Luckily, the logjam in the hallway starts to clear, and soon we’re all finding spots on the gym floor. I make sure to get Yaz on one side of me and Noah on the other. Emma starts out in front of me, where I can conveniently see right over her head, but then Boris squishes in closer to her, which causes me to have to crane my neck to see the podium.
Boris is not trying to annoy me. He’s not even thinking of me. But still, ugh.
The lights dim, and we’re all expecting the usual thing—a play with earnest twentysomething actors, or statistics and slogans by a well-meaning adult—the same stuff we’ve been hearing for years.
I’m fully intending to snooze through the session, maybe with my head on Noah’s shoulder (what? He has a good shoulder), but the presentation starts with loud, dramatic music that seems set to foil my plans. Then all of a sudden there are massive photos of couples making out being projected onto the gym wall, followed by a video of the same.
Noah goes, “Whoa,” Yaz claps a hand over her mouth, all over the gym people are giggling and whooping, and Emma turns back toward me and shrieks, “It’s a sex talk!”
The teachers are shushing us to no avail, then suddenly a powerful voice booms from the loudspeaker, cutting through the noise.
“How do you know when someone wants to have sex with you?”
This prompts nervous laughter and a few whistles.
The images on the wall appear faster and faster, but now, interspersed with the sexy parts are crying faces and couples arguing, and the music goes discordant, and finally it all stops and the lights come up.
At the front, with a microphone, stands the owner of the booming voice. She’s mid-thirties, medium height, dressed in a crisp button-down, blazer, and jeans. She has golden-brown skin and eyes of arresting intensity, but what’s most striking is that she’s so obviously filled with purpose. It’s in her stance, her tone, and the way she looks at us. She’s here for a reason and you get the feeling she’ll stay until she’s achieved it.
“How do you know when someone wants to have sex with you?” she asks us again. “The answer should be simple. They tell you. How do you know when someone doesn’t want to have sex with you?”
No one answers.
“Come on now, you all know at least this much,” she says, voice dripping with disappointment. “They say ‘no.’”
I swallow.
“So, when someone says ‘yes’ to having sex with you, that means they consent. When they say ‘no’ that means they do not consent. But there’s more to consent than yes and no. I am Dahlia Brennan, your public health nurse, and I’m here to clear a few things up.”
She proceeds to go through some sexual assault statistics, accompanied by big graphs projected on the wall. I stare at the numbers, unable to look away.
Then some idiot at the back starts chanting, “Bring back the porn!”
“You ‘bring back the porn’ people are the ones who need this information the most,” Ms. Brennan says. “Consider this: Do you want to be any good at sex?”
That shuts them up.
“Because communication is an essential part of being good at it. And the first and most basic communication you need to have is that you both consent. For that you need to know what consent is and isn’t. Let’s go through some scenarios. Obviously if someone says ‘no’ to sex and you physically force them to do it, that’s rape, which comes under the legal umbrella of sexual assault in most places. But how about if someone is drunk—let’s not pretend that nobody in high school ever gets drunk—” she says with a knowing look.
At this there’s a chorus of snorts and snickers.
“So in the most extreme, if someone is drunk and then passes out. Is it okay to have sex with them? Give me a show of hands for yes.”
Nobody raises a hand.
“How about asleep? Okay to have sex with someone who is asleep?”
No hands go up.
“Exactly. Passed out or sleeping, a person cannot consent to sex. This means—in case anyone’s looking for a loophole—that if they said they wanted to have sex with you but then passed out or fell asleep, it’s not okay to have sex with them. Also if they pass out while you’re having sex with them and you continue to have sex with them, that’s also not okay. But what if they’re just a little tipsy?”
Another idiot behind us whispers something about “beer goggles” and a few people chuckle, but Ms. Brennan silences them with a look.
“How drunk is too drunk? Err on the side of caution. I would say that too drunk to drive is too drunk to consent. Stumbling, out of balance, slurring, incoherent is too drunk. Of course sometimes it’s hard to tell how drunk someone really is, which means you could have what you think is a great time with someone, only to find yourself accused of sexual assault. Or you could wake up one morning and realize that you had sex you really didn’t want to have, with someone you’d never have done it with sober. And that’s not a good feeling.”
It certainly isn’t.
“This stuff gets ugly, people, and it gets complicated,” Dahlia Brennan is saying like she’s read my thoughts. “You don’t have to physically force someone to have sex for it to be a crime. Which is why you need to make sure you have consent—enthusiastic and ongoing consent. Check with the person, ask if they’re okay with what’s happening, stop if they seem uncomfortable, and above all you need to hear a ‘yes.’ And you might get a ‘yes’ in the beginning that changes to a ‘no’ later when things are really moving. In that case and always, the ‘no’ reigns supreme.”
I want to crawl out of my skin.
But all I can do is sit, staring straight ahead, hoping no one looks at me.
