Asking for It

by Louise O'Neill

  I hesitate, waiting, waiting for my mother or my father to rush in and tell me not to be silly, that of course I’ll win, that I have to win because I’m innocent in this, because I am the victim, because this wasn’t my fault. But no one speaks.

  I watch the clock, the second hand going around once, twice, three times, four times.

  ‘I don’t know, Emma,’ my father says finally. I force myself to turn around to look at him. He’s almost glistening with hope. I haven’t seen hope in this house in a long time. ‘This is something that you’ll need to think about very seriously.’

  ‘I am serious,’ I say. Please tell me not to, Daddy. Please tell me I should go ahead with this, please, please, please. ‘I just want to get on with my life.’

  ‘It might . . .’ My mother is speaking so quietly I have to lean over the counter to hear her properly. ‘Well.’ She rubs her hand across her forehead wearily, pressing her fingertips into her eye sockets. ‘It might be . . . easier, I guess.’ She starts at the word easier, as if shocked it came from her mouth. Easy Emma. She was always easy, easy, easy. ‘Better. I mean, it might be better. For you, Emma, I mean. It might be better for you. If that’s what you want, of course.’

  She is hopeful too.

  Will this make it better? Will this make everything go back to the way it was before?

  My parents start to eat again, my father’s jaw clicking as he chews, she takes a sip of water, a dab of her mouth. I sit down again.

  ‘Wait, so this is it?’

  The three of us jump when Bryan speaks, startled by the roughness of his voice. ‘Is this fucking it?’

  ‘Language, Bryan,’ my mother hisses.

  My father throws his napkin over his plate. ‘Have you anything valid you would like to add to this conversation, Bryan? Or are you just going to use profanities?’

  My brother shakes his head, his cheeks filling with blood. ‘After all this, you’re just going to give up?’

  After the meeting in Mr Griffin’s office, we had gone to the station. They were waiting for us. The guard had said I should get a forensic examination. ‘It’ll be routine,’ he told me. ‘They’ll just get head and pubic-hair samples, check under your nails, and take some swabs. That’ll be oral, vaginal, and, eh, anal.’ At the word anal my mother had left the room. I told the guard that I didn’t need to go to the sexual-assault treatment unit, because there was no sexual assault. I had been pretending to be asleep in those photos. I told them it was all a joke and I wanted this to go away.

  They took down those words to use against me.

  Bryan arrived home the next day. I could hear him and my mother having a low muttered conversation, his voice getting louder. He came into the TV room to see me, muting the television and taking my hands in his. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked. ‘I’ve been so awful to you, calling you . . .’ He coughed to hide a hint of a sob. ‘I thought this was your fault,’ he said. It was my fault, but I couldn’t bear for Bryan to think that.

  ‘I thought you wanted it,’ he said. And maybe that was true as well. (Maybe I had been asking for it.) But he looked at me, and he looked heartbroken. And he wasn’t angry any more. He didn’t look like he hated me. I needed that. I needed Bryan to love me. I needed someone to take care of me. So I agreed with him. I said it was not my fault.

  I said it was that word.

  I said it was rape.

  ‘She’s not giving up, Bryan,’ my mother says. ‘She’s—’

  ‘Even if you do decide you want to withdraw your complaint, what’s to say the DPP won’t prosecute anyway? They’re doing it on behalf of the state, right?’

  I turn to my father in panic. ‘They won’t make me testify, will they? They can’t make me if I don’t want to.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so.’ He puts his hand on mine. ‘But I’ll give Aidan Heffernan a ring later and ask what he thinks.’

  ‘Well,’ Bryan says, ‘they might still be able to use your statement. And the photos . . .’ He trails off, looking sick at the thought of the photos, at the comments underneath.

  (She’s deader than a doorknob. She’s deader than Oscar Pistorius’s girlfriend.)

  (Fuck, Emma O’Donovan’s tits are tiny though. I thought they’d be way better than that.)

  (Her ass looks good though )

  All I am is a thing.

  All I am is a collection of doll parts to be filled in and plugged up and passed on.

  After one photo, twenty different boys gave my body marks out of ten. Twenty boys that had been in my kindergarten class, that had come to my birthday parties. Twenty boys I had thought were my friends.

