how to proceed next, I perch on the sofa, staring at the wall until the urgent trill of my buzzer makes me jump. I open the door, still wrapped in my towel.
Joshua looks like he’s just clambered out of a swimming pool. His mouth is set in a thin line. ‘Hi,’ he says nervously, running a hand through his hair and dislodging a hidden tidal wave of water. ‘Can I come in?’
I step to one side and close the door after him. ‘You’re drenched, I’ll get you a towel.’
‘Thank you. That would be great.’
He’s balancing on one leg to take off his shoe, dripping more rain onto the floorboards, when I come back with a dry towel.
He takes it wordlessly and rubs his face into it. ‘Do you mind if I take my clothes off? Not like that … it’s just, I really am soaked.’
‘No, that’s fine. The bathroom is through there.’
I sit on the arm of the sofa again and it occurs to me that I should probably get dressed while he’s in there, but I don’t seem able to move. The noise of the storm pushes out most of my thoughts. The floor creaks and I look up. Joshua is back, also wrapped in a towel, like we’re on a couples spa holiday.
‘I’ve never been to your flat before.’ He’s looking around, digesting it. I’ve not had any time to Gretel it up in any way. It’s just my home. April’s. With the giant framed picture of Dawson crying that I got Megan for her thirtieth hanging over the sofa. The unwashed plates from this morning’s breakfast festering in the sink. The general mess caused by being signed off work for a week for stress.
‘Here it is.’
‘Your flatmate not in?’
‘No.’
Silence approaches and stays put. I’m not particularly in the mood to be the one to break it. I’m still angry. Joshua shuffles over in his towel and lays a hand on my shoulder. I look up.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, like he might mean it, adding to my surprise. ‘I’m not sure what happened back there.’
‘Your friend was implying there’s a rape spectrum …’
‘Well that’s not exactly what he was …’ he sees my face. ‘He’s a really nice guy. There’s no way he meant it the way you took it.’
‘If you came over to defend him then you may as well leave. I know he’s your friend, but this is my job, Joshua,’ I say. ‘I deal with girls who have been victims of that all day every day. If you had any idea, any, of the damage it causes, the pain, the confusion, the ripples of shit …’
What I don’t say is, ‘and I was raped. Me. Me! And it is something I can never take away. It’s something that will never not hurt whenever I think about it. It’s something I didn’t deserve or ask for and ouch it hurts, so much. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have someone fucking DEBATE your entitlement to pain? I WAS RAPED, OK?’ I don’t know why I don’t say it, but I don’t.
‘Things are so much worse than people think,’ I continue, staring right at him. ‘When you do the job I do, you see how widespread it is and it’s hard, and therefore it makes it impossible to listen when someone tries to diminish it in any way.’
‘He wasn’t trying to diminish it, he was just saying some things are worse than other things—’
‘You can’t quantify damage!’ I throw my hands up, almost losing my towel. ‘Do you have any idea of the privilege you must have to be able to debate sexual violence from a place of emotional detachment?’
Joshua goes quiet because I’ve said the word ‘privilege’. They always go quiet when you bring that one out of its box. Not in a respectful way, but in a quiet, fists-slowly-curled, face-getting-red, feeling-like-it’s-not-fair way. I let him bathe in feeling silenced. I think, that’s how we feel every day Mister.
‘I’ve never seen you like this,’ he says eventually, gaze determinedly on his hands.
‘Like what?’
‘This. All … angry.’
‘And let me guess? You don’t like it?’
‘I’m not saying that …’
I’m not Gretel right now, that’s for sure. I’m too fired up to be her. I think of the years of my life where I’ve doubted what happened to me and doubted the pain it has caused. That night, with the white wall, if I was asked to mark it on this ‘rape spectrum’, well, it would’ve