[Looks off camera, composes herself.]
I kept trying to get his attention. He always talked to the prettier girls, but finally, one night, it was my turn. We danced, and he was so sweet at first. So charming. He gave me compliments, made me feel amazing. Like we had an actual connection. I was so fucking naive. Then he wanted to talk somewhere quieter, so I said yes, and he took me to this broken-down place that was under construction. Nobody else was around. He pushed me against a wall, started kissing me. I told him to stop. I just wanted to talk. But he’s so much stronger than I am, and I couldn’t get away.
[Cries.]
I—oh, God, I can’t say it. He—he forced me. He just did it while I cried and begged him to stop. And the most fucked-up part is there’s no DNA. Because of what he used. This—this thing. Not his own—because he’s—God, I can’t say this. I want to die. I want to fucking die.
I’m scared. So scared, so lost. I can’t prove anything. All he left behind were bruises. But something is wrong inside me, something is broken. Because of him.
I’m speaking out for others. Not myself.
There’s nothing I can do now but warn you.
He did it to me.
He’ll do it to you, too.
[Reaches to turn the camera off.]
———
The room was utterly still. All that moved was the slow sequence of city lights blinking on and off, a glowing code printed on the floor.
I pushed my chair back. The others parted.
I looked at their faces but didn’t see them.
Ren was not here anymore. She was.
She saw Adam (kill him), Adam (kill him), over and over.
Square chin. Broad shoulders. Cock in hand as he said, I’m gonna fuck you with this.
Sometimes an emotion is so intense, so much bigger than what a human brain can hold, that it no longer registers as feeling. It’s just the way your hands are shaking, uncontrollably. The way your lungs are crushing your heart. The way your skin writhes so hard you would tear it off if you could open your fists.
People said things to me, things I didn’t hear because I was walking away. A hand touched me. I kept going. Trotted down granite steps, hurtled against a fire door and slipped in the snow and threw myself into a flat-out run. As hard as I’d ever run, completely desynced from myself. All body, no mind.
If I stopped, the thought would put itself into words.
No. Feel this, instead. Raw rage. Let it rise and burn off like gasoline. Let it evaporate in a trail of fire.
Let me run until I stop wanting to get my gun, and an address.
If I stopped, the words would come back. And now they were slightly different.
Now they went:
Kill her. Kill her.
—6—
THREE YEARS AGO
VLOG #131: ADRIFT
REN: I probably won’t even post this. Melodramatic wallowing, she’d call it.
What’s the word for subtweeting when you’re doing it on YouTube? Subtubing?
Whatever.
This is about her. I don’t care if she knows.
It’s four a.m., and I’m talking to my webcam instead of getting drunk with my BFF on her birthday. Because she hates me. Or at least everything I’ve become.
Friday was my two-year anniversary on T. My friends at Umbra wanted to celebrate, but I said no because it was Best Friend’s birthday. I didn’t pick my start date on purpose—I didn’t pick it at all. The clinic assigned it, and when I saw it was her birthday, I thought it’d bring us closer. Something else we could share.
I’m an idiot.
We’ve spent every birthday together since we were eleven. The past decade. Half my life. Twenty-one is a big one, and lately birthdays are the only time we act like real friends.
She walked in on me while I was getting dressed. I haven’t gotten top yet, and . . . it’s weird. It’s weird when someone looks at a part of you that you can’t stand and says, “You turn me on.” Like they don’t care how much that part hurts you. Or how scared you are of losing it, because maybe it means losing them, too.
But she didn’t put two and two together, because she said, “Hot date?”
I thought she was joking, so I said, “Yeah, with an older woman.”
We bantered until she realized I meant her. Then she said, “I’m going out with people you don’t like. You’ll hate it.”
Idiot me kept joking around. She kept rebuffing.
Finally it clicked.
I said, “You don’t actually want me there.”
“You invited yourself,” she said. “I was trying to be polite and give you an out.”
I said, “Didn’t know I needed an invitation. This is our thing.”
And she said, “It was our thing. But you’re not you anymore.”