Closure

CONTENT WARNING: DEPICTIONS OF R@PE AND TR@UMA

---

You never think it can happen to you until it does. And when it does, you think it can never change you. 

But you’re wrong. 

You’re so wrong. 

---

I met Gavin while I was working at a coffee shop. I wrote my number on his latte and he called me after my shift. 

We dated for a few months, and got really close. 

He was kind, and funny, and genuine. His eyes were a mossy green, the color of leaves in August. His were the kind of eyes that you look into and feel certain you’re safe. 

I think I could love him, in time. 

Right now, though, Gavin and I are on a break. 

Nothing happened. We get along perfectly, agree on important things, and we support each other, but I’m not sure if I feel the spark. 

In a way, I think he feels too good for me, which I know makes no sense. I can’t really describe why I feel this way. I can’t even describe the feelings I have for him. 

Does that make these feelings love? 

I don’t know, but I know I shouldn’t be in a relationship with him if I’m not sure how I feel. 

We still hang out together, though. He called me Wednesday night and invited me out to a karaoke bar with some of our friends. I agreed, and he told me he’ll pick me up Friday at nine. It was a short phone call. 

---

I don’t have classes on Friday, so I go to work that morning, until seven. I go home, shower, hang out for a bit, then get dressed. 

I chose a lavender halter tank, paired with jean shorts and sandals. I put on hoop earrings, then apply some makeup. By the time I’m done, Gavin is here to pick me up. 

The bar that Gavin chose also advertises live music. The ground outside is pulsing with the bass. 

We drink, and dance, and even sing some bad karaoke. While I’m on stage, I see this guy watching me with a piercing gaze. From here, his eyes appear black, which is super creepy. 

I didn't come here to meet guys, and he isn't my type, anyway. 

I finish my song and join the other girls at the bar. They already ordered another round, but I’m still looking over the menu as the bartender hands me a glass. 

“From the guy over there,” he says, pointing towards black-eyed guy. He raises his drink to me with a smirk on his face. 

I shrug. I’m not going to be the one to turn down free liquor. 

---

Where am I

How did I get home

What happened

I don’t know what happened

Was I drugged

I wake up screaming, my body aching everywhere. 

My thighs, bruised and beaten. 

My throat, battered. 

My nails, brittle and broken. 

I dream about it, in different ways. When I wake, the dreams fade and I know the truth. 

I know that I need to start processing it. 

All I want to do is black out

Just

Forget

I stare at the ceiling. 

I don’t know if I’m awake

I watch the fan’s blades go around and around. 

I can’t move. I can’t think. 

The only thing I can do is breathe. 

Am I even alive

That night comes back in pieces. Shards of memories I’d rather pummel into dust. 

Lifeless muscles refusing to move as I commanded. 

Hands groping and claiming, leaving bruises in their path. 

A twisted smile. 

Sharp teeth that didn’t feel human. 

Black eyes leeching the strength from me. 

Hot, reeking breath on my neck, in my ear, in my hair. 

My body trembling in fear and rage. 

A hand on my throat, tightening if I whimpered or cried. 

Too sore to scream

Stop 

Stop 

Stop

Stopstopstopstopstop

No 

No please

I stare at the ceiling. 

I don’t know if I’m awake. 

I don’t know how long it’s been. 

I can’t get up. I can’t move. 

I’m paralyzed. 

I have to get up. 

This is too similar

Get up get up get up 

I was on my feet. I regretted that instantly. My body aches. 

I had enough energy to use the bathroom, then climb back into bed. Everything hurts. 

I laid in bed, curled up in a ball when someone started knocking on my door. I curled up even tighter. 

“No.” My voice was hoarse.

“Tessa!” It was Gavin. “Tessa, are you in there?” His muffled voice sounded panicked. 

Gavin. Tears welled at the thought of him seeing me like this, even though he’s the only person I’d want to see right now. I didn’t want him to know. 

I didn’t even want to know. 

“I need to know if you’re okay.” In my head, I laughed. I let the tears fall. 

I got out of bed slowly and walked over to the door. I unlocked it and opened it just enough for him to see my face. 

“You saw me. I’m okay,” I lied as I went to shut the door on him. With his free hand, he grabbed it before it closed all the way. I let him open it again, backing away from the threshold so he could come in. 

He stared at me, shocked and horrified. I wonder what gave it away: the bruised neck, cheek, or the ones leaving a trail up my arms. 

I stood in the middle of my living room sobbing while he circled me, looking over what skin was exposed. He didn’t touch me. 

I didn’t know if I wanted him to touch me or not. 

