by Maren Foster
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “Thanks.”
She smiled and turned around. I followed her as she walked away.
Holy shit. What was that? I tried to forget about it, but couldn’t. I’d never felt anything like it before. When I got home from the gym, I pulled out my laptop and typed into Google, “trouble breathing, dizzy”. Among the top results were, of course, “Heart attacks in Women”. I’m too young to have a heart attack, right? Crap. I tried not to worry about it. I’ll be fine. What am I going to do now? I have to see him again. What if that happens every time I see him? I would have to get to the gym more regularly, which I told myself would be good for my health too, but the more I thought about going back to the gym the more anxious I became. I have no choice. I have to see him if this is going to work.
I took a week off and then started going to the gym early, choosing cardio machines with a full view of the reception desk and main floor, which were also close to the women’s locker room so I could make a quick escape if needed. I watched for Nate incessantly. As I watched, I worried about what would happen when I saw him. Will my body freak out again like last time? Will I make a scene? Will I have a heart attack? What if he recognizes me? I tried to reassure myself. He won’t. I look so different now. There’s no way he’ll recognize me.
It was early on a Tuesday morning and I’d timed my half hour of cardio (all I could handle before I was bored out of my mind) to be over when all the morning classes ended. I put a towel down and began to stretch, lifting my head to switch positions when I saw him approaching in the reflection of the wall-to-wall mirror. Don’t stare. Don’t panic! He sat down a few feet away from me and began stretching. He wore exactly the same overpowering deodorant that he had in college. That’s how he smelled that night! My heart beat rapidly. The memories came rushing back: the thumping bass from the dancefloor, the panic as I realized I was trapped, the pain of every ensuing violation. Stay calm! He can’t hurt me now. I felt the pressure begin to build on my chest. I felt his gaze. I looked up and forced a smile. He was staring right at me and smiled back. Oh my God, it’s happening again! My hands began to shake. I jumped up. So much for meeting him casually at the gym! I can’t do this! Beads of sweat formed above my brow. I was sweating more now than I ever did on the elliptical. I ran to the women’s locker room and collapsed into a corner at the end of a row of lockers. Closing my eyes, I tried to relax. I’m fine. Nothing bad happened. It’s okay. Breathe.
“Are you alright?”
I opened my eyes. A woman in her forties was standing over me. The look of concern on her face scared me a little.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I’m a doctor.”
I nodded. Okay.
She kneeled down next to me. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I just got really dizzy. I couldn’t breathe.”
She took my forearm gently in her hand, held her fingers against my wrist, and stared into the distance.
“Pulse is fine. Are you starting to feel any better?”
“A little, yeah.”
“Did I have a heart attack?”
“I don’t think so. Have you ever had a panic attack?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“I think you’ll be okay now, but you should follow up with a doctor as soon as you can.”
I knew this was going to be hard, but I’d underestimated the physical reaction I would have to seeing him. How on Earth am I gonna be able to go through with this? How will I ever be able to execute my plan if I can’t even get close to him?
On my lunch break, I snuck out to an urgent care clinic around the corner that took walk-ins. I waited for half an hour and was taken to a tiny closet of a room. A nurse asked me to describe my symptoms.
“I don’t think it was a heart attack,” she said, “but we’ll do an EKG just to make sure.”
“How long will that take?”
“Not long, maybe five or ten minutes.”
“Okay.”
“Wait here,” she said and disappeared.
She came back with a handful of wires and applied cold round sticky patches to my chest. I tried to relax as I stared up at the fluorescent light on the ceiling. Within seconds, a printer began churning out results next to the bed.
“Your EKG looks fine to me,” she said.
“Oh, good.”
“I’m going to show the results to the doctor just to be sure. Wait here.”
She returned a few minutes later with a referral to a psychiatrist and a local phone number in large, swooping feminine print.
“You most likely had a panic attack, but you’ll need to see a psychiatrist to confirm the diagnosis. Call this number to schedule your appointment.”
I don’t have time for this!
She also handed me a script for a medication, scribbled in a man’s tidy handwriting. “In the meantime, this will help,” she said.
“What is flu-ox-etine?” I asked.
“It’s Prozac,” she said. “The generic form.”
“Oh.” Whatever it takes to control this crazy physical reaction I have every time I get close to him. There’s no hope if I can’t stand being close to him.
“Make sure you follow the instructions very carefully. You’ll need to increase your dosage slowly.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“Please call if you have any problems. Strange behavior, uncharacteristic feelings, extreme emotions as you start this. Also, this is only for one refill. You’ll have to see the psychiatrist for a full prescription.”
I nodded.
I filled the script on my way home from work and took the first dose right away.
