Asking for It

by Louise O'Neill

  (I wish I was there.)

  I click on the inbox. It is full again, with countless messages telling me how disgusting I am, that I’m a liar, that I’m making everything up. Slut, liar, skank, bitch, whore. Maybe I am. I can’t remember it anyway.

  Ah, yeah baby. You like that, don’t you? That’s a good girl. That’s a good girl.

  I can’t remember, I said.

  I open one email. There’s a photo of a pillow, and a link to a Wikipedia page. Asphyxia or asphyxiation (from Greek - ‘without’ and sphyxis, ‘heartbeat’) is a condition of severely deficient supply of oxygen to the body that arises from abnormal breathing. An example of asphyxia is choking. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which primarily affects the tissues and organs. There are many circumstances that can induce asphyxia, all of which are characterized by an inability of an individual to acquire sufficient oxygen through breathing for an extended period of time. These circumstances can include but are not limited to: the constriction or obstruction of airways, such as from asthma, laryngospasm, or simple blockage from the presence of foreign materials; from being in environments where oxygen is not readily accessible: such as underwater, in a low oxygen atmosphere, or in a vacuum; environments where sufficiently oxygenated air is present, but cannot be adequately breathed because of air contamination such as excessive smoke. Asphyxia can cause coma or death.

  Just some helpful advice, the email continues.

  I delete it, and all the other emails too, until there’s only one left.

  Hi Emmie,

  I miss you. I know I’m not supposed to say things like that. It’s like I’m breaking some pact between us where I’m not allowed to ask you how you’re feeling, or tell you how I’m feeling. But I miss you. So there.

  I met Bryan this morning when he was leaving for college. He was pretty pissed off, Em. Don’t be angry with him, but he told me what you’ve decided to do. I’m not going to tell you what to do and I’m really trying to understand your reasons for this decision even though every day when I see one of those fucking assholes, all I want to do is drive my fist through their face.

  Sorry. I said this wasn’t going to be about me. I don’t want to make this about me. I just want you to be happy again, Emmie. I know you don’t think that’s possible at the moment, but it can be. I know it. Have I ever lied to you?

  I wanted to tell you something. I don’t know if this makes you feel uncomfortable, and I’m sorry if it does, but I’ve been thinking of that night I called over to your house after we had heard about what happened. And you tried to kiss me, and I wouldn’t, and it wasn’t because I didn’t fancy you – let’s face it, I think we both know where I stand on that one – but I just didn’t want to take advantage of you. You were crying and everything was so crazy, and I didn’t want to make things worse. But I wanted to Emmie. Fuck it, I’m sorry, I’m probably saying all the wrong things – but I need you to know that. I should have kissed you on the trampoline the night of the party. We were nearly going to, weren’t we? Do you know what I’m talking about, or am I making a complete fool of myself again? I remember looking at you, and I just couldn’t believe how fucking beautiful you were, how it was possible for one person to be that perfect-looking, and I should have just gone for it, but I didn’t want to stop looking at you. I wish I had kissed you that night. I wish I had kissed you, and you had kissed me back, and we had decided to stay at home and watch TV with Jen and Bryan. You have no idea what I would give to have that night back again, to change everything that happened. I should have been there to protect you. I’m so sorry, Em.

  Conor. x

  I delete that message too.

  I should have kissed him that night, on the trampoline. I should have kissed him, and we should have stayed in while the others went to the party. We could have watched a movie with Bryan and Jen, groaning when they went to bed and Bryan told us not to do anything he wouldn’t do. I should have taken my clothes off before him, and watched his face as he looked at me like I was the most beautiful girl in the world. I should have let him love me. We would have fallen in love. We would have decided to apply for college in the same city because we needed to be together, no matter what. We would have ended up getting married at twenty-two, ignoring everyone who said that we were too young, because we would have known the truth. We would have still been holding hands at eighty, telling people how we had grown up together, how we had been best friends, and how that friendship had blossomed into romance. ‘He always had a thing for me,’ I would tell my grandchildren, ‘but I made him wait.’ And Conor would wink and say, ‘You were worth it.’ I would have been happy.

  I can never be with him now. I belong to those other boys, as surely as if they have stamped me with a cattle brand. They have seared their names into my heart.

  I look at my reflection in the vanity mirror. How is it that two eyes, a nose and a mouth can be positioned in such varying ways that it makes one person beautiful, and another person not? What if my eyes had been a fraction closer together? Or if my nose had been flatter? My lips thinner, or my mouth too wide? How would my life have been different? Would that night have happened?

  Candyman, I mouth at the mirror. Candyman. Candyman.

  I close my eyes, waiting, hoping for a slash of a hook across my skin, scraping away my beauty. Making me new.

  I blink, but it’s only me. I don’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

  I make eye contact with the girl in the mirror. I stand up, pulling down the leggings, and take the hoodie off, watching that pale body standing there in just a bra and knickers.