His expression morphed into panic. He didn’t know what to do here. 

I couldn’t hold my body up any longer. I collapsed into his arms, and he picked me up and carried me back to my room. He tried to set me on the bed, but I clung to him, crying into his shirt.

He laid down next to me in the bed, holding me while I cried. 

I don’t know how much time passed. He was silent and unmoving, and I think he might have cried at one point, too. 

---

I woke up to the smell of eggs and french toast: my favorite. I was still in my bed, but the sun was spilling through the curtains. 

Had I slept all night? Did Gavin stay all night? 

I raised my body up in the bed, which took a lot more effort than it should have. As I sat there, I realized that Gavin probably knows what happened. 

I threw back the blankets, intending to head to the kitchen, but Gavin appeared in the doorway with a glass of water. He rushed over to me and covered me back up. 

“No, no, don’t get up. Breakfast is almost done.” He smiled faintly and returned to the kitchen. He left the water on the nightstand. I finished it in one gulp, but I was still thirsty. 

He came back into the bedroom with two trays of food, complete with syrup and orange juice, and set them on the dresser. He came back over to me and propped me up with pillows, then handed me a tray once I was settled. 

I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I saw the food. 

I finished the entire plate pretty quickly, and Gavin replenished it from his own plate. I  wanted to refuse it, but my stomach growled. I ate the second plate slower, enjoying it. 

“Can we talk?” His fork hovered in the air as he looked at me hesitantly. 

I swallowed. “I can’t promise that I’ll answer everything.” 

He nodded. He was quiet for a moment. “You weren’t just assaulted, were you? Like, you weren’t just beat up and mugged.” I shook my head, my eyes welling with tears. 

“Okay,” he breathed. “Are you okay? Physically, I mean.” 

“I think so.”  

He put his fork down. “Did you go to the hospital?” I shook my head again. 

My next words came out in a whisper. “I don’t know how I made it home.” 

He squeezed his eyes shut and his hands balled into fists. “When?” 

“Friday night.” 

He put his head in his hands, and his voice was muffled. “I was with you Friday night.” 

I didn’t know what to say. 

“Tessa, I am so sorry--” 

“Don’t. It’s not your fault.” 

“But, I could’ve--” 

“No. You don’t know that.” 

I didn’t feel like eating anymore, and I needed to get up and stretch my legs. I walked into the kitchen and threw my plate away, then opened the freezer. The only liquor I had was half a bottle of pink lemonade vodka left over from my birthday. I poured some into a glass and walked out onto the balcony. 

There was a pack of cigarettes sitting on the ledge that my friend had left. There were only four left in the back. I lit one and took a long drag. 

Gavin opened the balcony door, peeking his head out. “Can I come out?” 

“Yeah.” He settled into the chair next to me

“What day is it?” I asked him, meeting his eyes. 

“Sunday.” His answer made me feel a little bit better. I had only drifted in and out of consciousness on Saturday. By the time I woke up Saturday night, Gavin was there. 

He saw my morning drink of choice. “Do you want something to take the edge off?” 

“LIke what?” 

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Ziploc bag with a joint inside.

I grinned, for the first time in days. 

---

Gavin convinced me to go to the hospital Monday morning, to make sure nothing was broken and to get a full STI screening. I really did not want to go, but he promised he would be there, and promised I could back out at any time. 

As soon as we arrived, Gavin went to the front desk and requested female doctors and female nurses be on my case. Nobody protested. 

I almost backed out at the STI screening, but agreed to do it as long as Gavin was there to hold my hand. I cried through the whole thing, even though it was over pretty quickly. 

After the hospital visit, he dropped me off at my apartment and said he had to go run an errand. While he was gone, I brought a tub of ice cream into my room and watched reality TV. 

He came back around five o’clock, and brought us Chinese takeout. I came into the living room to greet him, and his face looked suspicious. Like he’d done something and didn’t want me to know about it. 

He opened his takeout box. “I need to talk to you.” He didn’t meet my eyes. “And I know you didn’t ask me to do this, but I did this for you. For whenever you heal some more. This information is yours to handle now.” He took folded papers out of his pocket and handed them to me. 

The first one was a printed out still from a surveillance camera. The papers fell out of my hands. 

It was him. It was him. 

My heart pounded and I started to sweat. My body was trembling. All I wanted to do was curl up into bed again. 

“H-how did you--” 

“I went to the bar and asked to see their surveillance cameras from Friday night. I asked them to print this off.” He retrieved the fallen papers. “Then I took this to a police station, and they were able to give me this.” He handed me another print out, this one with a name, address, and social security number. “He’s done this before, Tess.” 

