of my stomach. The whole bathroom smelled sour. I laid there for nine hours.
I couldn’t believe how I’d gotten food poisoning. It was odd because in China I’d eat meat cooked in unfamiliar oil, ate where men waded barefoot into the water to catch fish, gutting them on wooden stumps, stewing them before me. I wrote a list on a pink Post-it note: Thursday, pesto pasta. Friday, chicken. The cramping continued. My parents visited a week later, saw I had stopped eating, and told me to go to the doctor.
What brings you here today? I sat on that crinkly paper and presented my pink Post-it note: Thursday, pesto pasta. Friday, chicken, on and on until the doctor stated, You must have gotten a bug. The doctor advised me to take Pepto-Bismol. I shook my head. I already finished all of mine, it just turns my vomit pink. The doctor said I should try the chewable tablets, not liquid, and wait for the bug to pass. It hit me then. I had created the wrong list. Thursday, talks with Stanford. Friday, rapist out of jail. A panic attack, a failed meeting, guilt from money, the politics of negotiating, all repressed in my gut. I didn’t know how to say any of this. I’ve also been experiencing anxiety. The doctor asked, Have you tried therapy? I nodded. Okay, well maybe that’s something we can explore next time, but anxiety is common, so let’s give it a few months and . . . I stared at the floor.
After my statement was released and the outpouring of support came in, I believed I was in the smooth sailing days. The worst is behind me days. I felt I had power. I’d been so excited, some had said I’d moved the needle. If I could move it I could surely redirect it entirely, could change the world overnight. I went into that meeting naive, thinking I was going to end sexual violence on campus over the course of an hour.
But Michele understood how long things take. She’d been battling Stanford for over a decade. Social change is a marathon, she’d said. Not a sprint. You do all you can in the time that you have. By time she meant lifetime, that over the span of our lives we may not see everything we want corrected, but still we fight. I was awakening to the excruciatingly long process of substantive change, how huge and imbedded systems are, how impossible they are to dismantle, how tiny I was.
A week later, I apologized to the lawyer, sorry I had not done enough. I hoped we could still work together to bring change to Stanford. He said, We both hope this is a really positive step forward for you . . . we admire your tremendous strength. . . . You have a light that shines and that is something that Turner couldn’t touch.
His legal partner said, I hope anxiety about not doing enough quickly vanishes, you’ve done so much. But the shame rang through my head, stupid, small, selfish, canceling out their encouraging voices.
A check arrived in the mail. I drove to a new bank, opened an account, and gave my dad the password to use for any family emergencies. I put money into my sister’s retirement account.
One night I overheard my parents talking about financial strain and my face filled with heat. I wanted the money to solve everything, everyone should be happy now. No more suffering, no more struggle. I ended our sadness. I did this one thing.
Since the location would soon be converted to a garden, Michele took me to see it in the daylight for the first time since the assault. The stomach cramping returned.
What struck me was how uninspiring, how underwhelming all of it was, this patchwork dirt lawn, saggy-limbed trees, a slope of dead pine needles, shit and beer cans, plastic spoons and broken glass, a ketchup packet and two black dumpsters. This? This is it? This is where my whole life was defined, the place that led to sacrificed relationships, unemployment, loss of identity, everything reduced and stolen by this pathetic shitty fraternity yard. How had the years passed with me still not free of this place, negotiating with Stanford over something as simple as a fucking light. A light! All my life and all my pain, standing there, felt like a joke, I wanted to laugh, to dig my fists into the ground, rip out clumps of the earth, to smash the glass patio doors with the wooden chairs I remember dancing on. Instead I said nothing, stood blinking in the sun, and after a few minutes, turned and walked back to Michele’s car.
Half a year passed. Appleseed sent a message, passed through my lawyer to me. I hope that you are thriving. There would be a case manager, lighting added. She informed me that information about my assault should have come from my DA’s office, it had never been their responsibility. They wouldn’t say it, would never say, We were supposed to protect you, and we failed. We should have followed up, and we did not. We should have come to you sooner, we will next time.
I attended the art therapy program for survivors of sexual assault and relationship violence on campus. One evening I drove the hour from San Francisco to a small room tucked behind a dining hall. The workshop was led by two women; one who was a confidential support person and one who was not. When I told them I’d be coming, I was paranoid they’d mark that I was there, a note passed on to Appleseed, so if I ever said Stanford should have done more they’d say, We have a note here that Chanel benefited greatly from the pipe cleaners and markers. I told myself I would simply observe.
