I held up my hand to stop Dean from coming toward me, knowing I would shatter if he touched me.
“He told me to strip to the waist and give him oral sex. I didn’t want to… but I… the room was really small, and it was hot with all this noise from the party and the thumping bass of the music… he was between me and the door, and I… I felt trapped. I just did what he told me to do so I could get out of there.
“It… uh, it took me a long time to understand why I went along with it, that I was still being coerced. After it was over, I looked up and saw one of Justin’s friends standing at the door, blocking the only way out. I didn’t know how long he’d been there or how much he’d seen, but it was enough.”
I fell silent. Humiliation scorched me from the inside out.
“I can’t remember the other guy’s name. Justin said something to him. I couldn’t hear past the loud music, the ringing in my ears. And this other guy came toward me, and I knew, I knew I’d have to do it again, with this guy I didn’t know at all… but thank God a couple showed up, wanting to use the room to smoke a joint. It was enough of a distraction that I was able to pull on my shirt and get the hell out of there. I got a ride home with another girl. Spent the rest of the night stumbling between the shower and getting sick in the toilet.”
I could feel Dean’s rage, his instinctive move toward me.
“Wait.” I backed away. “I was… I didn’t realize what had happened, that I could have reported it. I just tried to put it behind me and crawl back into my shell. Justin asked me out again. I said no. I felt horrible, dirty. Ashamed. I kept flashing back to the time that pervert used me to get off, and my mother didn’t stop him. I felt like I’d let those boys use me the same way, and I hated myself for it.
“I turned Justin down twice more. He didn’t like that. Told me I had no right to turn into an ice queen, that kind of thing. I thought he’d just move on and leave me alone. Then I found out he had a girlfriend, and that the other guy had told her what happened in the laundry room… well.
“She left me some nasty messages, and gossip started. It seemed like the whole campus was talking about me within a week. Saying I was a slut, that Justin had paid me, that I’d have done it with any boy. All the horrible things people would have said about my mother.
“And I hadn’t made any close friends, so no one really knew me. I went from this… this quiet little nobody to… that. The slut who sucked off a guy at a party while another one waited his turn.
“I couldn’t walk across campus without someone saying something or looking at me, and this girl and her sorority sisters would send me emails and leave messages… I tried to ignore it all, but I started having trouble concentrating and sleeping. Then I just fell apart.
“I couldn’t get out of bed. Stopped attending classes. I couldn’t eat. Some people asked what was going on… I got emails from professors, the financial aid office warning me I wasn’t fulfilling my scholarship obligations.
“But I’d spent so much of my life alone, I had no idea how to reach out for help, to ask for it, even when I started having panic attacks… so I ended up losing the scholarship because I couldn’t keep up academically anymore. Two months later, I dropped out of college.
“It was the only time I wished I was still with my mother. Wished I didn’t have any responsibilities. Everything I’d worked so hard for… gone because I’d messed around with the wrong guy. I got in my car and hit the road. Exactly like my mother had done.”
My heart was beating too fast, pulsing shame through my entire body. I risked a glance at Dean. He was staring at the floor, his every muscle clenched with anger.
“Three days later, I found myself back in California,” I continued. “At Twelve Oaks.”
A memory of the commune felt like cool water soothing a scorching burn. My breathing was fast and shallow, but I felt lighter, as I always did after I talked about what had happened. Though I’d only ever told a therapist before, telling Dean reminded me that I’d put myself back together. That I hadn’t ended up like my mother.
“It’s why… why I shut down for a few years, why I hate feeling trapped,” I explained. “I blamed myself. I’d had the sense that if I didn’t comply with what Justin wanted, something even worse would have happened. It was only after Twelve Oaks and enrolling at community college that I started thinking I could actually get back on my feet again.”
Dean didn’t look at me. Tension drenched the air around him.