I was still recovering from seeing his face. My hands were shaking. I pulled Gavin into a hug. 

“So I guess we got the right guy?” He said, trying to make me laugh. “Do whatever you need to do with that. I just thought you should know.” I pulled him even closer and held him there. 

---

I remember his face perfectly in my dreams, but when I wake up, it’s fuzzy and distorted. My therapist says that’s my brain’s way of trying to cope with the trauma and block it out. She knows what happened, but just the summary. I can't even bring myself to talk about the details alone yet. 

I went through a dark period where I blamed myself. Not for the crime, but for what happened after. I blamed myself for not getting the kit done, not reporting it to the police, not having a toxicology screening done, not documenting every bruise, cut, and broken nail. 

But what could the police have done? 

Even if I had done all those things, I could still get blamed for it.  

"What were you wearing?"

"What were you doing at a bar?"

"Did you flirt with him?"

"Did you lead him on?"

"Were you drinking?" 

"Why would you lie about that?"

"You've just ruined his career." 

"You could've just played along."

I can't change any of that now. I can't change the fact that I no longer have any evidence. 

What matters now is that I'm safe. Not quite okay yet, but I'm safe. 

I need to find my own closure, on my own terms. 

Luckily for me, I now had the upper hand. I had all of his information. 

I know what I need to do. 

---

Gavin picked me up in his car, and he drove silently. 

I watched him chew at his lip. His eyes stared ahead, so I couldn't read the expression in them. I waited for a red light, then placed my hand on his, resting on the gearshift. He looked over at me, surprised. His eyebrows raised and his mouth parted. I twined my fingers through his, and only then did he squeeze my hand. We shared a tentative smile, then the light turned green. 

We drove in silence for another thirty minutes, then arrived. 

The house was an average house on an average street. Not in a neighborhood, but not secluded. It was just right. 

There was only one car in the driveway. He was alone. 

We parked one street over, but it didn’t really matter, since it was midnight. Nobody was awake. 

I knew that the window in the kitchen was old and didn’t lock, so that’s where I snuck in. My feet hit the floor silently. 

The stove in the kitchen was gas. I turned on all four eyes, then purposefully dropped a frying pan on the floor. I immediately heard rustling upstairs, so I grabbed the pan and ducked behind a corner. 

He came down the stairs tentatively. He came into the kitchen and saw that the stove was on. He looked around, confused, and that’s when I whacked him with the pan. He hit the floor with a yelp, and I pressed my foot into his chest, holding him down. 

“Remember me?” Before he could speak, I grabbed a knife from the block and stabbed him in the thigh. He screamed, but it wasn’t satisfying enough. So I took it out and stabbed his other thigh. He screamed even louder, and started crying. I ripped the knife out again and held it at his throat. He got quiet. 

“I should cut it off,” I said, gesturing down. “But I don’t want you to live.” He started to plead for his life, so I held the knife closer and he shut up. 

“And I should make you suffer, like you did to me. But I’m trying to heal. And I’m not a monster like you.” With my other hand, I pulled out an old-school lighter, the kind that stays lit when you flip the top. 

“You see, I feel like my healing process will be a whole lot better if you were just...dead.” I opened the lighter, and his eyes widened. 

“This is for me. This is for the other girls that you did this to. And this is for the girls that will never meet you.” I kicked him in the chest, and he started spitting up blood. 

I walked over to the window and hoisted myself out of it, closing it behind me. I walked over to the porch leading up to the front door and held the lighter to it. The flame grew quickly, just as I’d hoped. 

I ran across the street to where Gavin was waiting and took his hand. Our hiding spot was hidden by trees and was far enough away where no one would see us, but close enough that we could watch the house start to burn. 

After the porch was on fire, it started to fall apart. The flames ate away at the wood, spreading to the door and house. I heard faint screams from the house, so I guess the flames made their way to the kitchen. It was only a matter of time until they caught the stove. 

Minutes passed, and we stared at the burning house. I squeezed Gavin’s hand. The screams grew louder and more panicked. All of a sudden, the house shook with a loud boom. I froze. The screaming stopped. 

The flames continued eating away at the house, but the owner was dead. 

Maybe it was the sleepless nights. Maybe it was the trauma. Maybe it was the fact I had just committed first-degree murder, but I started laughing. 

I laughed so hard that my ribs started to hurt. Gavin joined in. Maybe he was as crazy as I was. 

I looked over at him, at his face lit up with laughter. 

I realized at that moment that I loved him. I grabbed his jacket and pulled him down to kiss me. 

We kissed as my rapist’s house burned down behind us.