A metal pitcher of water and gummies sat in the corner. It was pouring rain. The workshop did not include discussion, so we worked in silence, shaping clay. There were little cards we could flip over on our desks if we wanted to talk. If you flipped it, the confidential woman would come talk to you in a whisper. Sitting in the company of other survivors brought me peace. There was no pressure to speak or feign cheer. A part of me ached, found myself secretly willing healing into those quietly working around me, and in turn I began directing some of that well-wishing toward myself. I wondered what it meant, that these students, who must have had plenty of homework, still showed up for two hours to make tiny sculptures. What was that longing, what brought them here, what needed nourishing. And where were the perpetrators who put us here? Why were we the ones gathered in silence on a rainy night, touching clay, while they carried on with their lives?
I tried to come back when I could. There was a session called Unmasking Anger. We would be making cardboard masks that personified rage; a mask would be a way to identify the presence of the emotion, but create enough distance not to be fully consumed by it. I planned to make a big ass mask. When I showed up I was the only one there, me and the two women and a scattering of empty stools. The confidential lady asked if I wanted to stay and talk and I said yes, so the nonconfidential lady left so I could speak freely. Maybe this was my chance to say what I was never able to say to Appleseed. But again I cried, revisiting the feelings of abandonment, diluted apology, the emotional bruising, the refusal to acknowledge lack of care. How pathetic it was to keep waiting for someone to restore my faith in this place I so valued since childhood.
You belong here, she said. And anger is allowed to be embodied. Rage for the perpetrator, bystanders, society, was a healthy and normal response. Some direct anger inward toward themselves, feeling that this is the only safe way to be angry. This could result in negative self-talk, blaming ourselves for the trauma, struggling to reconcile prior beliefs about justice, systems of meaning.
The question came back to me, Who is Stanford? If she is Stanford, then Stanford is kind and validating. Who is Stanford? A boy outside was playing “Feliz Navidad” on the tuba. Is he Stanford? Is Appleseed Stanford? I spent the next two hours cutting out a large, flat cardboard mask, with wiggly horns and a snout. I drove one hour home exhausted, leaned the mask against the wall, watching it slide down to the floor.
When I share with people that Stanford was more intent on self-preservation than caring about one person, people say in the gentlest way possible, No shit. But why? Why no shit? Why do we expect so little from universities? Why is it rare to hear the occasional story in which the university responded correctly and worked with the victim to improve campus safety? The few of us in the art therapy room were just a sampling, for there are rooms full of survivors across the country, seeking help in any form they can find.
Often victims are the ones who drop out of school or transfer. She soundlessly exits while the school keeps moving along, undeterred. I am not naive to expect better, I am not delusional to want more. I’ve learned the ways transparency heals. Accountability heals. Appleseed said, That such quiet violence could have been perpetrated on our bucolic campus . . . is never far from my mind. In that line I hear the disbelief, how could such a thing have happened here? She speaks as if this was a dark stain on an otherwise spotless campus. But we know the statistics, all those glaring red bodies, her and her and her. It is commonplace, omnipresent to those who live it.
I returned to art therapy. The woman began by talking about evolution, can we think of anything that evolves? When we were quiet, she suggested a frog, talked us through its stages. I thought for a minute, looking around again at the young students. Are they here because they hope to one day become frogs? By definition, wouldn’t I be a frog? I had gone through the legal system, grew my legs, confronted my attacker, stated my truths. But I felt no different from them.
No matter how formidable or self-assured I might become, I will always be a tadpole. I believe that’s what being a victim is, living with that little finicky, darting thing inside you. Most people say development is linear, but for survivors it is cyclic. People grow up, victims grow around; we strengthen around that place of hurt, become older and fuller, but the vulnerable core is never gone. More than becoming a frog, I believe surviving means learning to live forever with this trembling tadpole.
Appleseed asked for a quote to be placed on a raised bronze plaque in the garden. I provided the lines from my statement about relearning my worth, which began: You made me a victim. . . . I had to force myself to relearn my real name, my identity. To relearn that this is not all that I am. . . . I am a human being who has been irreversibly hurt, my life was put on hold for over a year, waiting to figure out if I was worth something. Appleseed rejected the quote. My lawyer pushed back: A pretty garden with a softer message that no one notices is actually less useful than the dumpster that preceded it. Appleseed succumbed and agreed to have a mock-up made. For months I received numerous updates about the intricate site plans for the garden; stone veneer seating wall, dark-colored river pebbles, topsoil, wood bench without armrest, stone color: Hillsborough and Willow Creek (50 percent of each color), flagstone mortar joint color to be determined, Swirl Fountain by Stone Forest, exact location of bench to be determined, batter exterior side of wall only, samples to be reviewed by landscape architect. But there was still no Title IX investigation, no policy review. Still no plaque.
