Charlie
He was too full of everything. Emotions, terror, memories, sensation. They all rushed through him, filling him up to the brim until he was sure that he was going to pop. He wanted to sink into the floor. He wanted to disappear forever. But with Daisy’s hands on his face and that impossibly kind expression on her features, he felt like maybe, maybe he could fulfill her request. That maybe he could speak the evil that’d been feeding in his soul for nearly a decade.
“I was a freshman in college.”
Just a sentence, and a rather simple one at that, but uttering it made something break within him and he was plunged back down in the darkness.
“Charlie, come back to me. You’re home. You’re at the Miller Ranch, okay?”
Somehow, Daisy was able to bring him back, to draw him back up to the surface. He didn’t realize at first that he was crying again, even harder than the first time.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me a thing if it hurts you that much.”
But he’d already ripped the band-aid off and all that darkness wanted to escape. “No, no. I need to keep going.” He swallowed, internally cursing that he didn’t have a hanky in his pocket. Didn’t Papa say to always carry a hanky? “It was college. I went to a party. I was supposed to go with Raph, but he got really sick the day before.”
He could still see it in his mind’s eye. There’d been this cute redhead in his public speaking class who was supposed to be there, and he wanted to see if he could maybe give her a kiss or two before the night was over.
“It was going well at first, but then this sorority girl took an interest in me. She was pretty, with long brunette hair and these honey doe eyes. I thought I was pretty much as lucky as I could be.”
He remembered flirting with her, preening like a peacock. He was an idiot.
“She got me this fancy foreign lager at first. I wasn’t opposed to drinking a little, so I had no problem emptying it over an hour or so. But then she made me this mixed drink. I wasn’t into liquor, not really, but she looked so hurt that I didn’t even want to try. So, I drank that too.
“And once that was gone, she gave me another. I told her I didn’t want another one, but she insisted, and so I drank that too.”
He risked a glance to Daisy and, although she was listening intently, she looked absolutely horrified. And she should have been, because Charlie could feel the evil oozing out of his mouth, born from what had happened to him.
“I lost track of the drinks, and it didn’t take long for me to be drunk. Too drunk. Drunker than I’d ever been in my life. It’s hard to remember exactly what happened after that. But she took me by the hand, and led me upstairs, and then…”
His mouth was dry. His hands were shaking. He felt like he was going to be sick, but he still kept going.
“I woke up with her on top of me, on a bed. She kept telling me that she was helping me, that she was going to make me a real man. I was too drunk to realize what was happening. I could barely keep my eyes open.”
Daisy audibly gasped, and suddenly he was pulled to her, her arms wrapped strongly around him. “Charlie, I’m so sorry! I’m just—” Her voice cracked, and suddenly she was crying too. “You didn’t deserve that. Nobody deserves that.”
Once again, her reaction didn’t make sense. She was supposed to ask why he was upset. After all, all men loved sex, right?
But she didn’t say anything like that. Instead, she just held him.
Charlie stayed still, reeling. He was overwhelmed by all the memories that he had been suppressing for years, but at the same time he was completely baffled by the woman sitting next to him.
Eventually, she pulled away just enough to look up at his face. “What happened? Did you report her? Is she in jail?”
Numbly, Charlie shook his head. “Nothing happened to her. I went to the campus police, but when I tried to report her, they brushed me off. They didn’t believe me. That something like that could happen to me.” He remembered how the officer had looked him in the eye and said he was bigger and stronger than any girl on campus, so how had he let a tiny cheerleader manhandle him? He’d sat there, fingernail marks down his chest, hickey still on his neck, and no one cared.
“What? Are you kidding me? That’s crazy. I hope your Papa sued their pants off.”
“I never told my family.”
She didn’t say anything, her jaw literally hanging open for a moment before she gathered herself enough to speak. “You didn’t tell them?”
“No. No one knows except for her, me and the campus police officers who never believed me.”
“Charlie, my dear, that’s not healthy for you. You were assaulted. And you need to talk about it to someone. Your therapist, a pastor, your father. You need the support of the people you trust the most.”
“How could I ever tell them?” Charlie snapped, more out of desperation rather than anger.
“What do you mean? Don’t you think they’d want to know? That they’d want to comfort you in your time of need?”
