Brain Freezes in Red Leather Booths
TW: Sexual Assault
Crackle, stomp, repeat. Charred leaves churn under the weight of her buckled boots, spewing out behind, shredded to pieces, and are swept away by the campus’s natural wind tunnels. There’s a slight chill in the air, the kind that forces your jacket into a frenzied dance, slipping off of one shoulder to catch a hint of warm UV rays, then, just as quickly, shoved back into place as selfish, snow-white Cloud reclaims his allegedly rightful spotlight. Despite momentary darkness, and intermittent shivers sent by Cloud’s breezes, she is elated. Warmth from her core flows throughout her body, combatting the fall’s imminent chills and Cloud’s frost-tipped breezes.
The condensation gathering on the plastic rim of her iced coffee exacerbates the nip of each breeze. She pays no mind to the confused looks and furrowed brows of passersby; they judge either her choice of cold over hot in this transitional weather, or her choice to carry a coffee in the first place at such an unreasonable hour of the late afternoon. But coffee is always appropriate. Pompous dinner guests plead for decaf during dessert and morning birds chirp for cold brew before commencing their early shifts.
She used to like it warm, you know? Before the bruises and the bites, she liked summer and tanning and extra hot lattes. But when you’re wounded, you don’t apply heat, and when all of you is wounded so deeply to your core that even after ice chases bruises off of skin and sews bites into scabs, the wounds remain, harsher and deeper, you must apply more ice. More cold. More winters and more sweaters and more freezing cold iced coffees.
She’s settled in one of the most dangerous cities in America, and yet, she’s safer than ever before. Because when she rounds a decrepit corner, she doesn’t think twice, doesn’t hesitate or pause to ponder, What if he’s there?
Cloud discerns her euphoria, squinting down at her. A warm, bubbly aura exuding from such a habitually glum girl, in this weather? No. Cloud cannot allow this. Cloud must intervene. A vial, whose proprietor conceals themself behind sanctimonious Cloud, tips just so, allowing for a steady ooze of opaque, mucilaginous black ink, and a subsequent, pronounced shift in Cloud’s emotional state. Cloud is spitting with rage and regret, his sporadic saliva squeezing its way between the grates in the sidewalk and the gaping storm drains lining the street: thin waterfalls seeping into and pooling in the subway tunnels below. Effervescent strides are now a crippled stumble home. The weight of another body, of Cloud barreling toward her, tauntingly tugging her limbs toward the tattooed concrete beneath. Cloud’s harnessed winds torpedo into her skull, the eye of a hurricane now rattling her most vital organ. She attempts to steady herself, putting all of her faith into one, shaking hand, leaning against the deteriorating brick wall of her building, and spilling her iced coffee in the process. He’s not here. That’s not him. The thought: a pinball, her body: a machine, the weight of what he’d done: a broken gear within. Cloud’s meticulous attack escapes her in one panicked breath, and she’s gasping, wheezing for new, fresh air. Tin-man limbs, stiff, broken, and un-oiled, strain for steady footing. He’s not here. That’s not him.
It is him though. In so many different manifestations it is him. In Cloud and her castle atop the beanstalk, it is him. He is a shapeshifter. Atlanta is a remarkable distance from her; as a child she’d once confused Atlanta with Atlantis, and how much further could one be than a forgotten, submerged city?
How relieving it would be if he were underwater like she was, chained to wrecked pirate ships, doomed to walk the ocean floor, searching vacant chests for worthless, impossible treasures. In a perfect world, she’d be floating on one of those pink, inflatable flamingos, in a different ocean, with a different salt to fresh water ratio, a different shade of blue--more vibrant--in a different timezone, and sipping on a sweet umbrella drink.
And yet, he found a way to follow her. He comes less often, consumed by his course load, rowing practice, white lies--black murky dark lies--but still, he comes. He emerges just when she thinks he’s given up, boarding the red-eye to Philadelphia, express train to 30th St. Station, and Broad Street Line to Cecil B. Moore.
Or maybe, she comes to him. Maybe, just maybe, in some messed up way, she cannot continue to exist without him. He is a growth, an appendage of her body, the kind that runs deeper than the skin’s surface, the kind which can only be removed if you dig deep for the roots and cut them out, too. She’s scraped the surface before, even frayed a few meandering roots, but never enough to reduce any side effects.
