by Kelly Yang
“No! It wasn’t consensual!” I object. I stare into Jay’s eyes, daring him to lie to my face. And he does. Effortlessly.
“Yes,” Jay answers.
I turn to the teachers. “He pinned me down. I screamed no! So many times!”
Mrs. Mandalay motions for me to calm down.
“And then what happened?” Ms. Sloan asks.
“Then I took a shower,” I say.
“Where? At your house?” Mr. Francis says.
I shake my head. “At his place,” I say.
Mr. Matthews’s eyebrows squeeze together into a tight, confused wrinkle. “Why?”
“I wanted to get him off me,” I say. He would too if a squid had just slithered all up and down his body. I wanted to take a million showers.
Mr. Francis clears his throat. “Yeah, but why did you do it there?” he asks.
I glance at Jess. Help!
“I’m just saying, if you’d just been . . . violated . . . wouldn’t you want to get out of there as fast as possible?” Mr. Francis looks around the room and the student rep, Jordan, nods.
“I did get out of there,” I say.
“Yes, eventually. You went home,” Mr. Francis says, glancing down at his notes. He looks up at me. “Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“I . . . I . . .” I feel my throat go dry.
“She just didn’t, okay?” Zach jumps in.
“I have text messages,” I say, pulling out my phone. I show them all of Jay’s texts to me after the rape.
“That was over something else!” Jay insists.
Mrs. Mandalay tells me to put my phone away. “Zach, let’s hear from you. You and Claire are . . . friends?” she asks, looking down at our hands, touching on the table.
“Yeah,” Zach says.
“Excuse me,” Jay interjects. “They’re more than friends, they’re sleeping together. Claire was cheating on me with him.”
“That’s not true!” I interject.
“Oh, please, I saw you two at the park,” Jay mutters under his breath.
I turn to him. He saw me? I think back to that day at the park when we heard someone coming. “OMG, was that you?” I cover my mouth. “You’ve been following me?”
All this time I thought it was Dani who told him about me and Zach but it wasn’t Dani. I think back to that night at the karaoke bar. At the country park. This week when he came over to my house. He’s been following me all along. But how?
And I remember he installed Find My Friends on my phone that day when we went to Fashion Island. Mr. Francis says something, but I can barely hear it above the loud thudding in my ear. I feel like taking my phone and hurling it at Jay.
“Claire, is this true?” Mr. Francis asks again. “Were you cheating on Jay with Zach?”
I swallow hard. “Jay and I’s relationship was already over.”
Jay snorts. “Yeah, right. That’s why you were over at my house, eating my food and drinking my wine when my dad came,” he says.
“Excuse me,” Jess jumps in. “Homegirl can afford her own booze, thank you very much.”
Mr. Matthews clears his throat. “I think we’re getting a little off track. Let’s get back to the night. Jay, you’re saying Claire came over to your house around seven p.m. and had consensual sexual relations with you.”
Jay nods.
“Why would she do that if she was also sleeping with Zach?” he asks.
“Because she felt bad for cheating on me,” he says. He looks directly at me. “For leading me on for so long.”
Mr. Francis raises an eyebrow. “Leading you on?” he asks, sitting up with renewed interest. He looks up from his notebook at me and Jay. “How so?”
As Jay proceeds to paint a picture of me as some sort of selfish, cruel tease who preys on the innocent and vulnerable hearts of young heirs, I lunge from my seat, feeling a homicidal rage I’ve never felt before.
“You bastard!” I say to him.
Mrs. Mandalay orders me to sit down. But I don’t. I’ve heard enough.
Seventy-Six
Dani
Three debates in at Snider, I’m holding my own, raking in best speaker points, even as my teammate, Josh, refuses to prep with me. I get a text from Zach.
Dani, the ad board screwed Claire! he writes. I don’t know what to do!
Three dots appear.
I glance at my watch—I have less than a minute before my next debate. Call me! I type.