  (Serves that bitch right. She friend-zoned me in third year.)

  I looked at the marks to see what they really thought of me. And I wished I was dead.

  ‘We don’t even know if they would admit those photos in court; I told you that already,’ my mother says. ‘There’s no precedent and—’

  ‘Well, maybe we should make a precedent,’ Bryan spits. ‘What if this happens to someone else?’

  I am supposed to set an example. I am supposed to tell my story to the feminist blogs, to feel encouraged by the support on Twitter from people that I have never met, who wouldn’t even be able to point out Ireland on a map, let alone Ballinatoom.

  I would like it if this happened to someone else. I would like it if someone else was ruined too. I wouldn’t be alone.

  ‘I’m sure it won’t,’ my mother says. ‘They’re good boys really. This all just got out of hand.’

  And I look at her, and I look again, and she doesn’t even realize what she has said. I need to get up. I need to leave this table. I need to find something sharp to play with.

  ‘What the fuck did you just say?’ Bryan screams at her, and she stutters, ‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ and she turns to me. ‘Oh, Emma, I didn’t mean it that way – you know I didn’t.’

  ‘Please lower your voice, Bryan, and treat your mother with some respect,’ my father says. ‘This is our house, and I’ll not have you speaking to us like this.’

  ‘OK, forgetting the disgusting piece of shit she just came out with, that the animals who fucking gang-raped my sister’ (that word) ‘and posted photos on Facebook for the whole world to laugh at’ (I knew they were all laughing at me), ‘tell me this – what about Emma? What’s going to happen to her now?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ My father’s shoulders tense up around his ears.

  ‘She’s not getting better. When was the last time that she went to school? When—’

  ‘She’s being home-schooled,’ my mother interrupts, and Bryan laughs, a harsh, guttural sound that scrapes against his teeth.

  ‘Oh really? So she’s going to be sitting her Leaving, is she? And where’s she going to do that? Is she going to do it in St Brigid’s? Has she got her exam number? How did her pre-exams go? Has she filled out her CAO form? What college is she hoping to go to? What course is she thinking of doing? Where’s she going to live? Come on, Mam, the queen of home-schooling, you should be able to tell me all this, shouldn’t you?’

  ‘I, I . . .’ Her eyes are watery. ‘Well, I—’

  ‘You don’t know. You don’t know because you’ve given up on her, haven’t you?’

  I wait for my mother to deny it. I wait for her to tell him not to be stupid. I wait for her to tell him, Of course I haven’t given up on Emma, I love her, we want to take care of her.

  I wait and I wait. I will wait forever.

  ‘And when was the last time she went outside?’ Bryan says. ‘When it first happened, at least she still went to school, she met up with her friends, she had a fucking life—’

  ‘The therapist says that’s normal.’

  My mother didn’t think it was ‘normal’ at the time. She thought if I was telling the truth, I should have been up in my room, taking endless showers and scouring myself with a Brillo Pad. ‘Apparently lots of people who claim to be raped can be strangely calm at the beginning
,’ she says.

  Claim.

  ‘But she’s in therapy still?’ Bryan continues, as if I wasn’t in the room at all. ‘Shouldn’t that be making a difference by this stage? What does the therapist have to say about all of this?’

  ‘Well, Emma has only just said it to us, Bryan, so how do I know what the therapist would think? I’m not a mind-reader, you know and—’

  ‘They can’t get away with this, with what they’ve done. How can you even be thinking about letting Emma—’

  ‘Enough.’ My father bangs his fist on the dining-room table with such force that my mother’s wine glass falls to the floor, smashing into splinters. ‘Enough, Bryan,’ he says, almost pleadingly. ‘You have to respect Emma’s decision.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I said, you have to respect Emma’s decision.’ My father looks at me, straight in the eye, for the first time in months. ‘Is this what you want?’

  I can feel the word in my mouth. It feels as if it’s drawing blood from my tongue. It feels as if this word is a sacrifice.

  He and my mother look at me, say yes, say yes, say yes, and I can almost taste their fear that I might change my mind.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes. This is what I want.’

