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Goddamn Malcolm. He never pulls punches, and for once, I just wish he would.
“Does the when really matter?”
“You know it does,” he says, and the thickness of his voice tells me he’s already figured it out.
“Right after you left me.” He goes to open his mouth, ask like he did last night to be more specific, but I beat him to it. “After you leftme,” I emphasize. “The last time.”
Even though I think he knew it was coming, I see the blow hit him, the pain skating across his face until I have to look away.
“Did you report it?” I nod. “Did anything ever happen?” I hesitate, and then shake my head. He cusses under his breath, hands raking violently through his windblown hair. “Godfuckingdammit,” he hisses under his breath. “Why not?”
I don’t answer right away, but it’s not because I don’t want to—it’s because I don’t know how. People always think survivors are the strong ones, that we made it through an ordeal, maybe went to counseling, so we’re automatically open and honest and accepting of everything that’s ever happened to us. What they forget is that, like addiction, self-loathing, hatred, rape is something we live with the rest of our lives. And though we might learn to accept the consequences and move past that moment so we are more, many of us live with it like a disease, the knowledge that it happened rooted in the back of our mind and memories—with that knowledge comes the lagging emotions and feelings, the memory of shame and pain and judgment.
Why didn’t anything happen after I reported being raped? “Because I was fifteen and drunk. Because the police officer who was taking my statement asked me if anyone would back my story up, and then he asked me if I was really raped, or if I was just suffering from guilt over making a choice I couldn’t take back.”
The sound that comes out of Malcolm is somewhere between a yell and a moan, and then his hands are on his head again, but this time, they stay there, as if he’s steadying himself. I don’t stop because I know what I’ve started, and we both need me to finish. “There’s evidence; they took a rape kit, but the only way to prove that I was raped, that it wasn’t consensual, was to launch an investigation.”
“And you didn’t.” His voice is raw, hollow, and aimed at the sand, where he’s staring.
I shake my head. “And I didn’t.”
“Why?” he chokes out. “Jesus, Nala, he hurt you. He deserves to pay, to go to trial, to have his fucking nuts cut off so he knows that he was wrong and he can never, ever do that again.”
I nod, hating the hitch in my throat, in my belly at the idea that I might have let him go free to do to some other girl what he did to me. Hating the panic and pain and fear that always seems to come crashing down like the last blow when I talk about this part.
“Yeah, he does. But no one believed me,” I say, almost to myself now. “No one other than Brooks, and he wasn’t there. They said they would do it, the police, that they would take the information, get names and question people, go to the guy’s house, but I could see it in the cop’s eyes—and even his partner’s, who was a female—that my story, whether it was true or not, was not an easy one to prove. So instead, I took that as a sign that it was my fault, that I had somehow put myself in this position, and living with what happened was my consequence.”
I can’t look at him now, because that shame is overwhelming and I need to retreat. Standing, I take one step before his hand snags mine. “Malcolm, please,” I start, but he doesn’t let go.
“It’s not your fault. Jesus, Nala, it’s not your fault.” And then he rolls to his knees, a move that isn’t fluid in his casted leg, but hard fought like everything else Malcolm wins over, and he stays there, in front of me, on his knees despite the awkwardness of his broken bones, and he holds my hand.
“I’m sorry,” he rasps out, voice gravelly. “It’s not your fault, Nala, and I’m so fucking sorry I left you like that—that I wasn’t there, that I never told you I loved you. It killed me to think of you, every time, thinking I didn’t want you.”
Malcolm wraps his arms around my waist and presses his face to my stomach, breaking my heart. This, right here, is the most vulnerable he’s ever been. “I love you,” he says. “So much it makes it hard to see straight, so much I can’t breathe without thinking of you every second. When I walked…it wasn’t because I didn’t love you. It was because I didn’t think I should, that you deserved better than some guy who comes from a fucked-up family and eats cement for a living.”
“Mal,” I start, but he leans back to make eye contact. My hands go to his hair, running through all the thick black strands until they are anchored there.
“You’re my reason, Nala, for everything. I survived growing up because you were there; I survived leaving because I knew you would be here when I came home…” He closes his eyes now, breathing deeply through his nose before opening them again. “Knowing what happened…it’s hard to survive, because I wasn’t here. But I’m here now.” His voice is fierce, his eyes open and determined. “And I’m never letting you go. I swear, Nala, whatever happens from here on out, I’ll protect you. And I’ll always make sure you know I love you—more than anything in this world, I love you.”
And that, right there, is the moment Malcolm Brady takes my heart and heals it.