My phone rings right as the organizer walks into the room. “Dani, Josh, you’re up next!” he calls.
I tap Ignore Call.
The organizer tells us our motion and puts us in a prep room to prepare. As Josh and I sit down to prep, I pull out my phone to call Zach.
Josh frowns at me.
“You’re not supposed to get any outside help,” he says.
“I’m not getting outside help, asshole. I am helping the outside,” I say, texting Zach.
Zach doesn’t respond. I try Claire as Josh gets up and goes outside. I assume he’s going to the bathroom, but he comes back with the organizer who frowns at me and confiscates my phone. Did Josh just tell on me?
“No phones please,” the organizer says, reminding me of the tournament rules.
“Please, just one call!” I beg, but he shakes a finger at me and walks out.
I glare at Josh, who smiles smugly at me.
When prep time is over, Josh and I walk into the main debating room. I’m first. I step up to the podium and begin my speech. The whole time I’m debating, I’m trying not to look at Mr. Connelly, who claps and cheers. He’s putting on a big show for the other coaches. When they announce that I’m the winner of the round, Mr. Connelly whistles.
“My girl!” Mr. Connelly hollers.
It’s so gross how he’s trying to “claim” me, marking his territory around me like I’m a tree, when privately he offers not a single word of support. The opposing team shakes my hand, while their coach offers Mr. Connelly his congratulations. The organizers usher us back down to the banquet hall.
“Wow! What a start, Dani!” the head organizer compliments me. “You did an amazing job.”
Mr. Connelly smiles. “We’re all so proud of her,” he says, putting his hand on my back.
I squirm away from him and dive into the crowd, moving farther from Mr. Connelly when we enter the banquet hall. The main adjudicators are up on the stage tallying up the scores. I scramble to the front. As the main adjudicator steps up to the podium, the room falls quiet.
“Can I please have your attention everyone?” he asks, tapping on the mic. I look up at the judge, hope pounding in my ear. “Based on the individual and team scores, the following contestants may now advance to the finals. Rachel Gordon of Exeter. Joseph Siegel of Deerfield. Danielle De La Cruz of American Prep.”
Oh my God! I made it! I turn around and, out of habit, automatically scan the room for my coach. Mr. Connelly is in the back of the room, shaking the other coaches’ hands. The head organizer calls out seven more names and rushes us backstage. He tells us we have five minutes to prepare our speech, on the motion “This house will not consume the works of artists who have committed sexual crimes.”
The organizer announces our speeches will be broadcast on Facebook Live. Excitedly, my fellow contestants and I scribble our names on consent forms being passed around. Mr. Connelly rushes backstage.
“You know who I was talking to out there? The debate coach of the Yale team,” he says. He puts his hands on my arms and shakes me. “Yale, Dani! Yale!”
My breath catches in my throat.
“I told him all about you. He’s been watching you,” he says. “He likes what he sees.”
His eyebrows shoot way up, the way they do in practice when we surprise him with an impressive speech. I used to kill to make his eyebrows go up like that.
“If we play our cards right, you could be looking at a full ride to Yale next year, and I could be looking at a coaching gig with New Haven Pro
mise, their local high school outreach program.” Mr. Connelly beams. “Wouldn’t that be amazing?”
We. It sneaks into my euphoria.
He peers at me, all serious. His big-coach-game face is back on. “You want to run through the points? What do you need?”
“I’m fine,” I say.
Mr. Connelly nods and leaves me to prep. “You’re gonna be amazing,” he says, giving me a thumbs-up as he walks out. “My bright, shining star!”
As he pushes open the backstage door, he turns. “Oh, and, Dani?”
“Yes?”
“I forgive you,” he says.
I close my eyes after he leaves, trying to center myself and find solace. I tell myself to forget Mr. Connelly and just focus on Yale. I have one shot to go out there and deliver a powerful speech.
