Locker Room

A Story of Assault

Reader Advisory:
This section contains sexual assault, physical and emotional humiliation, bullying, and reflections on trauma and abuse. Reader discretion is strongly advised. Only continue if you feel able to engage with difficult content.

II. School Awful Arc

Reader, I set out to write some stories and vignettes about awful things from high school and college. This was before I made a realization. I thought this was my drop.

The Blanket Chapter 13 2002

Something happened in the locker room that day that shouldn't have. It's the kind of thing that rewires a brain and alters DNA. It spikes your proteins before anti-vaxers made it cool.

I don’t remember the month or the season. I do remember it was cold out. I don’t remember how it fits into the timeline. It is as if it is a ghost of the memory I once had.

When the biggest and strongest guy takes someone he perceives to be weaker, holds him down, pulls down his dignity, and forces a two liter of Mountain Dew he found in a trash can where it shouldn't go, it changes you.

What's worse is when there’s an entire locker room of guys there, too. And you don't know if they're laughing or in shock or if others are holding back people trying to do the right thing because your face is pushed into the wet shower floor.

The floor was also cold, and nobody gave me a blanket; okay, real talk, the floor still is cold, and I still have no blanket. I wish he did this before I changed back into my clothes for school. I wouldn’t have had to walk around in damp clothes the rest of the day.

I heard squishing when I walked. My socks make nasty sounds with each step.

I sat at my desks slowly and gingerly. I made sure the backs of my legs made contact with the chair first.

I felt cold water against my sore skin.

I don’t know how long I didn’t go to the bathroom.

I hate wet clothes to this day.

I do know he held my face down because he knew what he was doing and didn’t dare look me in the eye.

That cold adds up.

For that reason, I don’t know if any “friends” tried to help or if they tried to intervene. I’m left with more questions the more I try to remember, and not the “fun” kind of questions.

I wonder if I fought him off enough. I think I froze when he came from behind, held me down, and sat on my back.

I was fully exposed like the day I was born, but he wasn’t gentle.

I don’t think I let out a noise. I don’t even remember if I could breathe.

People don’t surprise me from behind any more. I grew more senses.

I understand when women tell me they didn’t fight or wonder if they didn’t fight enough. I get it too well.

I cried for God in Christian school and heard laughter.

Fallout Chapter 14 2002

The next day we had PE class again, and nothing was different. It was another day on the job.

For everyone

but me.

I don't drink Mountain Dew, and I avoid getting dressed in the locker room.

If I have to get dressed in the locker room, my inner voice reminds me that some people are sick, but public gyms are decent.

On the fifth reminder, my fists or keys are ready. My heart is pumping, my breathing increases, and my body tenses.

I’m not afraid anymore, I don’t think? But it won’t happen again as long as I’m breathing.

Sometimes on the seventh reminder that a public gym is decent, I start to believe it.

On the ninth reminder, I brace for it again. I quit counting the reminders.

Anywhere in life, when someone comes from behind and I don’t hear them or expect it, I jump. I wish I didn’t. It makes some people sad.

They don’t deserve that.

I don’t know when I trusted people for my safety again.

Or if I ever did.

Muddy Puddles Chapter 15 2002

Somehow the PE teacher heard about this. I don’t know how. I think I made an unguarded remark to my parents and my dad named what it was.

I was typically careful with what I said to my parents

It doesn’t add up.

I think?

I don’t really remember.

The PE teacher took me outside and talked to me by the highway. He knew, instinctually, that this conversation didn't belong in a “protected” place like a school, much less a Christian school where they tell us Jesus took care of the weak and vulnerable.

I don’t remember what he said but he tried to be warm, even verging on protective. I think he knew he had to do something, but somehow, he couldn't, wouldn't, or didn’t know what.

I heard something happened the year before with two other students and a coat hanger, and class peers warned me not to say anything if I didn't want him to be humiliated… or worse.

I do remember I finally choked out that I think I was raped.

I don’t know how he responded.

My eyes were too focused on the mud in the grass.

It hadn’t rained.

He said it sounded like a locker room scuffle and even had the “integrity” to ask if it was ok to leave it at that.

I think I must have said okay.

He encouraged me to keep my head up.

I wish I demanded to know how.

Until this confession I didn't use the word “scuffle”.

I confess to this day; I wanted to be like him. Even now in some of the darkest parts of my being that I don’t talk about, I still do.

And,

reader,

I’m sorry I did

and still do.