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But I couldn’t bring myself to talk. Physically couldn’t. A lump settled in my throat as soon as I walked through the doors. Again, I knew what this meant. I wasn’t getting the flu. Didn’t have mono.
I studied physical manifestations of spiritual imbalances in college and then got farther into it as I began my yoga courses. Not for everyone. “More new age horse shit,” were Lucy’s exact words.
But I believed in them. And there was no hiding the evidence. Technically, I was in perfect health. Until I walked through those doors and it was almost impossible to swallow. The entire class, my throat was sandpaper. It was about my throat chakra and my inner truth. It was the link between my heart and my head, and the harder I tried to suppress my emotions, the bigger the lump grew to.
But this afternoon it was worse than it ever had been. I could only take a strangled breath around it. I knew that meant I had to speak the unspeakable.
I waited until almost the end of the class. Because I was a procrastinator in everything in life, obviously it would work tenfold for having to vocalize something I’d previously kept quiet with a ferocity that my life depended on it.
And it did, in a way.
But I knew that this silence would slowly kill whatever was left in me.
I stood on shaky legs, wiped my sweaty palms on the thighs of my yoga pants.
“My ex-husband said that it wasn’t rape when I’d willingly ‘let him in there’ before,” I said, my voice flat and clear and scarily detached. “My screams, my pleads, my struggles, that still didn’t make it rape,” I continued. “Not even when he punched me in the face so hard that he fractured my cheekbone.”
I touched the smooth skin that had a small mark, slowly fading, sinking into the skin to join the scars on my bones.
“It wasn’t rape even though he’d kidnapped me because he wanted money.” I laughed. “Money. Three million dollars was the price of whatever was left of my innocence. My faith in the goodness of the world.” I paused. “No, that’s not right. I still have faith in the goodness of the world. I just lost faith that I would get that. Because apparently there is a dollar amount where the man who promised to cherish you and love you, decides to brutalize and violate you.” I paused because I had to. Because images were assaulting my mind with a stark reality that made me blink rapidly to bring the room back into view and chase away the shitty hotel room.
Chase away the squeak of the bed.
The rough breaths in my ear.
The pain of being split in two.
I forced myself back into reality.
“Of course, his ability was always there, with or without the money,” I continued, voice hoarse. “Maybe he would’ve done it anyway. If not to me then the next woman to fall in love with that mask he wore. It’s a lot of maybes, and I’m not allowed to work in those.” I looked at the faces around the room. They were full of kindness. Understanding. Pain. “Because then I go into dangerous territory. Maybe I hadn’t left Heath’s. Maybe I didn’t answer that door. Maybe I fought when he uncuffed me to let me use the bathroom, and I escaped. Maybe I died in the back of that truck.”
My voice was still cold. Still empty, even though I was filling all of my haunted and tortured thoughts into it.
“Or maybe I didn’t marry him in the first place,” I whispered. “Maybe I went with a man who promised me the world and not the fantasy that Craig had constructed to hide my nightmare. Maybe I didn’t lose my baby, maybe I made the right decision for once.”
A tear trailed down my cheek, which was weird since I didn’t feel sad.
“So I’m not allowed to play maybes,” I said. “It happened. And despite what he said, it was rape.” The word was ash on my tongue. “And I’ve been feeling so ashamed. Of his actions. I’ve been feeling like it’s my shame to hold onto. To let rot my insides. When it’s his shame. This is not something I should hold inside because it makes me feel dirty to admit to the world, let alone myself. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault, but that doesn’t mean anything. Because it happened. And I’m here. And I’m lost.”
Heath
“Hey dude, you feel like fucking up some drug dealers?” Rosie asked cheerfully, entering his office belly first.
He glanced up. “I do not feel like getting murdered by your husband, so no,” he replied dryly.
She scowled at him. “No one’s any fun anymore,” she moaned.
“I would’ve thought Polly and an excessive number of tacos would’ve cheered you up.”
