The Weight of Consent

This story contains themes of incestuous sexual abuse, coercion, and disability being used to excuse nonconsensual acts. It also explores the victim’s inaccurate view of consent, fear of criminalization, passive suicidal ideation, and dissociation. Please take care while reading.

"Hey, you alright?" Alana could see exhaustion in her friend's face, his tired eyes, tensed shoulders almost to his ears as he stared in wide-eyed embarrassment at being questioned about his emotional state.

"Yeah, just... no, I'm not alright. Do you ever feel like everything is just heavy? Like even being seen feels like too much? I should've skipped work today, I know I should've. I did nothing. I'm just a goddamn mess, and I'm sorry I'm talking too much."

"Hey, hey, you're okay. Seriously, Isaac, you - I've had those days. Sometimes, talking makes the heaviness lighter. I'll help you carry the weight, whatever's wrong."

"Whatever's wrong? Like, even if I had a problem involving something illegal, you wouldn't demand I do anything if I can't?" Isaac regretted his phrasing as soon as he said that. Alana might think he's on drugs, or committed a crime, which, technically he has, but...

"I'm not going to snitch on you. I mean it, whatever's wrong, you can talk to me. You don't have to, but you can." The two friends walked in silence for a while, Isaac trying to gather the courage to share the secret he had been keeping, trying to convince himself he wasn't betraying his family. They had betrayed him first.

"I'm just tired. So tired. Like I wake up wishing I was still asleep, like nothing about my life feels real until I have to visit my brother. Then everything feels far too real, far too much, I feel so much. I'm so tired, Alana, I don't know how long I can live like this."

"I didn't know you had a brother."

"I wish I didn't." Isaac's words still sounded tired, with that edge of irritation that exhaustion adds to every sentence, but Alana heard a darker tone of bitterness in that short sentence. She was tempted to ask why, but stayed silent, waiting for Isaac to backtrack. Which he did. "I don't mean that. I just - I wish I had a normal brother. My brother's intellectually disabled, he's not - he doesn't know what he's doing, and I'm not supposed to talk about it. I just - I'm a terrible brother. I'm a terrible person." Alana denied that, unwilling to let Isaac believe such a blatant lie. Isaac stayed silent for a while, debating whether to reveal what he wasn’t supposed to talk about.

"Wait, so you're not supposed to talk about your brother's disability? Or your brother, like, at all?"

"No, that's not - fuck, fuck, I can't," Isaac's breathing sped up, and Alana was even more concerned now. She tried to steady her friend, placing a hand on his shoulder, only for him to almost violent shrug her off. "Don't fucking touch me! Don't - please - I can't-" Alana held up her hands in surrender, to show she wasn't still touching him.

"You're safe, Isaac, nobody's touching you."

"I'm sorry, I can't - I can't pretend anymore. I'm just - I can't be touched right now. He keeps on touching me and I can't - I don't know how to explain without betraying them, my parents and my brother, and he doesn't know."

Alana let Isaac blink rapidly, staring straight ahead rather than at him, knowing eye contact was uncomfortable even when he wasn't struggling to speak. "What?" She questioned gently. "What doesn't he know?"

"That touching his brother is wrong, touching me... kissing me," he whispered the word kissing as though he was afraid of his own word, as though he was committing a crime by telling Alana, which, maybe he was. "Fuck he - he doesn't know it's wrong, he doesn't know what he's doing, but..."

"But you know, and you don't want him, do you?"

"No, I can't say that. I can't admit that. I can't do that to my family. I love him, I love him, I just - I'm not gay, I just can't - but he makes me touch him, he's stronger than me physically and our parents say this is my responsibility, my duty to our family, how I protect him, how I protect others from him... he's assaulted another man before, in the men's room at the gym, and if he has me, he won't seek out anyone else."

"He's sexually assaulted another man, and... what, he's allowed to still walk around and go to bathrooms, and your family is okay with that?!" Alana was angry. Isaac heard the outrage in her voice and felt like he wanted the ground to open beneath him, to just be sent to his grave right then and there. He was family, he was part of the problem, he was the problem...

Alana risked a glance at him, and immediately shifted gears. Isaac was ashamed, and that had never been the intention. "Hey, I, look at me," and Isaac did, Alana's green eyes like headlights and he was the deer, ready to die if she pressed accelerate, but she backtracked instead. "I'm not mad at you, I just - I just don't - I'm confused and angry you're in this situation, okay? You're not at fault here." Isaac breathed with relief when she said that, unable to believe her but still grateful to finally hear the words out loud from someone else, similar to words he had been writing to himself for months.

"I would be, though. If I tried to stop him, and he assaulted another man, our parents would blame me. Legally, this is all my fault because I can consent and he can't be held criminally responsible for what he's done, so I don't - I guess I consent... I don't want to be the reason anyone else is sexually assaulted. It's better if it's just me, I think. I'm just tired, Alana. I'm so fucking tired. I've been thinking about death, that's how fucking trapped I feel. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be saying that, I'd never actually do anything like that..."

"I understand what you're saying, dude. You don't want to die, you just want to stop. I've been there. I'm not nearly as stuck as you seem to be, but I've had sexual encounters I didn't want before, and it's like a goddamn glue trap, the way that I was left feeling my own skin, like everyone would see me the way he did."

"That's exactly how it feels, like I don't know how to be a person anymore almost. I go home and I'll be groped and kissed and our parents just cook dinner in the background like nothing's happening, and then we all eat together like a normal family but I don't feel normal. I don't feel real. And I go on the train to work and every time I'm touched, part of me just goes back to my brother's body against mine and I can't control anything, not even my fucking thoughts!"

"I'm so sorry you've been facing that, especially alone. Y'know, you don't have to go home. You are an adult. Do you want to spend the weekend with me? We could just hang out, and you'd have a reason not to face him for a weekend, and maybe the commute to work Monday will be better?"

Isaac's rapid blinking finally failed to contain his tears. He had logically known Alana would probably be kind if he had told her, he just hadn't actually trusted he would ever be brave enough to break his silence. Betray his family, his brother, he still felt like that was what he had done, but Alana was right, on one level - he was an adult. That fact kept him trapped in one respect, but it also meant he wasn't obligated to go home every night. "I'd like that. Thank you, thank you so much, I can't believe I actually - I - I told someone and you - you've been so nice, I can't entirely believe this is real."

"You don't have to. Here," Alana handed Isaac a tissue. "If this isn't real, we can be fake together now." Isaac's crying morphed into a small laugh. Together, a word that in his family filled him with dread and terror, finally felt akin to hope.