Day Twleve

A short story that focuses on the relationship between a high school teacher and a student who was recently raped in his care.

 

The worst part appeared to be that no one wanted to talk about it. No, wait, scratch that. The worst part was that everyone wanted to talk about it – but no one wanted to ask. They sat there with their professional Harvard pens poised to position themselves on the pristine paper like some sort of Dr. Seuss book gone horribly wrong. There were two of them, exactly alike except one had the masculine outdoor plumbing and the other had the feminine – at least, that’s what they told me in health class. I wondered why all of them had the same office – it was the same repetitive heavy dark wooden desk, rolling chair with a soft grey hue, and coffee table without the stale magazines that they provided in the reception area. I pondered if there was some sort of office-decorating magazine for these people. It’d be entitled Psychiatrist Confessions & Décor or something like that.

            We sat there for sixty minutes. I, as the ‘patient’ (although I felt much more like the specimen under the proverbial microscope, and I had a new sympathy for all the amoebas we observed in AP Biology) did my best to avoid eye contact and count the knots on the pine walls. They, as the ‘doctors’ (that word is far too loosely applied) watched me and took notes every time I blinked in an interesting fashion.

            My mother wasn’t sure who I would ‘open up to,’ so she scheduled me for both a boy psychiatrist and a girl one. This had been my fifth and sixth quacks (I’m sorry, they have a PhD, they deserve capitalization – Quacks) in the last ten days. There had been two at the hospital, one who had visited from the school and one more that we had visited locally. Granted, we lived in a small town so the local one knew my family tree better than I did. My mother’s latest-and-greatest plan had been to take me into the city, which was over two hours away, for this wicked Saturday afternoon. I was just thankful that there weren’t any psychiatrists open on Sundays, so tomorrow I was spared the misery of finding a distraction for who-knows-how-many-hours.

            The drive home was long. My mother had the music turned way down so I wouldn’t feel like I was in competition to talk. Not that I would talk. She, too, was playing the role of all the therapists out there. She didn’t want to ask, to inquire, for fear of asking the wrong thing. She much more preferred that the men in the white lab coats took care of it. I was going back to school on Monday, much to her displeasure. She thought it was too soon and that I was pushing myself. I didn’t argue - I found no use in it. In fact, I hadn’t spoken much in the last ten days at all. There was a ‘yes’ here, ‘no’ there, and a shrug fit most occasions. I had called work for her and set up her return – she needed to go back just as bad, if not worse, as I did.

            “I’m thinking of ordering pizza for dinner. How does that sound?” Her voice attempted to drill into my chained thoughts, but by now I had a protective cloud surrounding my body, keeping the thoughts and suggestions from penetrating my only defense. I shrugged.

            Not sleeping for several days tends to wear a person down. However, when I rolled out of bed after staring at the ceiling for the past six hours on Monday morning, I felt my skin itching to leave the house and head someplace, anyplace, besides a room that has straitjackets or padded walls within two hundred feet. We had, in fact, ordered pizza that Saturday night, but I had pulled the pizza apart and had merely fed it to our black Labrador named Whiskey while my mother was preoccupied with constantly refilling my drink and my dad fell asleep between bites from his long day at work. Whiskey seemed happy at least. I don’t remember much of Sunday. I had laid in bed until my parents went to church, and then I wandered downstairs, turned on CNN, and laid on the couch. When I saw the old Buick chug back into the driveway, I had crawled back upstairs, deciding it was easier to stay in my bedroom than to face the Inquisition.

            I didn’t look the same. For ten, no – twelve, days now I had been avoiding mirrors and shiny objects like they were from Three-Mile Island. Now, re-entering the public arena, I had no choice but to check myself out, make sure no snot was oozing out of my nose or something. I remembered my hair being fluffier, more ‘oomph’ per square strand or something. Now it just hung in long dark brown strings. No amount of cover-up could decrease the severity of the dark saucers under my eyes, so I didn’t even try. My skin was translucent pale, and I could see the blood, or lack of blood, flow under my skin. The fact that I was wearing a long-sleeved black turtleneck didn’t make me look any less ‘starving-artist,’ and my blue jeans that were once snug now needed the consideration of a belt. I added some black eyeliner and a little blush, so people wouldn’t run from me screaming ‘The Zombie is coming! The Zombie is coming!’ before grabbing my schoolbag and heading out the door.