“How could I ever look in my father’s face after admitting that I broke my vow I made to God?”
“Broke your… Charlie, I don’t understand. Can you explain to me?”
Could he explain? He probably couldn’t stop if he tried. It was like the words were punching themselves out of his face after being bottled up for nearly seven years. “I vowed to save myself for marriage, and it’s something all of my sisters have kept. I destroyed my marriage bed before even getting there by a woman half my size! I—” His voice broke again and he sank into his misery. He was such a failure. Sure, there wasn’t any sort of physical sign of virginity, but it had been an oath between him and God, a promise. And he’d lost that because he’d let himself be weak.
“Charlie, are you telling me you think that you’ve disappointed God because you were raped?”
“Stop saying that. I wasn’t… I wasn’t—”
Her hands were suddenly on his face again, cool and soothing.
“Charlie Miller, sugar, you didn’t break your oath to God.” That stopped his growing frenzy just about as fast as it had started, and he found himself staring at her in shock.
“How is that even remotely possible? I had sex.”
“No. No, you didn’t. Now, I’ve never really been into this whole virginity thing, but from what I understand, you made an oath to God that you would choose to sleep with your future spouse and only your future spouse.”
“Yeah, that’s generally how it goes.”
“You didn’t choose to sleep with anyone, Charlie. Yes, that woman did something she should never have done. She took away an experience from you that should have been beautiful and made it into something dark. But if you believe for a second that God would condemn you for someone hurting you so deeply, then we’re familiar with two very different big guys in charge.”
Could that possibly be true?
Charlie had always believed that virginity was more of a spiritual concept. To him, the body wasn’t where the promise was. It was in the heart.
So, if he’d never given his heart to his attacker. If he’d never wanted to… what if Daisy was right?
But all the shame bubbled up, whispering everything in his ears that he’d heard whenever a male victim was brought up.
“You don’t think I’m less of a man for it? That I should have fought her off?”
“What? No! And anyone who tells you that has no idea what they’re talking about.”
She leaned in close and somehow, Charlie wasn’t afraid. He was upset, he was ashamed, he was flabbergasted and maybe more than a bit lost. But he wasn’t afraid.
He didn’t know if he could ever be afraid of Daisy.
“She got you drunk and took advantage. You trusted her, because you’re a kind person and you never imagined that someone would be so cruel. You are a man, Charlie Miller, an amazing man who is kind, caring, and frankly hilarious.
“If I could go back in time and beat the tar out of this woman, I would. But I know it doesn’t work like that, so all I can do is be here for you right now, in this moment, and tell you it’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.
“You didn’t break your oath, Charlie. And I’m sure if God is watching, he’d be so proud of all the things you’ve done. How you didn’t let that woman’s bad deeds corrupt you. You’re amazing, in every sense of the word.”
There was no way she could mean all that. And yet, when he looked into her beautiful eyes, he only saw the truth there. Truth and a whole lot of pain.
How could he not believe her when she looked at him like that.
The tears came again, and they sat there holding each other, squeezing so tightly that he was surprised that she didn’t creak. He loved her, it was so soon, but he knew he could search the entire world and never find another like Daisy Dixon.
So he just let himself hold her while he thought about everything that he had been through. He thought about the innocence he had lost before he had wanted to. He thought about the needless hate he put himself through. He thought about all the other people in the world who have gone through things like this.
And now, for the first time since he’d woken up that horrible night so long ago, he felt like maybe, just maybe, one day he could share intimacy with someone and not be overcome with panic.
It was dark by the time they loosened their holds on each other.
“Are you ready to go home?” she asked, voice quiet and sounding utterly wrecked. And as much as he hated knowing she’d been so upset, he couldn’t help but feel amazed that she felt that way about him.
“Actually… I would like to talk about it more. That is, if you want to listen.”
Strange, how he’d avoided ever mentioning anything about it for year after year, keeping it a secret from even his family, but now that it was out, there was so much that he wanted to say. So much he needed to mourn, so much he needed to be angry over.
Daisy leaned in close, not quite kissing him, but gently touching her forehead to his. “I’ll always be willing to listen to whatever you’re willing to tell me.”
He couldn’t have asked for anything more.