I slam the microscope down against his head. He doesn’t even apologize now,
but smiles at me, and tells me that she belongs to him, and he’ll never let
her go. I hold it over him, waiting for him to give me a reason to set it
back down carefully. I pick it up. I look around the room for anything to
use as a weapon, but only find a microscope. Now that I have the upperhand,
I take my opportunity to place my heel against his, and force him to the
ground by the chest. He gets one more good shot in, but it seems to wear him
out, at least for a moment. We struggle with each other, neither one strong
enough to gain some kind of advantage. He thinks that will be the end of it,
but he just sent me into fight or flight mode, and I always choose fight.
Deciding that he would rather make the first move, he punches me in the
stomach with both fists, knocking the wind out of me. Both of us realize
that this argument is going nowhere, and that it’s about to get violent. We
continue to argue. He doesn’t care. He won’t even admit that what he did was
wrong. He won’t apologize for what he’s done. We begin to argue. I accuse
him of sexual assault, and he doesn’t seem concerned. I approach him with
obvious aggression, but he just sits there calmly, confident that all will
turn out okay. I walk up to his lab, and open the door without asking, glad
that it’s Saturday and the place is empty except for him. I step out, and
try to remember why I’m here, what I’m hoping to accomplish, and how I can
avoid this all getting out of hand. I stay in the car for a few minutes,
afraid to actually go up there, but knowing that it’s unavoidable. I arrive
at the science building.
I know that if I don’t, no one else will. I take the scenic route back,
because I’m still not sure that I want to do this. Not really, but it feels
like I could. I almost tear the car door off its hinges, I’m so mad. I walk
out of the police station, having just been proven that justice isn’t simply
blind, but actively hides from the truth. That would be ironic. I turn away
in a huff, worried that I’ll be the one behind bars if I say what I really
want to say to them. They say that can’t compel her. They keep their voices
low, explaining that she’s old enough to answer for herself. I’m nearly at a
scream now, begging them to see that she’s too young to make her own
decisions. They tell me they’ll look into it if anything changes, but until
then, this is how it has to be. They ignore the conjecture, and tell me that
there’s nothing they can do. I tell them it shouldn’t matter; that she’s
obviously just too scared of him. They tell me she’s changed her statement,
and that she had every right to do so. I relay what she said to me, but
they’ve already heard it. I walk in and ask to speak to someone important. I
walk out of the dorm, and drive to the police station, feeling useless to do
anything else. I respect her wishes, and leave her room. She asks me to
leave, and I realize it’s because I’m a man, and she doesn’t need that kind
of energy right now. I assure her it is, and she did the right thing. She
says she wasn’t even going to tell anybody, because she isn’t certain it’s
illegal. She says he didn’t touch her once. She says it was over quickly.
She says she didn’t feel safe trying to get away. She says he made her
watch. She says he touched himself. She says her much older ex-boyfriend
came by yesterday, and locked the door behind him. She breaks down crying,
not wanting to tell me, but needing to unburden herself. She doesn’t seem
okay. She says she’s okay. I ask her if she’s okay. Something seems off. I
drive out to visit my seventeen-year-old cousin, who is at a weeklong music
camp at the college.
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