            Opening the car door isn’t a task that usually picks up one’s heart rate, but as I reached out to grab the black handle on my used 2001 Cavalier I felt a swell of nausea tingle from my toes to my eyelashes. I opted out not using the trunk for my bag, as was my norm, but instead threw it in the seat beside me. I drove the twenty miles to school blaring Ani DiFranco so loud that I was incapable of thought.

            I made my way down the four mile drive to where the high school was perched atop the hill, blazing in all its glory with red and white, the school colors that clashed with the browns of the brick exterior. At the end of the drive, however, I was stuck. The road forked. The east fork was the designated parking lot for students. It was farther from the building, was only near the cafeteria, and getting a space was more impossible than getting a 99 on my AP Calculus exam. The west fork was the teacher parking lot. It was closer to the history wing, which is where I had my first class, was only a five minute walk from the building, and I could shove my Cavalier in between the chemistry teachers’ pick-up trucks and minivans – plus, I never got caught using the teacher parking lot. I always used the teacher’s parking lot. I went east.

            I slid into my front right corner seat in my AP Middle Eastern History course, my favorite course, and took out my notebook. The AP exam was quickly approaching and today’s topic was reviewing the spread of Islam. Mr. James Sawyer was our teacher, and to me he was and had been my track coach and philosophy club advisor since I was a freshman. He was attempting to draw China on the chalk board, although it was looking more like a rubber duck with each curve of the chalk. As the bell rang, he turned to address the class, and even though my eyes were locked on no particular smudge on no particular square of linoleum I knew he was looking right at me. The chalk fell, silence floated to the surface of the room to the point where I wanted to scream, and then he picked up the chalk, muttered ‘S**t,’ and started right from where he left off.

            I didn’t look at him the entire length of class. I stared at that same smudge on that same linoleum square. At one point someone dropped their book and the sound resonated like a car trunk being slammed. I have been in this constant state of lethargy where I swear I would have felt more if I had died. At that moment though, with that shattering sound, my heart jumped into my throat and I tasted bile while I choked on air and felt my shoulders scrape against my ears. No one even looked away from the blackboard.

            The bell took forever to ring, and yet at the same time I dreaded leaving the cluttered room that had housed my club meetings. I took extra time gathering the books that I never opened, and I put extra care into cinching up my leather schoolbag. When the last schoolboy (or schoolgirl – I wasn’t really paying attention) left the doorway I finally looked up from the very interesting scratches that danced on my bag.

            He looked almost as horrible as I did. We belonged to the same raccoon family with dark circles and glassy eyes, but his clothes were more disheveled. No tie, sleeves rolled up past his elbows, the top button of his shirt undone, and wrinkles graced his pants. His hair stuck up as miniature stalagmites and he had at least half a week of stubble overpowering his jaw (and he usually only had about two days of sandpaper built up). On any other day he would be a thirty-one year old who looked about twenty-one. Today, however, he was a thirty-one year old who looked at least forty-three.

            A cloud of dust erupted as he rubbed his chalky hands on his khakis, but somehow the dust settled on his pale blue shirt. He stopped moving, something that would be deemed impossible on any other day. Today was not any other day, though.

            I lugged my bag into the middle of the room and looked at him. I had wanted to scream for the last twelve days whenever people had wanted me to talk. Now, for once, my mind mimicked my voice: lifeless.

            He looked back at me. He didn’t look at me like I would break, like I would shatter if he stared too long. He didn’t look through me. He looked at me.

            “I, uh…” What does one say? An apology sprung to mind, but I wasn’t sure how to begin. I heard my bag hit the ground, but I didn’t remember dropping it.

