Going Under (36 page)

***

It was humiliating: legs spread, swabs
taken, blood drawn, questions asked. I screamed when my father left
the room before the exam started, and they erected a hasty paper
screen, separating us so that I could hold his hand while they
prodded me.

Most of my answers to the questions were “I
don’t know.” I recalled the faces of each of my attackers, but I
couldn’t remember what they said to me. It was mostly blackness
with a few sharp rays of recollection: the stifling closet,
something shoved down my throat, several hands in places they
didn’t belong.

The exam concluded with “three days.”

“We’ll get the DNA test results in three
days, Ms. Wright.”

“Call me Brooke. I’m a fucking kid,” I
snapped.

The nurse bristled, then remembered I was a
rape victim. A brutally raped victim. They had sodomized me, made
me bleed, and there was damage done to my cervix. It would heal,
and I could have all the babies I wanted, I was told. It was little
comfort, but I understood they were just giving me the facts.

“Honey, is there anything else you want to
tell me before I bring an officer in here to talk to you?” she
asked.

I thought no, then remembered the terrible
shame of one event. Right before I blacked out for good. I was
embarrassed and asked Dad if he could leave us alone for a
minute.

“Girl stuff,” I said, and he nodded and
left.

I glanced at the nurse before averting my
eyes. “I think I had an orgasm.”

She said nothing. I waited.

“Did you hear what I just said?” My head
snapped up to meet her gaze.

“Yes, Brooke. And it’s okay. It doesn’t mean
anything if you had an orgasm,” the nurse said.

“It doesn’t?” I wasn’t convinced. I thought
there was something wrong with me, that my body was telling me I
actually enjoyed it.

“Orgasms are physical responses. They don’t
speak to whether your heart wanted them,” the nurse said. “They
certainly do not demonstrate consent on your part.”

I was quiet for a moment, staring at my lap,
thinking through what she said.

“But shouldn’t I have been so scared and
angry that my body wouldn’t respond that way?” I asked after a
time. “Shouldn’t my body have shut down or something?”

“You
were
angry. And I’m sure you
were terrified. That doesn’t mean you aren’t still going to have a
physical response to stimulation.”

I cringed at the word “stimulation.” The
nurse saw and sat down beside me.

“The adrenaline you felt from your anger and
fear could have actually aided your orgasm,” the nurse
continued.

I looked up sharply.

“I’m just trying to help you understand how
your body and mind work together to achieve orgasm,” the nurse
explained. “And it has nothing to do with desire or being in the
mood. You did not desire your orgasm. Do you understand?”

“I’m so ashamed,” I whispered, and she
hugged me.

“Sweetheart, you have nothing to be ashamed
about. You did nothing wrong. What you felt was something taken
from you against your will. It doesn’t diminish or bring into
question the validity of your attack. You were raped, whether you
had an orgasm or not.”

I nodded, trying desperately to believe
her.

“There’s research out there about this. Not
enough, but it’s there, and some suggests that as many as one in
five rape victims experience orgasm. Women are ashamed to admit it
because they think it means they weren’t really raped or that they
enjoyed it.”

I buried my face in my hands.

“Brooke? Please understand that you did
nothing wrong,” the nurse said. “Your orgasm was not
voluntary.”

“I hate that they took that from me!” I
screamed.

“I hate it, too,” the nurse replied. “But if
you’re brave and strong, you can make them answer for it.”

I didn’t want to make them answer for it. I
wanted to go hide in a cocoon somewhere. I wanted to run from my
attack or, at the least, pretend it didn’t happen. I must have been
shaking my head because the nurse kept encouraging me.

“Brooke, you’re brave enough to do it. I
know you are. I can feel it. You don’t have to settle for what they
did to you. You don’t have to live with it or try to make do with
the situation. You can heal from this. You can get justice.”

Just then the officer entered, and I looked
at her through tear-stained eyes.

“Officer Patterson is very friendly, Brooke.
She’s here to take your statement and ask you a few questions.”

I nodded, settling into a light shiver. I
stared at the chipped polish on my toes, wondering how the paint
got messed up so quickly when my pedicure was brand new.