  Tuesday

  ‘Emmie.’ A hand gently brushes my hair away from my face. ‘Emmie, wake up, sweetheart.’

  I blink the sleep out of my eyes, and it’s my mother, holding out a floral china cup and saucer. ‘Here you go,’ she says. Her voice sounds far away. ‘I thought you might like a cup of tea.’

  I sit up, my back against the headboard, and take it from her.

  ‘How are you feeling today?’

  I feel heavy. My limbs are aching, like I have the flu.

  ‘Drink your tea,’ she says, ‘and then come downstairs to have breakfast with Daddy and me.’

  ‘He’s still here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  My fingers grip around the teacup. ‘I’m not very hungry.’

  ‘Well, Emma, it’s the most important—’

  ‘. . . meal of the day,’ we say in unison.

  ‘Exactly.’ She bends over to give me a kiss. I close my eyes as she does so, inhaling a clean soapy smell. She must have showered already.

  I keep my eyes closed as she walks away.

  ‘Emmie?’

  I open one eye to look at her, standing in the doorway. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You look really . . .’ She hesitates, just for a second. ‘You look really beautiful this morning.’

  I bang the cup down on my bedside locker.

  ‘Has someone been putting pressure on you to change your mind?’ Joe Quirke asked last night when I rang him to tell him I’d decided to withdraw my complaint, brushing aside my apologies for ringing him so late. ‘No,’ I told him. ‘I just don’t want this to go ahead.’ ‘Well, Emma, it might be too late for that,’ he said. ‘The DPP might still want to prosecute.’ ‘But they can’t make me testify, can they?’ I said. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘They can’t force me to do something I don’t want to do,’ I said. (Not this time. Not now.) Bryan stormed upstairs then, yelling, ‘I refuse to participate in this fucking charade.’ Neither of my parents said anything, or went after him. They had stayed right by my side for the whole conversation. ‘Emma?’ Joe said after a long pause. ‘Are you still there? Are you sure this is what you want?’ I pressed the pencil into the paper so hard the lead broke off. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m sure.’ And my father reached out then, and he touched my shoulder. I closed my eyes, feeling dizzy.

  My father is sitting at the dining table. There’s a plate of scones in front of him, a carton of orange juice, and a big teapot covered in a striped tea cosy next to them.

  ‘Take a seat,’ my mother says to me. She pours me a glass of juice, handing me my tablets. I roll them between my fingers.

  ‘Denis?’

  ‘Yes?’

  My mother jerks her head at me. ‘Aren’t you going to say good morning to Emma?’

  He clears his throat. ‘Morning.’ He reaches out and takes another scone, spooning out a large dollop of strawberry jam on top of it. ‘Have a scone. Your mother made them fresh this morning.’

  ‘For us?’

  ‘To celebrate,’ my mother says, and he frowns at her.

  ‘It’s too early to celebrate, Nora. We still have to wait to hear back from the DPP.’ I concentrate on my breathing. In. One. Two. Three. Out. One. Two. Three.

  ‘But you’re doing the right thing, you know that, don’t you?’ my father says. ‘We’re proud of you, Emma.’ He holds out the plate of scones to me and I take one.

  I wait until he turns away before I swallow my tablet. ‘Where’s Bryan?’

  My mother fumbles with the cap of the orange juice and it falls to the floor. She crawls under the table to retrieve it, letting out a small cry when she hits her head as she goes to stand up.

  ‘He’s gone back to Limerick,’ my father answers when she’s sitting upright again. ‘We’re paying good money for him to go to college and he already missed enough lectures yesterday. It’s time for him to grow up.’ He pushes his chair back, takes his suit jacket from the back and puts it on. ‘Thanks for that, Nora. They were delicious.’ He leans over to kiss her on the cheek. And as he leaves he grazes his hand against my neck, so lightly I could have imagined it.

  ‘What do you think of them?’ my mother asks me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The scones. What do you think? I went back to an old Darina recipe.’ She leans back in her chair, reaching a hand behind her and grabbing a few of her old cookbooks from the island counter. ‘Speaking of which,’ she says, thumbing through the well-worn pages covered in sugar granules and flour, and stained with egg yolk, ‘I found this stuck behind the cover.’ She hands me an envelope. ‘It’s addressed to you.’