No. She doesn’t. That would be impossible. Because she’s worked so hard to get away. How can you work so genuinely hard to escape the inescapable if you need the thing that chases you? You can’t. You wouldn’t endure the experimental injection of two thick shiny needles into your neck, missing your tie-settling senior lacrosse game in the finals. You wouldn’t and she wouldn’t.
Or maybe, she was so young, so naive, her brain so undeveloped, that he really is built into her body. He is the one fish (ow), two fish (ow), red fish (ow), red, red, red, red, all I see is red, I leak red, I am red. He is the man who whistles while she walks, he is the eyes which linger just a tad too long, he is first love, he is the rough hands which “help her lay down.” He is the air
she breathes, never refiltered, never reused, never recycled. He fills her lungs, brimming with imperceptible soot and grime. He is everything always, when he should be nothing.
And just like that, she’s there again...
One drink and they’re laughing, whispering together about the dance battle in the corner and the various uninvited guests. Mid-second drink, a team of beer pong champions needs new opponents, and he grabs her hand, “Come on it’ll be fun.” She takes a big gulp for good luck, and follows that winning smile. Only there’s no more beer left. There’s vodka with chasers. Six cups. Six cups of hard liquor. And they’re winning. Four drinks in and she’s a girl and she hasn’t missed and something about that makes her feel as if she can do anything. The cheers in the background are white noise, voices drowning underwater and she’s squinting at the last cup.
It’s two-to-one, and he whispers something in her ear, and she’s blushing. And she sets and she shoots and she scores and he lifts her into the air, a short little girl is suddenly the tallest, biggest, brightest person in the room, and is he spinning her … or is the room spinning?
She feels her face burn before processing the smack of the ground. And how did she wind up on the floor like this? “Up you go,” he grins, lifting her off of the ground, all she can think is up, up, upsie daisies like her mother used to say when she picked her up as a child. “Let’s get you to sleep.” He carries her, deadweight over his shoulder, into the hallway before the stairs.
“Where’s your room?” He coos at her, stroking her hair the way her father used to. She raises a delicate finger and points shakily toward the door at the end of the hall. “Alright, we’ll get you comfortable now.”
It’s one in the morning and he is not leaving. White noise machine by her bed tuned to an unfamiliar channel: faint panting of a giant. She’s squirming, wishing she had drunk more milk as a kid, because why did she have to be so damn short? So damn weak. She realizes there’s no real use in fighting, because giants take their golden eggs and the little dwarf has no place in a story about giants.
And then it’s over, he throws her T-shirt at her carelessly, gets up, gets dressed, and walks away. She does the same, because this is her house, this is her party, but that doesn’t mean she can cry if she wants to. She glances in the mirror, at the bruises on her throat and decides it’s best if she throws on a hoodie. Deep breath in, and deep breath out, she opens the door. The hallway never felt so long. “We heard you moaning in there,” her friend slurs the pronunciation of th in there. Pain sounds. Those were sounds of pain.
“I need to use the bathroom.” Her legs are wobbly supporting her broken body. She shuts the door and sits down to pee, remembering in health class they always say you should pee after. And how messed up is it that that is what she is thinking? She wills herself to relax, and it burns. Red seeps out and she notices tiny embellishments--tears in her skin--decorating a piece of her
body she never wished to share. She sobs there, on the toilet, muting herself with one hand, and waiting until she’s dry. Until the bleeding has ceased and the salty tears have run empty. She plays connect the dots on her body while she waits, lifting her hoodie up to her neck. Like constellations, she thinks.
And now she’s craving something strange. Sitting on the cool, cheap ceramic toilet, all she wants is an iced coffee. She’d kill for one. She’d welcome the entry of a plastic straw between her lips, even though she knows it’s frowned upon. Plastic at home, and metal in public.
You can’t chew on a metal straw, and like downing iced coffee, nervous chewing is a habit of hers which cannot be broken.
She closes her eyes and remembers anything else she can, anything but this. She remembers black and white milkshakes at American City Diner. She remembers the loud, motorized toy train chugging past her table. She remembers the Sundays when the train wouldn’t move at all. She remembers tugging on Mom’s sleeve, and pleading, “Mama, make them turn it back on!” She remembers kicking her legs back and forth against the squeaky, red leather booth, her feet years of growth spurts away from reaching the grey tile below.
She remembers the exact moment that milkshakes became obsolete: her first cup of coffee. Well not her coffee. Her mother’s. A sip of her mother’s. An iced latte with skinny vanilla. More. She remembers wanting more. She remembers the exhilarating rush to her skull of a brain freeze, the frozen moment in time when any and all thoughts would simply melt away. She remembered thinking, this is why people do drugs. This sweet, brief moment of relief.
