Page 153 of Breathe Like Hell

I almost wished there wasn’t a word for what he’d done to me, for what I’d let him do. I didn’t like reducing the complexity of all my formative years into a word as disgusting as that. Into a porn category. Into something people got arrested for. Everyone knew that word, but nobody knew what it meant to me.

They didn’t understand how twisted it really was in my brain. How many knots it’d tied in my ability to process anything. How disfigured I’d become after growing around this misshapen core. Nothing was neat or tidy or easy to explain to anyone.

They didn’t understand just how much shame came with it.

I twisted under my covers, shoving my phone away so I couldn’t see it anymore.

I was breathing hard into the pillow, my tears making the cotton wet, and my face was hot. That unrelenting shame poured over me along with each and every awful memory.

I didn’t stop him.

Why didn’t I stop him?

Anxiety gripped my chest. This panic attack had been brewing all week, building up bigger in my skull every time I tried to push it off. But I was running out of time.

I couldn’t stop thinking and thinking and thinking about all of it.

Every time he’d made me orgasm. All the sounds I’d made—not always bad ones. Good ones. And I hadn’t really wanted it at the time, but I needed him to stay, and I could get through anything except that. I needed someone to protect me.

Well, he didn’t.

Crawling out of bed and towards the bathroom, my stomach turned with nausea, the carpet burning my knees until I got to the linoleum, my phone forgotten in the hallway. Tightness engulfed my entire body and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t survive knowing this. I squeezed my eyes shut as my throat closed, pulling my hair with shaky fingers.

The memories shoved me further and further into the darkest corner of my skull. All I could do was wish that none of it had ever happened. I wished it with every single beat of my heart, and it was unbearable to know that wishing wouldn’t erase the feeling of my brother’s hands on my body. Nor the feeling of my hands on his.

Would it have been easier if he’d been violent?

Would I hate myself less?

I doubled over, palms pressing to the cold laminate.

Answers to those questions didn’t exist. Did I even want them to?

Was this why I wanted men to hurt me during sex? To fucking force me? Because he hadn’t?

My shame drowned me, suffocated me, killed me.

Anthony hadn’t ever been rough with me. He just wanted his younger sister sexually, and maybe in his head, that was exciting enough all by itself.

Hot tears poured down my cheeks as I choked on my sobs. The world was spinning out of control, my vision narrowing, my chest crushing itself. And there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t change this.

It happened.

I didn’t stop him.

And I didn’t tell anyone.

Those were the inarguable truths.

Fight, flight, freeze, fawn.

Fawn, fawn, fawn, fawn, fawn.

Let him do it. Over and over and over. Be nice to him or else something even worse will happen. Be agreeable or he’ll leave.

I wish I was different. I wish his mom never went to prison. I wish he never came to live with us. I wish he never made me love him. I wish I never trusted him. I wish I didn’t let him do what he did. I wish none of it ever happened.

My thoughts spiraled and spiraled and spiraled as I crumpled down onto the floor, unable to breathe or think about anything other than my regret and shame. The voice in my head just repeated the same fucking thing over and over.