The gym was the most boring place on Earth, and yet I forced myself to go. Although I was slowly getting into better shape, I was also growing impatient. I saw Nate almost weekly, and the medication seemed to be working, but then the closest I’d managed to get was the other end of a stretching mat, and despite my best efforts to impress, he usually seemed lost in thought. Turns out the gym is an awkward place to strike up a random conversation with a stranger.
My appointment with the psychiatrist was on a Wednesday afternoon. I left work and took the subway to an outdated high rise in Lenox Hill that housed outpatient medical offices.
I waited on the couch until a middle-aged woman dressed in a white smock opened another door and welcomed me back through a long hallway to her office. She leafed through a file and asked a litany of questions, making notes and checking off boxes on various questionnaires on a clipboard in front of her.
The official diagnosis was panic attacks. She provided another limited script, on the condition that I see a therapist as well. I left her office with a list of names.
I’d seen a therapist briefly after the incident. I hadn’t been impressed but had been overwhelmed by the pain and shame of trying to talk about what had happened. I didn’t want to go to therapy, but I knew I needed a refill of that medication. It was the only thing that would enable me to continue. I called and made an appointment with a woman whose office was not far from my apartment.
A week later, I waited on an austere couch before a casually dressed, young woman welcomed me back to her office.
“My name is Doctor Sanderson. Pleased to meet you, Wynafreda.”
“Please call me Wyn.”
“Sure.”
She talked briefly about her background and experience, before explaining her approach, and the style of therapy that she would employ.
“Let’s get started,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me about why you are here?”
“I was told I had a panic attack. I think I had more than one actually.”
I told her about my symptoms and she nodded in agreement.
“And what was happening when you began to feel dizzy? Where were you? What were you doing?”
“I was at the gym, on an elliptical.”
“What were you thinking about?”
; “I’m not sure,” I lied.
“Do you exercise frequently?”
“Yes.”
“And had you ever had anything like that happen at the gym before?”
“No, never.”
“Wyn, I need you to try to remember what you were thinking about when you began having the panic attack.”
“I guess I was thinking about him.”
“Who?”
I shook my head.
“Was he a stranger or someone you trusted?”
“Both,” I whispered. “I had only just met him but I trusted him anyways. Stupid.”
“No, it’s not.”
I shook my head. “He ruined my life.” A tear rolled down my cheek, and she handed me a box of tissue.
“How? What did he do?”
I shook my head.
“Can you tell me anything about him?”
“I met him in college. It was the end of my freshman year.”
“How did you meet?”
“We met at a party. He knew my roommate’s boyfriend.”
“What happened?”
I shook my head and fought back tears.
“He hurt you.”
I nodded.
“Physically?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
I hesitated. “I don’t think so.”
“It’s okay. I would like you to try writing about what he did to you. It’s been shown to really help survivors to write about their experience and the trauma they’ve been through. Start from the beginning.”
I nodded and promised to try.
A few hours later I sat on my bed staring at a blank laptop screen. I’d taken two creative writing classes in college, which I’d actually enjoyed, once I learned to stick to the recipe that our frumpy instructor pedaled. I remembered just a few bits of the cliché advice: show don’t tell; every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end; and give the reader at least one character to root for. I can manage the first and third, but it’s still unclear, even to me, where exactly the story began, and only time will tell how it will end.
I thought back to what seemed like the beginning, and began to write, filling in details as my memory allowed and recreating dialogue as accurately as I could. After all, it has been three years already.
Friday, June 8, 2012
It was the weekend before finals and tough to find an open seat in the library or at one of the coffee shops around campus, so I was studying in our dorm room. It was unseasonably hot and oppressively humid for early June in Chicago and the old dorm air conditioner was running constantly, emitting a low hum that made it difficult to concentrate.
“What’re you gonna wear tonight?” my roommate Krista asked, as she rummaged through her makeup bag.
“I don’t know, it’s so hot, maybe a swimsuit,” I joked.
I looked up in the mirror and watched as she applied eye make-up at her little desk directly across from mine. She didn’t even react to my ridiculous suggestion about the swimsuit. Then again, I had seen sorority pledges wearing little more than a swimsuit at parties all spring.
For nine months Krista and I had lived together in the largest co-ed dorm on campus, a non-descript orange brick building that was incongruous with the historic stone and brick buildings that comprised the rest of the campus. Krista grew up in the west suburbs of Chicago, about an hour drive from the university. She didn’t have a car, so she hardly ever went home. She was relatively plain looking with regular features and eyebrows that nearly disappeared on her face, a bit like a blank canvas. She had light brown hair that she frequently highlighted blonde. She spent more time every day than I did in a week applying, reapplying, and perfecting her make-up. Her artistic ability had improved perceptibly since we had moved into our little room, although she had begun to look more and more like a stage actress that had wandered off set. I finished applying a sheer eyeshadow and some black mascara and glanced at her as she reapplied and extended her eyeliner from the corners of her eyes.