...and scene
The smell of her spilled coffee begins to consume her nostrils. Turn it off. Turn off the smell, the lifetime documentary, and bewildered glances of strangers across the street. Turn it all off.
She has to stand, she has to breathe, and she has to move. But she can’t. This time she can’t. Usually at closing curtains, there is room for a gradual standing ovation. Room for her to dust herself off, and walk away. She wills her toes to uncurl, her legs to lengthen, really just any part of her body to move, but each limb refuses.
And maybe, it’s just not worth it anymore. Because it happens to other girls. She knows that. She’s lived that, and they are okay. They have moved on. They don’t pink-cloud like her. They genuinely move on with their lives. They talk about it. They talk about it like it’s nothing. Like it’s just another thing. Like it’s any other story, no different from falling out of a tree as a child, or twisting your ankle and eventually, getting back up again.
And how is that fair? Why can’t she do that? Is it her fault? Is it just some sick luck of the mental draw? How can six years pass, and still, somehow, he remains so prevalent in her life? He is everywhere. She cannot restate or reiterate that enough. He is literally everywhere.
She sees him in crowds he’s not in, seated at desks beside her in class, in a boy she likes--and then suddenly cannot like any longer--in restaurants, in the mirror, in the shower. God, she always seems to find him in the shower. She couldn’t be dirtier, always covered in an invisible film of him. She could soak overnight, and he’d still be there, clinging to her. She is a dirty, broken, sad, incurable sight. A dirty, broken, sad, incurable thing.
And wasn’t she happy a second ago? Wasn’t it a good day?
And resume. One fish (ow), two fish (ow), red fish (ow), red, red, red. He is inside of her. Inside of her in infinite ways. Sharp shooter aimed and triggered, pain bubbling and boiling and brewing below her abdomen. Three fish (ow), four fish (ow), red fish, red fist, red, red, red. And she didn’t even know her body could accept this much, accept this pain. Veins rattling the bars of her forehead's cage, teeth grind hard--harder--left hand over mouth, right desperately pinching skin. Up. Wake up. Wake up, up, upsie daisies.
And just like that, she’s there again…
She was with her friends, standing, while they admired and tested the cushions in the 8th-grade locker area. The door behind her back crashed open, swinging into the wall and leaving a cavernous scar. Curiosity’s whispers persuaded her to turn, and before she could take in those looming corpse’s eyes, and fully comprehend what was going on, her knees drew together like magnets, left positive, right negative, because opposites attract. She collapsed. Fight or flight was not an option, because her body simply gave up.
Her classmate posed as a defibrillator, shocking her into reality, poking her arm. Watercolors rushed into position, illustrating the eyes she once possessed, only greyer: sadder. He was hovering right above her, behind the crowd of onlookers. She saw that familiar smirk through the blur, and just like that everything returned.
Her vision adjusted and the scene came into a picturesque focus. Now she could really see his face. When she met his eyes, the ticking of the nearby clock overtook her thoughts. Tick. Tick. Tick. Memories left their graves, pushing daisies from their homes, unleashing ghoulish screams in a competition over a dust-ridden spotlight. And she broke.
You broke. No longer whole. You glanced around for the pieces of you that had just a second ago been on a tight leash, held close and taken for granted, but they had scattered, and hidden behind couches, burying themselves deep beneath mulch in the flowerpots, taking the place of repressed memories. And then: Tick. Tick. Tick.
“No,” you thought this exact word so many times, but it did nothing to suppress the grainy film that began to flash before your eyes. “No,” she thought again. You thought it harder and sterner. And maybe if you thought it enough, the movie would go bankrupt. Still: Tick. Tick. Tick.
It didn’t. It wouldn’t. As your body regained its strength and control, your mind lost it. Memories still playing out on a loop, you scrambled to your feet. You stumbled away from the scene. A classmate called out, “Are you okay?”
You stumbled in time to tick, then tick, then tick again. An invisible blindfold wrapped around your head, tied in a fisher’s intricate and impossible knot. Your shoe scuffed the linoleum. Your least favorite sound. The persistent boy stepped in front of you, and grabbed you by the shoulders, shaking you, trying so vigorously to wake you from your trance. True fear glazed his eyes, threatening to spill. But you can’t stop this. It didn’t exist, and now that it suddenly does, you can never stop it. So you stumble further, down the stairs, to the principal’s office. And you tell him. You tell him what you’ve remembered, and he doesn’t seem to believe you. So he calls your mother, and sends you to the guidance counselor for a chat about consent. And, two steps out the door forward, one to the right, and you’re there, she’s there. She is there. Not you, not me. Her. Her.
