Chapter 1: The Morning After

It is almost six in the morning and the ceiling I am staring at above me is the same dull off-white it has always been, yet it feels different, oppressive, like it is pressing down, crushing the air out of the room.

Mike had still been half-drunk when I finally got him into bed. I had to half-lift, half-guide him up the stairs, his weight heavy against my smaller frame. He fell into the sheets and was gone almost at once. I am lying on top of the sheets as far away from him as possible, on the very edge, so close I could almost fall off! I look at the time as I see the first gray light of morning beginning to seep around the edges of the blinds. I am close to the door, closer to bolting and fleeing Mike’s house, Mike’s bed, Mike’s life, Mike!

I’m still wearing the ratty clothes that do not belong to me. The sweatpants are an old pair that once belonged to the host of the party. They are far too big. I have rolled the waistband over twice and tied them tight so they don’t fall off. The cuffs are rolled three times so they do not drag and I don’t trip, and still they pool around my ankles. The oversized t-shirt is worse. It is stained with dried paint in uneven blotches of black and gray, like my thoughts, full of holes, like my heart. It smells musky, faintly of turpentine and someone else’s life. I could have changed into any of the clothes I keep at Mike’s place. There are drawers of my things here. Soft sleep shirts. The little bootie shorts I usually wear, pajamas, so many choices but I did not have the strength, I did not have the courage. My body is a map of what happened and I cannot look at it, cannot let Mike look at it. I cannot let him see the full inventory of my own betrayal!

The marks are everywhere. Small purple crescents on the insides of my arms where fingers dug in and held. Larger bruises blooming across the tops of my thighs and the soft flesh of my stomach. Bite marks on the outer curves of my breasts, some already darkening to the color of old wine. My ass is sore in a deep, spreading way that has nothing to do with sitting and everything to do with how hard I was taken. I can feel the ghost of teeth along the side of my neck, the hot breath on my nipples from a mouth that had sucked on them just hours ago so hard I had thrown back my head and screamed in ecstasy, the strength and weight of his delicious cock that had relentlessly buried itself inside me so completely, awakening levels of physical pleasure I did not know were possible! The body of the man who enveloped me ... took me ... broke me ... a man that was not Mike.

I can sense Mike asleep beside me. He is on his back, mouth slightly open, while soft, steady snores escaping his mouth. His sandy hair is messy against the pillow. One arm is flung out toward the center of the mattress as if even in sleep he is grasping for me to pull me in, to hold me, to make everything better, but I am out of reach and I don’t deserve to feel that comfort, I don’t know if I will ever deserve to feel safe in his arms again.

I am sober enough to drive. I know that. The last of the alcohol burned away hours ago. My head is clear in the worst possible way. Every thought is sharp-edged and impossible to escape. I need to leave before he wakes and sees my face, before he sees the way my eyes are swollen and blood red from crying, before he notices the marks that no amount of long sleeves will completely hide once the day starts. But I cannot make my bruised and aching body move. I am pinned down by the weight of what I have done.

The last nine hours replaying in my mind without mercy as I remember everything, every detail, every word, every touch, every sensation, all the pieces that keep cutting so deep.