“Do you mind if I borrow your black mini dress tonight?” she asked. “I like how short it is on me and it’s so hot out.”
We were conveniently, although sometimes annoyingly, the exact same size and build, except for the four inches of height she had on me, which meant all of my clothes were shorter on her.
“Okay, but I’m wearing your Pocahontas dress then,” I said. She had a tan leather dress with a fringe skirt that fit me perfectly and came in handy as a conversation starter in those awkward moments waiting for a drink refill in the basement of some frat house. I tied a bright blue headband around the center of my forehead and grabbed the only exotic make-up item I owned: bright blue eyeliner.
“Alright, let’s go.”
I put my wallet, cell phone, and lip gloss into the nicest purse I had and ran my finger over the pepper spray that my mom insisted I keep with me at all times. I had never needed it and frankly it scared me. I couldn’t help but wonder, What if I deploy it by accident? What if I do need it and I’m not able to get the safety thing into the right position? Seeing it and thinking about it stressed me out. I made sure the safety latch was engaged and put it in my purse.
We walked from our dorm, across the quad, past Evers College of Commerce and Industry, toward the Phi Psi house.
“Oh, hey,” she said. “Some guy from Jake’s frat is visiting from Penn. He’s single and from what Jake said about him, I think he might even be your type.” Jake was Krista’s serious boyfriend of about six months.
“Gee thanks. What the heck do you think my type is anyway?”
Krista and I had been living together for almost a year now and she was beyond hiding her disappointment about my enduring virginity. Before she started dating Jake, she had slept with at least ten different guys, and the idea that I was still (voluntarily) a virgin at the end of my freshman year of college confused and annoyed her.
So far, I had dutifully rejected a handful of would-be suitors who had each professed their unrequited love for me within a week of a first date, if you could even call a beer at a grimy bar a date. The few times I had been genuinely smitten and thought for a brief moment that perhaps it was love, I was reminded unequivocally of the truth by the (at least weekly) meltdown in our dorm of yet another freshman girl who had been lied to, slept with, and then quickly tossed aside. As I watched the drama unfold each week from the threshold of our room, I felt a bit of pride in my ability to see through the unoriginal lines and hasty professions of love that frat boys, bookworms, and soulful artist types all seemed to employ with similar ease. I found that if I resisted even the most convincing suitor’s advances for about a month, they disappeared without word, and never to call again.
“I guess he’s a rower at one of the Ivy League schools and is going to graduate at the top of his class from a prestigious business school this year. He’s already started some business out of his frat and he’s not hideous or socially awkward. Could be good enough to meet even your impossible standards,” Krista said.
“If he’s so amazing why is he still single?”
“He’s twenty-two! Why do you have to be such a pessimist? Maybe he just hasn’t found the right girl yet. It’s not like he’s forty and single.”
“You know I’m a closet romantic. I want to find my soulmate. I’m just skeptical that he is a visiting frat boy, in town for only the weekend, but I guess anything’s possible.”
I wasn’t raised in a religious house, but Vi had routinely warned us, as we hit puberty, about the one thing that most men were after. For her part, my sister Ali came home after her freshman year of college telling me story after story of friends devastated by co-ed “players” who professed their love quickly to get a girl in bed, only to move on days later to the next conquest. I looked up to Ali, so it was her advice and warnings that really led me to promise myself that I would be smart and avoid sex until I was sure I had found love. Throughout my freshman year, it became almost
a personal challenge as I watched other young women succumb: I would not lose my virginity in a way that I might regret.
“I think you’re just a prude,” Krista said with a bit of sarcasm to veil what she thought was an uncomfortable truth.
I didn’t hesitate; “I’d rather be a prude than a slut.”
Silence permeated the oppressive summer heat as we walked past Robb Hall.
It was relatively early still and our entrance at the party was met with one or two nods of acknowledgement. The old Tudor’s glory days were long past and the inside of the frat house was where the decades of abuse showed the most, despite the efforts of the Chapter Supervisor. The original molding and wood framed windows had been patched endlessly and the patches had been stained to match with little success. The lower half of the walls were marked by grease, oil, and beer, which only further robbed the former mansion of any remaining shred of dignity. A group of guys were sitting around the living room drinking beer and watching a cult classic. Jake was sitting on the long couch and got up when he heard the clicking of high heels on the worn wood floor.
“Hey baby,” he said and kissed Krista on the mouth.
Another guy, dressed measurably better than the rest of the guys in the house, in a pair of khaki shorts and a collared t-shirt, stood up.
He smiled at me and said hi.
“Hey.” I smiled back.
“Nate.”
“Freddie.”
He was tall, almost a foot taller than me and I had on heels. His hair was dark chestnut brown and curled just above his ears. “Not hideous” certainly wasn’t an accurate description, he was gorgeous. His eyes were brown and filled with intensity, which reminded me of what Krista had said on the way over about the business he’d already started.