Joan awoke in her
roommate’s bed. Her head ached while she tried to navigate her confusion. Her
roommate left town a few nights ago to visit her parents.
Joan threw a party
last night to celebrate the end of midterms. It occurred to her, about a week
prior, that she never socialized with any of her college classmates. She faced
her senior year in half a semester. She wanted to enjoy at least one party.
She invited
everyone from three of her classes. More than half of them arrived. Most of
them brought beer.
Her head continued
to throb, though she knew she only nursed a single, plastic cup of Rolling
Stone.
Why couldn’t she
recall the second half of her party?
She tried to sit
up, and a worse pain corkscrewed through her lower body. She yanked aside her
sheets and gasped. A slick sheet of blood covered the sheets.
She stared.
Her period synched
with her roommate’s over a year ago. It wouldn’t arrive for couple days. Did
her cycle start early?
She forced herself
out of bed, winced at the pain. Her cycle never hurt this much. Should she see
a doctor?
A used condom sat
inside the trashcan by her nightstand.
That made no
sense. She didn’t sleep around. She never
experienced sex . . . so long as blowjobs didn’t count.
The pieces slowly
took hideous form in her fuzzy mind. She recalled the countless times she set
down her drink, walked away from it. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Her knees shook.
What should she do? She could call the cops and give them the condom. Couldn’t
they get DNA off it?
If she involved the police, her parents might discover what happened to her. Her father would kill her. She
promised: no parties, no beer, no boys.
Who did this to
her? Could a guest reasonably slip something into her drink, carry her nearly
unconscious body onto her roommate’s bedroom, and . . . and screw her without the notice of anyone
else at the party?
Impossible. At least a couple of her classmates watched it happen, did nothing
to save her.
What if more than
one of them did this to her? What if someone literally watched the whole thing? What if someone recorded it, put it
online?
. . . She sat in
class, tried to stare at her returned midterm exam (A+).
“Great party, last
night,” a black-haired guy said as he passed her desk.
Ice coated her
bones. Did the black-haired guy mean it in innocent fashion, or did something sinister
slither within the remark?
She watched the
guy take his seat. She tried to decipher any hidden message in his comment.
Her eyes glided
across the room, scrutinized every look that every student paid her. Which one
raped her? Did any of the other students know?
She raced from the
classroom so abruptly that she didn’t even grab her bag.
She reached the
women’s restroom, entered a stall, crashed onto her knees, and puked across the
side of a toilet.
She blinked back
tears, couldn’t find the strength to stand.
. . . She couldn’t
force herself to return to class. Ever. She couldn’t sit amongst those students
and wonder.
She sat, at the
moment, in her bathroom, stared at the pregnancy test strip in her hand.
The plus sign felt
sarcastically positive.
. . . She stumbled
from the abortion clinic, shocked at how much the procedure hurt.
Her insides ached as if someone rooted around inside her with a garden instrument.
She felt outsmarted,
made the butt of a cruel joke, and she too dumb to even know who played it upon
her. Did her attacker even remember her name?
Her family raised
her to believe that abortion equaled murder. She couldn’t support a child,
though. She certainly couldn’t show her father a swollen belly.
A small crowd with
picket signs screamed at her from across the street. They called her a bitch
and a slut and a sinner and worse worse worse.
. . . She lost her
scholarship due to an entire semester left incomplete. How could she explain
her absences?
She wondered if
she could ever enjoy sex with her future husband, or if she sat doomed to
always fake her orgasms, never experience the real thing.
. . . A member
from the crowd at the abortion clinic used his cellphone to record her while she
drove from the parking lot. He used her license plate to identify her. Put the video on Youtube with her name attached. He even called her parents.
Her father called,
demanded to know the truth.
She burst into
tears, confessed to the abortion, to the loss of her scholarship. She admitted
nothing more. Couldn’t.
. . . She sat,
decades later, at her father’s funeral. She tried to recall the good memories, but she remembered only those words to her all those years ago,
over the phone.
You don’t deserve God’s love, and you don’t
deserve mine.
Thanks for reading.
You probably noticed
that I went about a week without a blog entry. I apologize for that. The
creation of the prototype for my card game, Duelists
of Darkwana (based on my novel series, Diaries
of Darkwana), managed to eat up a lot of my time.
I also need to
explain, on that note, where the heck the third novel for that series went. It
sits done and ready to publish on Kindle.
At the moment, my
wonderful cover artist deals with a few distractions. I promise that as soon as
I get the completed cover art from her (if not sooner), I shall publish the
third novel in my series.
I
publish my blogs as follows:
Tuesdays:
A look at the politics of the entertainment world at EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com.
Wednesdays:
An inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com
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