been a two out of ten, I reckon. An SPF 15 kind of rape. A 12A kind of rape. A Nando’s lemon and fucking herb sauce rape. I wouldn’t be able to win rape top trumps with it, that’s for bloody sure. I wasn’t held down. I didn’t try to run and get caught and dragged backwards on my stomach while I dug my fingernails into the ground. There wasn’t more than one of them. I wasn’t too drugged to move. I wasn’t in a dark alleyway, crying for home, wishing I’d not taken that shortcut. I didn’t even bleed afterwards. I didn’t even cry. In fact, I lay next to him and stroked his hair after he fell asleep. I didn’t even think it was rape until a year or so later, after he left me for that other girl, when my body clamped shut and I couldn’t get tampons in, and the specialist at the hospital asked in the kindest voice if I’d ever experienced any sexual violence. Then the memories of that time with the white wall, and the other time, came screaming out of me, hitting me full-force, delighted and dancing in the wind that they had finally been allowed out of their container. Months of dabbing lidocaine on my vagina and sitting with my legs apart with a trainer shoved up it, mourning the loss of everything I was before. Thousands of tears. Hundreds of mini-breakdowns. Sex ruined, potentially forever. The fear, every single time, that my body wouldn’t let me have this part of my life again. All of it so awful, and yet the worst bit being the doubt that you deserve this trauma. Have I over-exaggerated what happened? Was it really that bad? Isn’t it much worse for other women? Why am I so fucked up about something so minor? Am I just weak? Am I one of ‘those’ women who over-dramatise for attention? The doubt is sometimes worse than what actually happened. I’ve sometimes wished for a fucking rape certificate. I wish I could’ve invited some independent rape adjudicator to join me on a jolly jaunt back in time to watch what happened and verify that it was what my trauma is telling me it is. So much pain and doubt and fear and confusion and shame … and then men, around a table, happy and glowing from alcohol, never worrying that this could happen to them, saying your worst thoughts out loud, debating the validity of your pain, then wondering why you cry or get angry. How unreasonable you are.
‘What are you saying?’ I put both hands on my hips. He looks up at me, mouth wide, ready for all kinds of comebacks and defences and arguments, but his mouth closes again. It’s like he’s seeing me for the very first time.
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I’m really sorry.’
‘Sorry why?’
‘Because you’re right. What Neil said wasn’t OK. I’m just trying to defend him because … OK, I’ll admit it, I’m embarrassed all right?’ Joshua runs his hands through his wet hair. ‘I mean, it’s the first time you’ve met my friends and Neil bloody starts talking about that? He knows about your job. I’ve told him. He’s always arguing about that kind of thing. He gets off on playing Devil’s Advocate. I worried he’d bring it up and then he did …’ He rests his face in cupped hands, shakes his head with them still there. ‘I’m really sorry, Gretel, it wasn’t cool.’
There’s a crack of thunder. The rain drums even harder on the pavement outside. I don’t know what to do with this. This honesty, pure and white, spilling from his mouth. This genuine apology. It undoes everything I think I know.
‘Why would he deliberately bring it up?’ I sit next to Joshua on the sofa and the sinking cushion makes our knees fold in together.
‘Like I said, he’s antagonistic like that, always has been. You know what it’s like, with uni friends. You’re in these weird pre-set social dynamics that are hard to change. I’m really sorry he upset you.’ He takes my hand, laces my fingers. For the first time since I started this, my body craves him back, enjoys his touch.
‘I didn’t mean to make it awkward, I just couldn’t stay.’ I’m so proud of myself for not apologising back to Joshua. For not automatically replying to an ‘I’m sorry’ with an ‘I’m sorry too’. Though it takes considerable effort to override the urge.