Twenty-One

My mom arrived on the first flight out of
San Francisco. It was a little weird, her staying in the house with
us. Dad was officially dating Ms. Manning, and Mom was married. She
was going to surprise me with the news the following week. I
learned that Mom was shopping for a dinner party at the time of my
rape. Dad was finishing up his end-of-week reports at work. Ryan
was sitting at home with his sister, waiting for my arrival.
Everyday, mundane living, and I wish I could have been any one of
them during those hours instead of the person I was.

Ryan came over the night of my attack,
concerned because I hadn’t called him. Dad was reluctant to let him
in, but I told him I wanted to see my boyfriend. I wasn’t sure if I
should tell Ryan what happened, but it was hard to keep it a
secret. He knew instantly that something was wrong. He noticed my
wrists when he sat down beside me, so I told him the truth. He
stayed up with my dad and me the entire night. I was too scared to
sleep. Dad wouldn’t let me out of his sight, and Ryan wanted to
make sure I didn’t hurt myself. He didn’t say it, but I got the
impression.

I didn’t go back to school. Neither did Cal,
Tim, or Parker. News broke early Monday morning about my attack,
though my identity was kept private. The boys were at least
eighteen, so their faces showed up on television screens all over
the city. By the following week the story had gone national once
the boys were connected with the Fantasy Slut League. It was the
most sensational news story to hit the greater Raleigh area since
the Duke lacrosse players scandal. I didn’t want to see or hear any
comparisons between the two stories: the Duke players were
innocent. Cal, Tim, and Parker were not.

Tim would prove the hardest to prosecute, I
learned. DNA evidence found no traces of semen. That didn’t
surprise me. I was certain every one of them wore a condom. I was
surprised when DNA tests matched a pubic hair found inside me to
Cal. Teeth marks on Parker’s hand corroborated my story of biting
him. The marks on my wrists were consistent with being bound. With
zip ties, I later learned. But nothing on my person pointed to
Tim.

Hunter, Mike, and Aaron were humiliated for
their participation in the league, but they weren’t charged with
any crime because they had no knowledge of the rapes. The school
could take no action against them because their sexual activities
occurred off campus. Patrick Langston was able to dig up additional
information I could never find: the girl responsible for feeding
sexual statuses to the boys about their “drafts.”

Annabel Kingsley was the most popular senior
at our school. I could never make sense of why she did it, unless
she simply loved the power and control it gave her over all those
girls. All four graduated quietly and disappeared from the harsh
media glare. Their story couldn’t stack up to the rape cases, and
I’m sure they were relieved to be forgotten.

Ryan visited me faithfully every day after
school to check up on me and bring me my class assignments. My
mother couldn’t be happier. She liked him immediately, told me over
and over how good he was for me, and I knew she was right. I showed
my appreciation as best I could, but I was still reeling from my
attack. Sometimes I couldn’t remember the conversations I had with
him when he popped by. Sometimes I cried on him for hours. Other
times I tried to kiss him because I thought I should do that as his
girlfriend, but it felt strange and scary. I was afraid of
intimacy. It scared the hell out of me thinking I was too
emotionally damaged to ever have sex again.

I visited Dr. Merryweather three times a
week after the attack. Suddenly I didn’t think therapy was
self-indulgent bullshit. I needed her. I needed her to help me sort
out my issues. I would not stay wounded forever. I was determined
to heal.

Amelia was the first to break her silence.
She called me herself to tell me she was coming forward. Tara was
the second. I was shocked when I learned she decided to press
charges. She actually visited me one morning, and I didn’t
recognize her.

“Yeah, I decided black hair was too much
upkeep,” she said, sitting across from me at the kitchen table
sporting her old strawberry-blond locks.

I grinned.

“And I guess the goth look really wasn’t me.
Just something I hid behind, but I suppose you already knew that,”
she continued.

I nodded, eyeing her surprisingly ordinary
khaki shorts and white T-shirt.

“I’m not supposed to be telling you
anything, but I think Tim is gonna cave and go for the plea deal. I
admit that I’d be relieved to not have to testify in court.”