But as I turn the motion around in my head, I can’t shake the pins and needles in my fingers, the demoralizing notion that he forgives me? Does he have any idea what the last few months have been like for me? The choking anxiety of having to sit with this, day after day, weighing my options. If I go nuclear, what about the blowback? What about my scholarship? The crushing fear that they’ll come after me with every dollar of their million-dollar endowment and bury me?
“Dani, you’re up!” An organizer taps on my shoulder and jolts me back to reality.
Panicked, I turn to him. “I need more time!”
He shakes his head and taps on his watch. “Let’s go,” he says, and leads me to the front of the stage. The blinding spotlights hit me as I walk over to the podium. I look out at the audience, at Mr. Connelly in the back and the debate coach from Yale standing next to him.
I think of Ming’s words—I don’t need a parachute to soar.
Seventy-Seven
Claire
In the end, it wasn’t even close. Of the four faculty members and two student representatives of the ad board, only one voted in my favor—Emma.
It gives me some comfort that Emma Lau, of all people, chose to believe me, and I cling to it. That it wasn’t unanimous. That I was able to go into a room, stare into the eyes of my assailant, and tell him that what he did to me was not okay. And the sky did not collapse. That’s something, isn’t it? All this I remind myself, even as the pangs of regret cramp my stomach. The ad board was not a path to justice. Rational, impartial adults did not believe me. And tomorrow when I go to school again, I’ll still have to see him.
I unlock the door to my apartment and plummet on the couch as the phone rings. It’s my mom calling.
“Claire, guess what? We got you a place at another school,” my mom announces. “Your dad and I just gave a donation to Terry Grove High and now you have a spot!”
I lower my head back against the couch. “Oh, Mom, you won’t believe the shitty day I’ve just had,” I exhale into the phone as I tell her the verdict.
She mutters a curse word in Chinese. “I know you’re hurting, honey, and I’m so sorry. That’s why I didn’t want you to go to the ad board. But just think, you could have a fresh start!” my mom says.
How do I tell my mom I need more than a fresh start? More than a spot? More than something money can buy? I need her. Tears fall down my neck.
“Your father pulled a lot of strings to get you in this late in the school year,” she continues. “If you transfer now, you can put all this behind you. No one ever has to know about this.”
As my mom talks, I put the couch cushion over my eyes, trying to swallow the lump in my throat as she makes plans to, once again, airbrush my past.
Seventy-Eight
Dani
In debate, there is a moment before you open your mouth, when you’re bathed in the spotlight and the microphone amplifies your breath, and you look out at the audience and you can either choke or you can slay.
I lean forward into the mic, slow and steady.
“Earlier this year, my teacher, my debate coach, Mr. Connelly, who taught me everything I know about debate, who’s here in the audience today”—I look at Mr. Connelly. He flashes me a grin. The crowd starts to cheer, then freezes when they hear my next words—“sexually harassed me.”
There’s a collective wave of gasps.
There’s no turning back now. I speak clearly into the mic, describing what it felt like to have my coach, my hero, proposition me. To find myself—me, a strong, opinionated debater, the kind of girl who takes no shit from anyone onstage—a victim of sexual misconduct offstage. Mr. Connelly flinches as I tell the audience how it all started with him believing in me.
“It used to take my breath away, that someone could believe so much in me,” I say, staring at him. “It made me feel invincible.”
I describe what it was like trying to navigate sexual misconduct as a scholarship student. Is it possible to keep training with him? How would that work, do we establish ground rules? I’ll let you hit on me in exchange for killer feedback? Hold my hand for rebuttals? The crushing fear that the alternative would mean he’ll punish me, take away my scholarship, or worse, ruin my future.
My voice quivers as I describe what it’s like to lose a coach. Not just any coach. The one man who’s ever believed in me. In my weakest moments, I would lie awake at night, fighting the urge to grab my phone and text him, It’s okay, I forgive you, whatever it takes just to hear those four magical words again—“my bright, shining star.”