“Do you know what consent is?” The eighth grade guidance counselor purses her lips, leaning forward cautiously in her red leather chair...red leather booth. Feet that don’t reach the grey tile below. Chug, chug, chug, chugging of milkshakes and choo-choo trains. Dazed by momentous brain freeze. Unfrozen:
“Yes.”
“It’s the idea that you need verbal affirmation to touch someone,” she tells her anyway. “Yes.”
“Tell me something, did you ever hold his hand?” Nostrils flare. Dragon lady. “Yes.”
“Did you ask...every single time?” Fiery belch.
“I mean...no...but--”
“That could be considered assault. Do you see that?” She cocks her head. Bird brain. “But that’s not the same at all--”
“One could even say, you assaulted him.” Teapot silently screams and whistles. Steam pours from ears. She assaulted him. Did she? Was that assault? Was she really as bad as he was? Fist clench, unclench, clench, unclench. “Do you see that?”
“He said he’d kill me…” she whimpers, an injured puppy pleading for someone to throw her one damn bone.
You’re supposed to tell. You’re supposed to. And this is what she gets for doing what she’s supposed to do. This is what you get for doing what you’re supposed to do. Finish the year from home, who really needs 8th grade anyways? Mom will miss work, she’ll hold you, she’ll tell you she doesn’t have to go in today, or tomorrow, or the next day. She’ll take you to American City Diner for black and white milkshakes and red leather booths. She’ll beg you to leave your bed, leave your room, to take a shower at the very least. She’ll take you to gardens, to be with nature, to breathe fresh air, to breathe at all. She’ll get you a puppy. You’ll never really finish 8th grade, but that’s okay. Who needs the basics of math? It won’t matter. Nothing really matters if you think about it. You won’t get to go to graduation, because the principal will write your mother an email home, saying it’d be best if you didn’t attend, because no one would want anything dramatic to occur. But that’s okay. That’s alright. Who needs a graduation to finish anyways? You’re done when you’re done, even if you’re never really done.
He’ll move into your school district, weeks before the beginning of high school, in the same weeks you decide to attend that very school. But that’s okay. You’ll just keep your head down. You won’t say anything, and surely, he won’t. You’ve learned your lesson. And then you’ll see him, and by the end of orientation, you’ll be the girl who lied, the girl who attempted to tarnish his name, his family, and his reputation. But that’s okay. You’ll get an “A” in biology. You’ll get tons of them. Because you’ll focus on school. What else is there to focus on? You’ll finish your freshman year in PARCC standardized testing, his last name being next to yours, you’ll ask your guidance counselor not to place his desk near yours. You’ll self-advocate. Big girl things. They’ll say they won't put him near you, and that’s good, that’s more than okay. They’ll forget, they’ll forget five consecutive times over the course of your high school career, after promising each time not to do it again. But that’s okay, they have other things to worry about. More important things. You’re not selfish. You understand. You’ll forgive them. And when you’re failing your classes, because for some reason, it starts to physically hurt more and more each time you see him, they won’t give you extensions. But that’s okay, those aren’t the rules. That’s not their job. You’ll miss classes because he’ll wait outside of the door, knowing you can’t physically tolerate being that close to him. Your teachers won’t understand, they’ll think you're ditching, or a coward. But that’s okay, those aren’t real excuses. That’s not their job. You’ll still get into college, you’ll grow up to become her, the girl in a ball on the sidewalk outside of her dorm. You’ll chug iced coffees like you used to chug milkshakes. You’ll never tell a soul what happened. Because now you know, you’re never really supposed to tell anyone. That was your first mistake. That was the mistake that changed everything.
Rachel (Ray) Epstein is a 19-year-old freshman at Temple University. She is originally from Washington D.C., and has been a passionate writer since the third grade. When she was in middle school, she was sexually assaulted by her first boyfriend, and promptly afterwards, found writing to be an extremely effective coping mechanism. She became dedicated to feminist activism, using her writing to empathize with and comfort other survivors, and for pathos in the speeches which she would present in congressional testimony in support of various bills.