“Understandable,” I said. “I’m hoping the
same goes for me, but the deal isn’t good. We’re talking years in
prison. Those boys may try to take their chances. Well, Tim,
anyway. He’s the only one who escaped DNA evidence.”

Tara scoffed. “Brooke, you think Parker and
Cal aren’t gonna try to take Tim down if they know they’re going
down? There’s no such thing as loyalty in those situations.”

I nodded, glancing at my cell phone. Ryan
should have been here by now.

“Well, I better get going,” Tara said.
“Again, sorry for being such a raging bitch to you before. You only
wanted to interview me about cafeteria food, right?” She winked at
me, and I giggled.

“Lame, I know. I’m not the smoothest
investigator, okay? What do you want from me?”

Tara hugged me and disappeared out the front
door, leaving me alone to wait for Ryan. Dad was still at work. Mom
went to the grocery store for milk.

I went into the living room and turned on
the TV. The four o’clock news was on, and I thought to switch the
channel to MTV or Bravo. There’d be something mindless to watch on
those channels, and that’s definitely what I needed right now. I
froze, though, when an update flashed on the screen about the rape
cases. Another girl had come forward claiming to have been raped by
all three of my attackers and a fourth. There they were, same
pictures as before, lined up in the center of the screen: Cal, Tim,
Parker . . .
Ryan?

Oh my God.

I stared, blinking several times because I
knew I was mistaken. My Ryan, displayed at the end of the line, and
I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.

It was instantaneous. I couldn’t get to the
hallway bathroom in time. I threw up all over the living room rug.
And then I collapsed on the floor staring at my mess. I didn’t have
time to clean it up. I had to get to my phone. Where was my phone?
I looked wildly about, locating it on the couch, and hastily dialed
Ryan’s number. Surely this was a mistake. Ryan was no predator. No
rapist. Someone got the wrong guy.

His voice mail picked up immediately. I
didn’t leave a message. I threw up again instead, then sat thinking
about the third girl. I knew someone who was gang-raped like me.
Lucy! And I dialed her number.

“Brooke, I don’t know what’s going on,” Lucy
said on the other end. She sounded panicked.

“What do you mean you don’t know? Did he
rape you?!”

“I don’t know why they showed his picture,
Brooke,” Lucy said. “Listen to me. He—”

“What the fuck is going on?!” I screamed
into the phone. But I couldn’t stand sitting around waiting for
Lucy’s explanation. My heart pumped madly, threatening to explode,
and I wanted answers from
him
before I died.

“He didn’t—”

I hung up abruptly in the middle of Lucy’s
sentence and left my vomit to soak in the carpet as I made my way
to Ryan’s house. I banged on the door. Kaylen answered, her
red-rimmed eyes large and scared.

“Move,” I demanded, pushing past her into
the house. I immediately saw Ryan sitting on the couch. His parents
were with him. “Glad to see you made bail,” I snapped.

“Brooke, you really can’t be here right
now,” Mr. Foster said.

I ignored him. “What the fuck is going on,
Ryan? Why did I see your face on the four o’clock news? Why are you
being charged with rape?”

I shook violently, taking deep breaths when
I remembered to in an attempt to settle my nerves and keep from
passing out from panic.

“Brooke, we cannot discuss the case with
you. Our attorney advised—”

“What the fuck?! Your attorney?! What’s
going on?!”

Ryan looked me square in the face. “I didn’t
rape anyone,” he said firmly.

Mrs. Foster spoke up. “Ryan, honey, you’re
not supposed to be—”

“Then why are you on the news? What
happened? For Christ’s sake, tell me something!” I screamed.

“I was there, Brooke, but I didn’t rape
her,” Ryan replied. He pushed his hand through his hair. “Jesus, I
was fourteen.”

“Ryan, that’s enough,” Mr. Foster said.
“Brooke, please go home.”

“No!”

“Brooke, I’m calling your father to come get
you.”

“Did you do anything?” I asked Ryan,
advancing on him.

He stared at me, eyes full of anguish. He
opened his mouth to reply, then closed it.

“I asked you if you did anything, you
fucking son-of-a-bitch.”