            “Do you have anything important right now?” His voice shook on the beginnings of each word and he pocketed his car keys as he moved past me to the door. I turned slowly to face him and raised my eyebrow. Facial expression felt foreign.

            “I have AP English.” Despite my earlier desperation for school, I no longer felt an urge to be here.

            “So that’s a no on the important scale right? You already know how to read, so you’re covered.” He picked up the phone and called the office, but what he said will remain a mystery as he talked in his low voice. He locked his classroom door with his keys, turned off the lights, and gestured with his head to follow him. It took me all of three seconds to debate AP English versus the first time I’ve felt in control in twelve days.

            I hadn’t moved so much in twelve days. Now, bundled in a hooded sweatshirt, I stood about a mile away from the school near the edge of a clearing, facing a beaten maple tree. We had walked out from the school, and there were now eight cartons of eggs at my feet, all open ready to be released. Sawyer had stolen them from the Pep Rally Committee – I had no idea what they would use for the egg toss now.

            I picked up an egg and tossed it from hand to hand. He leaned against a neighboring pine, possibly covered in sap.

            “I’m sorry. I screwed up.” The voice should have been my own, because that was exactly what I was thinking. Instead, it was his. I retorted with a fake laugh.         

            “Ironic. I was going to say the same thing.” I underhanded the egg and it bounced against the tree. It never broke, just rolled within about six inches of Sawyer’s foot. He picked it up.

            “How the hell did you screw up?”

            “I should have fought harder.” I knew it sounded insane, but to me it was the only thing that made sense.

            “If I hadn’t left you alone then you wouldn’t have had to fight.” He wound up, looking like a professional baseball player, and chucked the egg at a tree about ten yards away. The egg splintered everywhere and yolk dripped off bark. It didn’t have a chance.

            The splinter of the egg sounded a lot like when I dropped my car keys twelve days ago in the teacher parking lot. It was darker then, though, and I wasn’t nearly as safe as I was now.

            “You saved my life. I was bleeding when you found me.” I could still remember the stale rubber smell of my own trunk, how tiny it was, and how incredibly scratchy the lining was. I picked up an egg and threw it. It bounced once and broke on the ground.

            “What happened that night?” Another egg left his hand and splattered against the same tree that I was half-assed aiming at. I didn’t want to talk about it. No insane person would want to talk about it. However, at the same time, words fell from my mouth before I could choose them.

            “It was after the conference. You went inside for a second, just to grab something, and I went to unlock my car door. I was supposed to get in, turn the key, and leave. Then he was there. He smelled like cigarettes. No filters – insanely strong.” I had picked up another egg without realizing it. “His voice was deep. Too deep to be human. He wasn’t a human. He was a monster.” The egg, by some form of magical intervention, left my hand and broke against the tree with a soft thud. “Suddenly he had his hand over my mouth, he was on top of me, and we were between vehicles. I could taste the day-old spilled gasoline from the other vehicles, and the ground was so cold.” Another egg hit the tree with a slightly louder crack. “After he was finished, I don’t remember him hitting me upside the head. I don’t remember him shoving me in the trunk. I don’t remember screaming for help for twenty minutes or you finding me. I just remember those damn cigarettes.” I picked up the entire carton of eggs and flung it against the tree before kicking the other seven open cartons lying around me. I was sobbing, gasping for air and I didn’t even remember feeling tears well up. I had stomped on the eggs, or at least that’s what I found out later on when I tracked yolk into the house, and I don’t remember any noise except some crazy girl screaming, bawling, and gasping. I do remember suddenly being on the ground. I do remember suddenly being hugged, wrapped in a hooded sweatshirt and pressed against a pale blue dress shirt. I do remember realizing that the crazy girl was me.

            I can’t remember how long we were outside. Buses began to drive by, so the day had drawn to a close. The curtain was falling. I looked up from my spot on the ground, sitting beside him, and realized he was crying too. Between tears he was begging for my absolution, begging for me to forgive him for running inside for twenty minutes, begging for my pain to stop.

