Grace dragged herself into the shower. Her legs were shaking so badly she couldn't stand, so she sat in the tub and let the hot water rain down on her. She rubbed herself hard all over with soap, but she couldn't get clean. She felt dirty and used. She finally dragged herself to her bed, after checking the lock on her door three times and placing a chair under the handle. She cried herself to sleep, curled up in a fetal position, hugging herself.
She slept for most of the next day. She was afraid to get out of bed. Her head ached and her body hurt. Finally, she knew she had to get up. Her roommate would be home and wondering why she was in bed. She dragged herself out and stood in the shower again. Then she walked over to the dining hall. She felt like every person that passed her was staring at her - that they could tell what had happened to her.
She got a tray full of food and sat down at one of the tables. The conversation at the table died. She looked up and saw a group of girls who had been at the party the night before. She read their faces and did not see sympathy or concern, but rather disgust. She looked at them inquiringly. What was happening?
"Jesus, Grace, don't you have any respect for yourself?" asked one. Grace looked at her. What was she talking about?
"I sure hope you made them all wear condoms." All? Made them? Grace was confused.
"Oh, don't try and look so innocent, Miss I'll-be-a-virgin-til-I'm-married," added another. "It's all over campus that you did almost the entire KAP House last night."
"No," Grace whispered. "No, I didn't. They..."
"It better not have been my boyfriend," said a third. Grace looked up into the face of Jim's girlfriend. Her eyes gave it away before she had a chance to recover.
"Oh, my God, Grace. How could you be such a whore?"
Grace discovered that the frat boys had done their work. While she had been sleeping, they had been spreading the word that she had spread her legs for anyone who had a condom. They were launching a pre-emptive strike, just in case she decided to do a Debbie Whittaker.
******************************"Who's Debbie Whittaker?" Nick asked softly.
Grace looked up at him. The pain in her eyes cut through to his soul. "She was this girl. She was date-raped the first year I was there. It wasn't the same guys. She went to the Dean. He didn't want to hear about it, didn't want the bad publicity for the school. So she went to the police. They arrested the guy. It split the campus. Half the people blamed her, said she had led him on and what was she doing in his room, and she was wearing sexy clothes, just asking for it. The other half said that the guys had been getting away with this for too long and 'no' meant 'no'. Everybody tried to make her into a symbol for their cause. She lost her identity totally. She was just the 'rape girl'. And the guy and his friends churned out so many lies in the form of gossip and rumors that people started doubting her and she became the 'vindictive girl'. She dropped the charges and left school. She went home and locked herself in her parents' garage and turned on the car."
Nick's arms tightened around Grace. She had left school too. She had gone home to her parents. Oh, please God, don't let her have tried to...
"I left. I didn't even try very hard to stay. I didn't have the courage. I just ran away. I went home and told my parents that I was dropping out, that my courses didn't interest me and that I wouldn't go back. I didn't tell Mom and Dad what happened. My dad would have killed them. If he could have beat my mother to it. They knew it was something more than what I was telling them. They figured some guy had broken my heart, but they couldn't get me to talk. Literally. I wouldn't speak. I spent all day in my room, sleeping, listening to music. Or I'd go for walks, four or five hours long. They were so afraid for me." Her voice broke on these words and it was a couple of minutes before she could continue.
"One day, my mom ran into Matt's mom at the supermarket. Mrs. Lowry said that she had heard I was home from school and my mom lost it a little. She said how worried she was and Matt's mom suggested that maybe Matt could come over and visit and maybe that would help. They meant well..." Her voice trailed off. She was silent for a few minutes.
Nick was not going to be the one to break the silence, even if he had to sit here for a week. Eventually, Grace began again, her voice small and tremulous.
"Matt came over one day. My Mom made me come out of my room - said I had a visitor. They didn't have to worry about me being presentable. I took three or four showers a day." She looked up at him, anguish written in her eyes. "But I couldn't get clean." Nick nodded slightly in understanding and she continued.
She told him how, at first, Matt would just sit there with her, talking, letting her be silent. He would talk about people they knew, how his workday had gone, news stories of the day. Eventually, she began to answer him, short one-word answers.
"It took weeks for him to get me to do that. He had incredible patience. I can't believe he stayed."