  She looks down at the envelope and back at me, nodding her head as if to give me permission to open it. She looks happy. That is what I wanted.

  ‘I think I’m going to go upstairs,’ I say.

  ‘But you haven’t finished your—’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  The smile on her face fades away. (I am glad.)

  You were supposed to protect me, I want to say to her.

  You were supposed to be on my side.

  I want them both to acknowledge what I’ve done. I want them to tell me that I did the right thing, to tell me that they’re grateful, and that they’ll spend the rest of their lives making it up to me. Do you believe me? (Believe what? I can’t remember.) Did you ever believe that this wasn’t my fault?

  *

  I don’t ask them that. I will never ask.

  Bryan has left my laptop on my chair, the lead wrapped around it to keep it shut. I place it on the vanity table, and sit down, turning the grubby envelope over in my hands, recognizing my own handwriting on the front beneath a dusting of flour. There’s a warning on the back in capital letters – DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 30TH BIRTHDAY – but I ignore it and slide my finger underneath the flap to open it, wincing as I give myself a paper cut. It’s an A4 page, folded in on itself about twenty times. I smooth it out, trying to iron away the creases, and as soon as I see it, I remember what it is.

  ‘It will be a time capsule of sorts,’ Ms McCarthy had told us as she wrote ‘Where Do I See Myself at Thirty?’ on the whiteboard. ‘I did it when I was in Transition Year myself, and I can’t wait to open my letter when I turn thirty.’ She added hastily that it wasn’t for years yet, and I saw Jamie elbow Ali, making a face at Ms McCarthy’s constant need to remind us of how ‘young’ she is, It’s not that long since I was sitting in your seats, you know. Ali’s shoulders started to shake. ‘What’s so funny?’ Ms McCarthy demanded, as J let out a guffaw of laughter, Ali breaking next, then Maggie and me, infecting one another with our giddiness. ‘Nothing,’ we spluttered, in gasping breaths, ‘Sorry, miss, sorry,’ another round of giggles tearing through my chest as she rolled her eyes to heaven and
told us to cop ourselves on. We had finally calmed down when Jamie started again, a laugh scraping through her nose in a snort, which made Ali laugh out loud, and I had to bend over to pretend I was getting something out of my bag to hide my face. After a few minutes I sat up straight, turning away from the other girls and stared out the window to control myself before she could send us to Mr Griffin’s office. ‘Where do you see yourself at thirty?’ Ms McCarthy asked again, and as the sound of pens scratching against paper filled the room, I just knew that it couldn’t get any better than this.

  I look at the letter. The words are smudged, the ink running in parts. Married to a multi-millionaire, two kids – a boy called Harry and a girl called Hazel, a nanny to take care of them, a personal chef, a mansion, a cleaner every day, and then down at the very end I’ve scrawled, as an afterthought. And I intend to be really happy.

  My fingers spasm, as if they’re too weak to hold the page any longer, and it drifts to the floor. I stare at it. It’s just words. Just words on a page.

  I unwind the lead from around my laptop and open it, logging on to Facebook. I scroll down, photos of suntanned legs against a bone-white beach, Ladurée macarons, half-eaten pizza from Domino’s, status updates with multiple emojis and exclamation marks, everyone smiling, smiling, smiling. Everyone is so happy.

  I intend to be really happy.

  Sarah Swallows has uploaded seventy photos into a new album called ‘Graduation Ceremony’. I click through them, at the girls in their uniforms, hugging teachers, teary-eyed, one of Mr Griffin giving a speech in the hall. (I should be there.) Another photo, of Sarah with her jumper off, her shirt covered in scrawled signatures of every girl in our year (except for mine), then one of Sarah and Julie in Reilly’s pub, bleary-looking, thick black eyeliner smudged around their eyes. Now they’re back at Dylan Walsh’s epic party, woohooo, and there’s another photo of all of them, Sean and Eli and Maggie and Ali and Jamie and Jack and three or four other lads, holding plastic shot glasses up in salute at the camera. Maggie and Eli are holding hands. They must be back together.