            “I can understand why you didn’t visit me in my hospital room while I was admitted.” Those had been three long days. Days of exams, collecting evidence, and questions. I didn’t want to be there, let alone him. “I was never mad at you. I never blamed you. I know you didn’t walk into that room, but I’m not stupid, Sawyer, - what did you do on day one after you found me?”

            “Called 911. Rode with you to the hospital. Called your parents. Waited in the waiting room. What about you?”

            “I was in and out of consciousness, but I was being treated for a head wound. That same night they did a rape kit, gave me the Morning After Pill, and cut my fingernails because apparently I had scratched the guy. What about day two?”

            His voice was quieter than I could ever recall hearing it before. “I waited in the waiting room.” I felt like I was cheating, because I already knew his answers.

            “I was tested for STDs and a psychiatrist came in to meet with me.” We went through all the days. One through eleven. Feeling personally responsible, he had waited in the waiting room while I recovered for four days – leaving an hour before my discharge because he was afraid I would hate him. Many people wouldn’t believe this story. They wouldn’t believe that he would feel personally responsible. Most people would just recognize that what happened was no one’s fault but the rapist. He broke me, he ruined me – not Sawyer. Sawyer didn’t see it that way. He was a man with many faults, and he was well aware of all of them (not that he’d admit it). I often reassured him of his goodness, his honesty, and his own belief that people were, in fact, decent. More than destroying me, a student and a friend, I believe what happened to me made him lose his faith in humanity. With that, he admitted to getting trashed on the fifth and sixth days, and wallowing in self-pity for three days after that. Then, according to him, he physically returned to work while he mentally damned himself to Hell. I admitted to not eating, sleeping, and surely attempting not to think while my body slowly healed. I told him on what days the soreness lessened, bruises turned yellow, and on day nine the stitches in my head were removed. On day eleven he went to the store and bought over fifty dollars worth of eggs and smashed them against an abandoned building next to his apartment. On day eleven I stabbed myself with a pen to see if I was capable of feeling anything. Even though there was still a gnash in my hand and a blood stain on my towel, I had barely flinched when the pen slipped into my flesh.

            We sat there in silence for a long time, and eventually we began collecting the cardboard egg cartons and squishing them together. We walked the mile back to the school, and certainly not at an eager pace. I had learned something for this, something precious. I had learned that I wasn’t broken, that I wasn’t destroyed. I was alive, breathing, and learning to survive. Someday, not soon – but someday, I would thrive. What was more important to me, as silly as this sounds, is that I knew the same would be for him. He was the kind of guy who blamed himself. The kind of guy who took responsibility and silently mourned for things that shattered his view of the world, that’s who he was. I knew, that with a little help and some blind trust that he would be that man again. Eventually.

            I figured that the conversation had ended for awhile. He and I were equally not the chatty types. We had been a private therapy session for one another, and now we’d let each other move by without another word. Or so I thought. As we reached the door of the building, he put his hand on it as though he were to open it for me, but instead, stopped flat, blocking me.  

            “On day twelve…” he began, eyeing me, “I learned that I have to forgive myself. I don’t know how, but I know I must. What about you?”

            I instinctively placed a hand at the base of my neck, where my stitches once were and now only a heavy scar remained. I half-expected my hand to come back covered in blood, but instead I exhaled in relief when a piece of eggshell stuck to my fingers.

            “On day twelve, I learned how to survive.”

Author's Note

what do you think of the relationship? is it a normal one? is it pushing boundaries? does this seem like a possible situation?

Reviews

[Gabriella]

This is an unlikely relationship between teacher and student, but possible of course. One I'm sure would cause a controversy if witnessed by a third party. But then, this is fiction and it's perfectly acceptable that it's about an unusual situation. Your story is beautifully written from beginning to end, especially with your use of metaphor and the bitterness and cynicism you portray in your narrator. You also do very well in revealing a lot of other things about your character, for instance, it is no surprise that she is so well spoken when she describes that night to Sawyer because she's in all these AP classes. Also, it was amazing how well you wrote about her conflicting emotions. I look forward to reading more.