I received an email one evening informing me of their scheduled ceremony; it would open with the provost (five minutes), an announcement about support services (five minutes), a speech/letter from Emily Doe (five minutes), closing words, moment of silence in support of sexual violence survivors (five minutes). What do you do when you’re invited to your own rape garden ceremony, that’s been scheduled to last twenty minutes? I wanted to give a speech, Thanks for the stones. For being so concerned with agency, they had taken it upon themselves to create a public display of support, inviting cameras, a tidy itinerary, the figurative ribbon cut. They gave me three dates I could choose from. I appreciated that the area had been cleaned up, that students may find solace in it, but it was odd the plaque was still missing. I told my lawyer to politely inform them there would be no ceremony.
I thought more about anger, about the art piece I would create. A more fitting tribute: a piece called Construction; each victim is given a nail for every day she has lived with what happened to her. There’s a haphazard pile of wood in the center of campus. Victims can come as they please, hammering nails into the wood. All day people hear the banging, all the drilling and incessant interruption. This is a lot of what surviving is like, trying to carry on and get work done, while your past pounds into you, distracts you, makes it impossible. At the end there’d be an immense wooden structure, randomly nailed together, large, useless, pointy, and dangerous in the middle of everything, people forced to walk around it, interrupting the pretty view of the trees. This is also what assault feels like, what to do with this, where to put it, what is it.
Or maybe a light installation. I could come in the night and install living-room lamps with extension cords throughout campus, large paper lanterns to dangle from trees, littering the campus with bright bulbs until every dark corner was glowing. I’d called that piece All I Wanted.
Or something more disturbing; I’d make mops, attaching dark, long hairs at the end of wooden poles, dragging them through the pine needles and leaves. Mopping all the vegetation and debris, dragging trails throughout campus, a victim custodian. That performance piece would be called We Wanted to Respect Your Agency, Anonymity.
One year after our meeting, a month after the garden installation, the plaque was still not there. When my lawyer inquired about it, Appleseed wrote that the space was meant to be inspirational, and it was not okay to target or condemn a single individual. She said they would not be placing it on a plaque because they had to prioritize the well-being of all of our students. She proposed the following quote:
I’m right here, I’m okay, everything’s okay, I’m right here.
There is a world in which this is funny, the irony and absurdity too clear. These were words I’d used to comfort my sister straight out of the hospital in the moments I was least okay. In a way it summarized my experience, and I almost green-lighted it, but of course, I could not, due to the fact that it was grossly taken out of context. I began to think if they had a garden for every person assaulted at Stanford, wouldn’t they have rolling acres of gardens, landscaping businesses booked out for eternity? Dry hillsides, littered with benches, cargo loads of pavers? Each marked with this plaque, with this lie we tell ourselves, I’m okay, everything’s okay.
The other two quotes Appleseed suggested were from the final paragraph of my statement. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. Those words were written from a place of deep hope, cultivated alone in a high apartment in Philly, when hope was the single thing I had. I wrote those words to survive. How could you abandon me these last two years, to reappear and take those lines. To hide the damage, then present the polished. I wanted to offer students a sentiment of solidarity, but could not give Stanford words of hope when they had not provided me reason to feel any. I could not sell victims a false dream, a tranquil and bright-eyed existence. On nights when you are alone, you are left alone. Please let us know which of these quotes works.
I should have backed out then, said enough. Instead I submitted a new quote: You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today. Appleseed said she’d shared the quote with the Confidential Support Team, and the next sentence started with while we appreciate, and that word again, concerned.
She explained it could be triggering and upsetting instead of healing. They said I could either choose what they’d selected or find a quote that was more uplifting and affirming.
As a survivor, I feel a duty to provide a realistic view of the complexity of recovery. I am not here to rebrand the mess he made on campus. It is not my responsibility to alchemize what he did into healing words society can digest. I do not exist to be the eternal flame, the beacon, the flowers that bloom in your garden. I emailed my lawyer: Whenever you get the chance, please let [Appleseed] know I’ve decided not to provide a quote.