“Moving on from the alcohol questions, can someone consent without saying ‘yes’? They can, but nonverbal signals are too easily misinterpreted and could lead you to make a mistake that could change your life forever, so I advise you to get a definite and enthusiastic yes. On the flip side, can it be assault if the person never says no? Yes it can. If someone is pulling away from you, or is pushing your hands off of them, or freezes, or becomes rigid, or if they are crying while you’re having sex with them, time to stop. Even if they’re just lying there not seeming into it, it’s time to check in, and probably time to stop. If you then find out that they’re crying from joy because you’re such a hot lover, awesome. If not, you damned well better stop. Because sometimes somebody is too afraid or too overwhelmed and/or things are happening faster than they have time to process it, and they are not consenting but just haven’t found themselves able to say so.”
This gets worse by the second but Dahlia Brennan’s not done.
“I’ve got one more tricky one. Just because someone has had sex with you before, does it mean they have to have sex with you again? Call out the answer.”
“No,” A bunch of people say.
“Even if they’re your girlfriend or boyfriend?”
There’s some muttering and whispering at this, but again a bunch of people say, “No.”
“That’s right. No. And here’s another thing to think about: If someone—your girlfriend, boyfriend, lover, whatever—says no repeatedly and you whine and wheedle, beg, threaten, or otherwise pressure them into saying yes, that’s not consent. That’s called coercion and can be considered sexual assault.”
Something is now exploding inside my head.
“Whining, wheedling, begging” is exploding inside my head. “Aversion” and “whining, wheedling, begging, pressuring” are exploding inside my head.
Understanding is exploding inside my head . . .
And now I’m staring at the back of Boris and wishing for a transporter beam, a tornado, a flying carpet, a shrinking pill—
She keeps going, turning the lights back off and playing a video with an analogy about offering someone a cup of tea and how you wouldn’t pour it down their throat, or f
orce them to drink it if they’d said no thank you. How you wouldn’t make the tea in the first place if someone said they didn’t want it.
I can’t even breathe.
I’m going to break out in hives, go up in flames, die.
* * *
—
The very second the presentation is over I leap to my feet, cut through the crowd, and make a beeline for the gym doors, escaping before anyone else has really even moved. I zoom through the entrance hall and out the front door like I have something very important to do out there.
Which I do.
It’s called hiding.
If there was a clump of bushes, I would dive into it, but I settle for tucking myself into a recessed area to the right of the doors where I’m at least out of sight of any people who might come out of them.
I crouch against the wall, panting like I’ve just run a race, and try to calm down. This is hard to do when Dahlia Brennan basically just reached into my brain, grabbed a bunch of my memories from where they were filed (mostly under “crappy sex” or “boy acts like jerk” or “Libby is an idiot”), threw them on the floor, and told me I have to refile them under “coercion,” “sexual assault,” and “rape.”
That doesn’t seem like a fun job.
I’d prefer to put everything back the way it was, where it felt manageable.
Although, in the case of Kyle, maybe it wasn’t entirely manageable. Because it’s not like I haven’t been thinking about the fact that I said “no” right before we had sex. It’s just that my mind has been shying away from the “r” word because what happened didn’t feel like what I thought of when I thought of that.
But I did say no.
So now I don’t know what to think.
And how manageable is it, really, having to be around Boris all the time with that one weird part of our relationship always sliding back to the front of my mind when I least expect it?
Still, this is something I do not need right now. What I need is to keep working, and save money, and get out of this town. Because once I’m out, I won’t have to see Kyle or Boris, and I won’t be living in a place where my father is an infamous shit disturber.
I’m about to apply myself to the task of pulling myself together and going back inside when the front doors open and I see Dahlia Brennan coming out of the building. Up close she is taller than I thought but also somehow less intimidating.
She pauses to check her phone, turns slightly to the side while doing it, then looks up and sees me, standing there like someone has pinned me to the wall.
“Hello,” she says.
She is officially the last person I want to talk to. But my mom has drilled politeness into me so hard that I find myself saying, “Hello.”
“No class this period?” she says, coming closer.
“Oh,” I say, “just getting some air.”
“Are you all right?” she asks, giving me an assessing gaze.
“Sure. Of course,” I say, trying for a breezy tone but not quite selling it. “Why do you ask?”
“Were you in the gym for my presentation?”
I nod.
“What did you think?”
“It was very nice.”
“Nice?” She raises an eyebrow.
“Yeah, I mean, it was good,” I say, feeling my face flush. “Super . . . informative.”
“Anything in it . . . surprise you? Or . . . bother you?”
“Me? No, I’m not bothered,” I say, trying for a casual shrug. “Do I seem bothered?”
“I don’t know you so it’s hard to tell. But I’ve been doing this presentation a lot and often I find someone hanging around afterward, looking like they have questions.”
“I’ll bet it’s never the idiots who need the information the most.”
“You’d be surprised. Sometimes they’re worried they pushed somebody too far and never felt good about it but didn’t understand why. Sometimes those people need to talk, sometimes they’re trying to figure how to cover their asses. I’m Dahlia, by the way.”