But he had stayed. He had gone with her on her long walks, soothing her with an endless stream of words. He took her to movies and let her sit in silence watching the screen. They went bowling and she threw the balls down the alley without a word.
"He figured out what happened to me. He didn't know the details but he could see my reactions when he mentioned certain news stories. And we went to a movie where there was a trailer for a new movie and it showed a woman being assaulted. I got up and went to the ladies room and threw up."
Matt decided that it was time for Grace to deal with it and stop hiding from life. It was over a year since she had come home from school. She was beginning to come out of her shell, thanks to him, but she still spent all day cooped up in her room with her computer. He saw her after work and on weekends, but she still had those long hours in which to brood.
"We went for a drive. He took me out in the country. We climbed a hill and he pointed at the surrounding countryside. It was really quite pretty. And then he said to me..." Grace's voice broke and she paused again. Her face was pinched and white. Nick was feeling out of his element. He wanted to be here for her, but maybe this would be better handled by a professional. He sure wasn’t going to stop her now, though, and ask her if she wanted a shrink.
Grace took two deep breaths and then continued. "He told me that we were the only ones there. No one but him was there to hear. And he wanted me to say the words out loud. He wanted me to say what had happened to me. I shook my head. I said, No, over and over again. Finally, he grabbed me by the arms and shook me. He held my face in his hands and he told me that if I didn't do what he said he was going to tell my parents." Grace started shaking. Nick tightened his arms around her and rocked her.
Grace's voice was cracking and she was gulping great lungfuls of air. She had to get through this, she knew. Nick couldn't believe that she wasn't crying. But her body was shaking so much, he was afraid she might go into convulsions.
"So I did. I looked at him and I said, 'I was raped' and he said, 'Say it again' and he made me say it over and over and he made me shout it. He said we were the only ones on the hill and no one would hear me, and he made me shout it over and over again until I was hoarse."
And when she was done and could say it no more, Matt had held her in his arms and said, "There. Now that's over. Now you can get better."
Nick thought that was a little cold, but he hadn't been there. Maybe it was the right thing to do. Tough love, or whatever they called it.
So that was it, Grace said. From then on, she and Matt were together. They dated for another year. She did her college courses online and got really good at web design. Matt hated it. For him, it was a symbol of her seclusion, her illness, her weakness. Then she told him she was moving out to California. She was feeling much stronger, better about herself. She knew she had him to thank for that, but she wanted to try life on her own. He argued with her she wasn't ready, she would fail, she needed him - and finally, he told her parents.
"What?" Nick was aghast.
"No, he didn't tell them what happened to me. But he told them that I wasn't as strong as I thought and I shouldn't be going away and blah, blah, blah. He enlisted my mother on his side, and believe me, Joan Barrett is a formidable weapon, especially when she thinks she is protecting her baby. Between them they wore me down for six months."
"So first he made you strong and then he tried to make you weak again," muttered Nick. Grace nodded. "How did you convince them?" he asked.
"Daddy," she said, and her voice broke. "I think he knew. I think he figured it out too, what had happened to me. He always called me his Baby Bird. And he could see how important it was to me and he finally put his foot down and said that a Baby Bird had to leave the nest sometime. And I had his permission and blessing to go to California." Grace was crumbling. She was stammering so badly, she could hardly get the words out. Tears streamed down Nick's face. He had a feeling that he was hearing his own parents described. He understood completely.
When next Grace spoke, her voice was cold. "And there you have it, the sad tale of Grace Barrett. But Matt won after all. He said that he wanted me to marry me, that he would allow me to have this little 'fling' of independence, as he called it. He insisted that we get engaged, and I just gave in like I was used to doing. That sounds so awful and it wasn't like that. I did believe I loved him. I believed he had saved me and I was grateful. I thought that was love. And I believed that once he saw that I could survive on my own, he would be happy for me. For us. But he never gave me a chance to prove it to him. To prove it to myself."
Grace became silent. Nick held her in his arms. The light faded and they sat in the dark. Finally, he lifted her off him. He stood up and picked her up in his arms. He carried her into his bedroom and laid her on the bed. He lay down behind her and held her. They lay like spoons, fully dressed. They fell asleep together without a word.