  I touch the girl’s breasts.

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

  I turn around.

  Her ass looks good though.

  ‘Emma?’ My mother’s voice floats up from downstairs. ‘Emmie, where are you?’

  ‘In my bedroom.’

  ‘Come down, will you? I want to talk to you.’

  I take a deep breath, then another one. In. One. Two. Three. Out. One. Two. Three.

  I get dressed, covering that body up.

  I stare at my reflection.

  I look normal. I look like a good girl.

  ‘Emmie?’ my mother calls again.

  ‘I’m coming,’ I say. ‘I’ll be down now.’

  And I walk downstairs, dragging my mouth into a smile so that I can look normal. It’s important that I look normal now. It’s important that I look like a good girl.

  Afterword

  In both Only Ever Yours and Asking For It I decided to end the stories in rather bleak, ambiguous ways. I didn’t do this to be sensational or to emotionally manipulate the reader. I did it because I wanted to have an ending that was true to the narrative itself.

  Some people who have read Asking For It found it frustrating that, ultimately, Emma capitulated. They wanted to see her fight, to demand justice for what had been done to her. I would have preferred to see that happen as well but, sadly, it just didn’t feel truthful. Our society may not appear to support sexual violence, but you don’t need to look very far past the surface to see how we trivialize rape and sexual assault. Sexual assault (from unwanted touching to rape) is so common that we almost see it as an inevitability for women. We teach our girls how not to get raped with a sense of doom, a sense that we are fighting a losing battle. When I was writing this novel, friend after friend came to me telling me of something that had happened to them. A hand up their skirt, a boy who wouldn’t take no for an answer, a night where they were too drunk to give consent but they think it was taken from them anyway. We shared these stories with one another and it was as if we were discussing some essential part of being a woman, like period cramps or contraceptives. Every woman or girl who told me these stories had one thing in common: shame. ‘I was drunk . . . I brought him back to my house . . . I fell asleep at that party . . . I froze and I didn’t tell him to stop . . .’

  My faul
t. My fault. My fault.

  When I asked these women if they had reported what had happened to the police, only one out of twenty women said yes.

  The others looked at me and said, ‘No. How could I have proved it? Who would have believed me?’

  And I didn’t have any answer for that.

  I don’t want to live in that type of world any more. I see young girls playing in my local park and I feel so very afraid for them, for the culture that they’re growing up in. They deserve to live in a world where sexual assault is rare, a world where it is taken seriously and the consequences for the perpetrators are swift and severe.

  We need to talk about rape. We need to talk about consent. We need to talk about victim-blaming and slut-shaming and the double standards we place upon our young men and women.

  We need to talk and talk and talk until the Emmas of this world feel supported and understood. Until they feel like they are believed.

  Louise O’Neill

  If you have been affected by the issues raised in this book, the following organizations can help. These websites provide information and can direct you to services available in your local area.

  Republic of Ireland

  Rape Crisis Centre

  1800 77 8888

  www.drcc.ie

  United Kingdom

  Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre

  0808 802 9999

  www.rasasc.org.uk

  Australia

  National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence

  Counselling Service for people living in Australia

  1800 737 732

  www.1800respect.org.au

  Acknowledgements

  My two main women – Niamh Mulvey, my superb editor, who makes me look a lot more talented than I actually am. I couldn’t do this without you. Rachel Conway, my agent, who is endlessly patient and encouraging and always knows how to make me feel better.

  Thank you to my mother, for showing me what unconditional love looks like, and to my father, the kindest man I have ever known.

  Thank you to my friends and my family for being so supportive. You all know who you are and how much you mean to me.

  Thank you to Lauren Woosey and to everyone at Quercus for their hard work on my behalf. I feel very lucky to be working with such inspiring, passionate people.

  Thank you to Children’s Books Ireland, to the reviewers and journalists who wrote about Only Ever Yours, the bloggers who shouted about it online, the booksellers who forced it into people’s hands and the readers who emailed me to tell me how much they loved it. You are making my dreams come true.

  Thank you to the Arts Council of Ireland for their generous support.

  Thank you to Mary Crilly of the Rape Crisis Centre in Cork. The work you do is incredible.

  Thank you to Helen-Claire O’Hanlon for reading the manuscript and giving me such incisive notes about the Irish legal system. Thanks also to Sharon Brooks and Eimear O’Regan for their advice on the law and the education system at the early stages of writing this book. Any mistakes are my own.

  Thank you to Isabelle Mannix for being so gracious with me and my incessant texts asking about authentic slang used by Cork teenagers.

  Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank the rape victims who shared their stories with me. I will never forget your courage and strength of character.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also by Louise O’Neill

  Dedication

  Last year

  Thursday

  Friday

  Saturday

  Sunday

  Monday

  Tuesday

  This year

  Thursday

  Friday

  Saturday

  Sunday

  Monday

  Tuesday

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements