They play the clip over and over. Analyze my mental health, delve into a possible family history of violence, Papi’s childhood in the most gang-ridden area of Guatemala City. Perhaps the defense’s case held water: The accuser consented and simply liked it rough. If the father comes from violence and the younger sister has a taste for it, why not Elinor Morales as well?
Spoiler alert: Twitter bros are seriously into the idea of women liking it rough. Some of the feminist accounts turn on me too. We can’t play into the notion of feminists as violent man-haters.
Megan Hart is silent.
I feel like learning how to use a fucking sword.
My mother sobs; Papi shuts himself in their room. Probably writing agonized poetry, like words are going to save us now. I already wrote the words. Specific words. They were never going to save us.
I feel like learning how to use a fucking sword.
And Elinor, Elinor packs to go back to school, to a campus still mourning the unjust conviction of their adopted darling or celebrating the dismissal of the charges that mattered most. The championed cause of generations of SAE brothers and football fans won’t see a day of jail. And still the university campus is pissed by the “distraction” to the Husky program. Never mind that football isn’t even in season.
I want to insist the DA remand the case for resentencing.
I want to mount a campaign against the judge’s reelection.
But: “Please, Em,” Nor whispers in my ear before she leaves for her dorm, “don’t cause any more trouble.”
Em is trouble.
That’s what everyone’s said from the time I was old enough to use my voice, my enormous voice, so loud when Elinor’s was so not. Always talking, people marveled, until I got too old for that to be adorable, which wasn’t nearly long enough.
Then I was brash, I was brazen, I was bossy.
I wore bossy like armor, polished it in the rare moments I removed it. Let them call me bossy. I was still in charge of every game, every skit, every revolution. I hit the boys, and it wasn’t because I liked them.
But Elinor, she’s sugar and spice, that’s what they all say, and I don’t begrudge my sister the adoration, either. I polished my sword until it gleamed because Nor is a princess and a dragon would come soon enough, because that’s the way of things, and my brash, pushy self would be there to boss it back where it came from.
The dragon came.
My sword wasn’t enough.