“I know. I mean, nice to meet you. Uh. I’m Libby.”
I say all of this with my back still pressed to the wall like I can use it to disappear into if anyone comes out and turns around and sees me talking to her. And I’m hoping she won’t insist on shaking my hand or getting all visibly chummy, which she doesn’t.
Instead she comes and leans on her own piece of wall, close enough for us to keep talking but far enough that it could look like we’re both just here coincidentally, doing our own thing.
She’s good at this. Smooth.
She glances sideways and says, “It doesn’t look like you got the flyer with my contact info and the crisis hotline . . .”
“I’m cool. There’s no crisis.”
“That’s good, but just in case . . .” she says, and then discreetly passes me the flyer, low down like it’s a note in class, and I decide it’s easier to just take it. “I am happy to listen even if it’s not a crisis. I’m trained to help with all kinds of situations.”
“It’s not even a situation,” I say, realizing a second later that she’s tricked me into admitting that there is something.
“Okay,” she says in a soothing voice. “Still, if you’re upset . . .”
“I’m not upset!” I snap, and then, with an eye roll at myself, mutter, “Wow, that was so convincing.”
She laughs, but more with me than at me.
“Look, it’s nothing I can’t manage.”
“Okay,” she says again, and then just stands there.
“You do realize that people get drunk specifically in order to hook up, don’t you?” I find myself blurting just to get rid of the silence. “To get up the courage? How’re you going to change that? And then when both people are drunk, how is anyone supposed to even analyze what happened? Both people could say they weren’t sober enough to consent, and then what?”
“Then it can be a big mess,” she admits. “Is that the kind of non-crisis, non-situation you’re dealing with?”
“That’s not what I said. I—look, nothing terrible has happened to me. I haven’t been hurt or really . . . forced or anything. And I don’t want to go accusing anyone of anything. I have other things going on right now that are much more important, and doing that would screw up my whole life.”
“No one’s saying you have to. I was just suggesting it might help to talk.”
“I can barely think right now, much less talk,” I admit.
“It doesn’t have to be now. It’s whenever you’re ready.”
She’s so warm and calm and nonjudgmental that it’s getting to me.
“Thank you for offering,” I tell Dahlia, swallowing hard. “But I really should go.”
“Me too,” she says. “I’m going to be holding office hours here over the next few weeks, though. If you don’t want to talk here you could come to the health center. It’s free and completely confidential. All the info is on the flyer. Think about it at least?”
“Sure, okay,” I say, just wanting to get rid of her at this point. “I will.”
8
PRACTICALLY TRAGIC
Of course I have no intention of thinking about it.
I have college to think about.
Exams to study for.
High school to finish.
Money to make.
Dredging up the not-so-great details of my past and recent-past sex life is not something I’m interested in doing.
And so I go home Friday night and throw myself into studying.
To prevent myself from getting off track, I stick Post-it Notes on the white board above my desk with the words FOCUS and FUTURE on them. I also open tabs to pictures of college campuses on my laptop, so that I’m not tempted to stray into googling sexual assault laws and definitions.
&n
bsp; I work until I’m bleary-eyed on Friday night, then fall into bed and lie awake trying not to think about the things I’m trying not to think about, before falling asleep and dreaming about them.
Saturday I meet Yaz and Noah at the library, where we study for a few hours before Emma shows up and invites us all to come to a movie tonight with her and Boris. Noah and Yaz accept, but I beg off, not wanting to spend the money and also unable to stomach an evening with Boris just now, even with Noah’s presence as incentive.
“What are you going to do instead?” Noah asks.
“Ignore my parents, check my bank balance, and then maybe binge-watch something mindless.”
“If that’s what you want,” Emma says, with a doubtful frown.
It’s not such a terrible plan for a Saturday night. I like time alone and I’m really good at ignoring my parents.
Later, Noah texts me an extensive list of his favorite mindless TV shows and films, presumably from the car on his way to the movie. I’m reading it when the doorbell rings.
I open it to find Noah on the front step with a huge bowl of popcorn.
“I popped this myself,” he says. “And it’s either special delivery for your evening of solo guilty-pleasure binge-watching, or . . .”
“Or . . . ?”
“Look,” he says, lowering his voice, “I know you don’t have people over much, so I didn’t want to invite myself . . . but I was sad you weren’t coming tonight, so I thought I’d bring you something. Plus if you want company, I’m in. Which means I sort of am inviting myself.”
“You bailed on the movie.”
He nods.
“Yaz will have to be third wheel,” I say.
“Yaz will get on her own cloud, as she is so good at doing, and Em-Boris won’t phase her, even at their worst.”
“Emboris?” I smirk. “That sounds like some kind of plague.”
“Or a really disturbing verb—like to embarrass, but worse.”
“Like you could get Emborissed?” I say. “Embarrassed by way of Boris.”
“Yeah, or, like, encase, entomb, emboris . . .”
He Must Like You Page 6