As I talk, I feel something change in me. I always thought that if I went out there and spoke my truth, I’d be filled with a kind of shame that I can never undo, but instead, I feel lighter. Like the crushing stone that has been weighing me down for months is finally being lifted. And the anger that has consumed me is morphing into something else—hope.
“Sexual crimes are not just a hashtag on Twitter. They are real. They can happen to anyone, even the strongest, loudest of us,” I say. “We need to combat it. We need to make victims feel safe to come forward. We need to boycott the work of artists who commit sexual crimes, and remove those in positions of power who use their authority to abuse our trust. So that new, emerging artists have a chance to thrive.”
The audience claps wildly. Many people stand. Mr. Connelly ducks out of the room. When I’m finished, the chief adjudicator, Mr. Burroughs, comes onstage and takes the mic from me.
“Thank you so much for those electrifying speeches! Let’s give these incredible young men and women another round of applause!”
An organizer leads me backstage to where all the other debaters are waiting for the results. Some of them offer words of condolences for my suffering; others look at me like they’re not sure what to say to me. I keep my eyes to the ground, listening to the pumping in my chest. I try not to think about my teammates, Mr. Connelly, my teachers watching back home, my mom—oh God, my mom. What’s she going to think?
Suddenly, I hear the judges call out, “And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The winner of the fifth-annual Snider Cup for Excellence in Debating and Public Speaking is . . .”
I suck in a breath.
“Danielle De La Cruz of American Prep!” he announces.
I won. I fucking won!
Seventy-Nine
Claire
Tears stream down my face as I watch Dani’s speech on my Facebook feed. This whole time, I can’t believe we’ve been suffering silently on two sides of the same wall, drowning in separate puddles of the same shame.
The questions Mr. Francis asked me during the ad board proceeding, they were questions I’d asked myself a million times—what were you doing in his bedroom? Why didn’t you scream louder? Kick him in the balls, dig your nails into him, run out of there? Why didn’t you do all the things society tells you to do when you get raped, having never been raped themselves?
Instead, my body lay there limp, worried if I shoved and kicked, it’ll take longer, it’ll be worse. My mind drifted out of my body, like the two were entirely separate, and my psyche went back into my childhood, to me playing in the garden with Tressy; walking my dog
, Snowy; little reminders that I still have things to live for. And later, when it was over, I didn’t leave because the thought of having to face him downstairs was so repulsive, I lingered in the bathroom. I stood in the shower telling myself that I was strong. And that everything was going to be okay. See? I’m washing it off—the shame, the humiliation, all of it. I’m washing it off because I’m a strong woman.
And I was strong.
It’s later that I fall apart in the interrogation room of my own mind. So to hear Dani’s words—it can happen to anyone, even the strongest, loudest of us—it was like turning on a light in the pitch-black cave. I never for a second considered there might be others in the cave.
I pick up my phone and text Dani.
We need to talk.
Eighty
Dani
“What the hell were you thinking?” Mr. Connelly comes barging into my prep room. I look up from my text exchange with Claire. I can’t believe what happened to her and what the school decided. It takes a minute to register the tone of Mr. Connelly’s voice, the fury on his face. “I let you come to Snider, and this is what you say about me?”
Calmly, I tell him to please step out.
“Me step out?” he snorts. “You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me! I should have never let you come!”
I jerk backward from the sting of his words. His eyes are bloodshot, his forehead sweaty as he points a finger at the door. “Go back out there and take it back,” he orders.
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Then you’ve ruined me!” he cries. “After everything I’ve done for you.” His hands tighten into fists. “You were nothing when I found you. I made you.”
The words cut into my most sensitive, vulnerable tendon. I try to shake it off, but I can’t. “Stop. Shut up!” I move to the other side of the room.
“I’ve created a monster,” he continues. He’s standing inches from me, and I can feel his wet spittle on my face. “A disloyal, heartless monster.”