I struggle with how I am supposed to live as a survivor, how to present my story and myself to the world, how much or how little to disclose. There have been numerous times I have not brought up my case because I do not want to upset anybody or spoil the mood. Because I want to preserve your comfort. Because I have been told that what I have to say is too dark, too upsetting, too targeting, too triggering, let’s tone it down. You will find society asking you for the happy ending, saying come back when you’re better, when what you say can make us feel good, when you have something more uplifting, affirming. This ugliness was something I never asked for, it was dropped on me, and for a long time I worried it made me ugly too. It made me into a sad, unwelcome story that nobody wanted to hear.
But when I wrote the ugly and painful parts into a statement, an incredible thing happened. The world did not plug up its ears, it opened itself to me. I do not write to trigger victims. I write to comfort them, and I’ve found that victims identify more with pain than platitudes. When I write about weakness, about how I am barely getting through this, my hope is that they feel better, because it aligns with the truth they are living. If I were to say I was healed and redeemed, I worry a victim would feel insufficient, as if they have not tried hard enough to cross some nonexistent finish line. I write to stand beside them in their suffering. I write because the most healing words I have been given are It’s okay not to be okay. It’s okay to fall apart, because that’s what happens when you are broken, but I want victims to know they will not be left there, that we will be alongside them as they rebuild.
Appleseed did not hear the secret in the quote, which lives in the last two words, until today. I can’t promise your journey will be good, I actually guarantee that it won’t. I can’t promise glorious days or shining redemption. I am here to assure the opposite; you will be faced with the hardest days of your life. The agony is incessant, unyielding, but when you get to the point where you feel like everything’s gone, there’s a little twist, a flame, a small shift. It is subtle, it comes when you least expect it. Wait for it. This is the rule of the universe, this is the one thing in life I know to be true. No matter how awful and long your journey, I can promise you the turn. One day it will lift.
Victims exist in a society that tells us our purpose is to be an inspiring story. But sometimes the best we can do is tell you we’re still here, and that should be enough. Denying darkness does not bring anyone closer to the light. When you hear a story about rape, all the graphic and unsettling details, resist the instinct to turn away; instead look closer, because beneath the gore and the police reports is a whole, beautiful person, looking for ways to be in the world again.
By now Michele and Appleseed were no longer talking, too much betrayal, mistrust, Michele was livid, Appleseed wasn’t budging. Over a year had passed since the initial meeting, promises were not upheld, no investigation completed. The Fountain Hopper, an anonymous student publication, uncovered the news of the rejected quotes and email blasted the story across campus with the headline: STANFORD’S FINAL “FUCK YOU” TO BROCK TURNER’S VICTIM.
In the words of Appleseed, I end where I began. A year after Brock had been released, and I’d received some money, vomited, took a few art classes, received plants and no plaque, a burbling fountain. There was a light installed, which was good, thank you. The dumpsters were moved to the front, cedar walls erected around them. I was hard on myself for a long time, feeling like I did not do enough. But I am learning.
I worry Stanford will see this as a bashing, a reputation tainting, and will now release a statement asking me to stop naming their staff members after poisonous seeds. But before jumping to a position of defense, I hope they listen, because in an odd way, this is a love letter. My unending attempts to reconcile and reconstruct the world I grew up in. I write in hopes that schools will see how much power they have to help or hurt a victim. Listen to survivors when they come to you. Offer help when they don’t. Do not write polite emails about how you did the best you can, about how actually that was not your job. Just help them. If I accuse Stanford of failing to support victims, I hope they prove me wrong by saying they care about victims and then show everyone how they do.
I encourage you to sit in that garden, but when you do, close your eyes, and I’ll tell you about the real garden, the sacred place. Ninety feet away from where you sit there is a spot, where Brock’s knees hit the dirt, where the Swedes tackled him to the ground, yelling, What the fuck are you doing? Do you think this is okay? Put their words on a plaque. Mark that spot, because in my mind I’ve erected a monument. The place to be remembered is not where I was assaulted, but where he fell, where I was saved, where two men declared stop, no more, not here, not now, not ever.
When they held him down, they freed me. Without them, there would’ve never been a chance for me to speak my words in the first place, no hearing, no trial, no statement, no book. Because of them, I am here now. They gave me a chance, to grow and fight and come into myself again. It took a long time, it is still a strenuous process, but I would be nothing without that chance.
I often get scared of speaking out, of confronting lawyers and institutions bigger and better equipped than me, but when I’m afraid, all I have to do is think of the two of them. I think of how I want to return the favor; to pull the heaviness off you, to be the one yelling it is not okay, pinning your demons down in the dirt, so you suddenly find yourself free, given the chance to begin your journey, growing on your own, uncovering your voice, finding your way back. I want to stay and fight, while you go.