TWELVE MINUTES

by Kathryn Hewitt

  A whole lot can get lost in the fine print of these contracts.

  A multitude of hidden loopholes and jargon can create the most delicate of silkworm netting. Even the tightest net isn’t leak proof; the smallest things are often the most important, and all too frequently, that which is lost. I lost a lot that day. Large and small things, stolen, absconded with, given away. I still don’t know all that I signed my name to that afternoon.

  My mom cleared her throat. She was usually tolerant of my reveries, they happened often since the ‘incident,’ as my mom calls it. Once I'd screamed, “Rape! It was a RAPE, Not an INCIDENT!” She had burst into tears and couldn’t face me for two days.

  I am definitely uglier now. The Incident took care of that for me.

  “I don’t know Mom, he just does. And I think it’s kind of sweet.” Shit. I was facing her now, and dammit if I didn’t just freaking blush again! I was 23 years old, for crickets' sake. A far cry from innocent, and here I was blushing like Mary had walked in on her lamb having a little private time. My mom’s worried expression verified that she had seen and taken note of my momentary sunburn.

  “Tell me about him again?” I internally groaned for the twelve millionth time since I’d gotten home and my mom saw me walk in smiling.

  Ugh.

  “Mom. I just told you.” She simply stared at me with that I-survived-38-hours-of-labor-so-you-should-just-give-up-right-now look on her face. Ok, tick off two more silent groans. My mom was impossible. “His name is Charlie. He’s in my Mid-Century American Literature class. But he’s the TA…well, he’s a fifth year senior who is working concurrently on his Post-Bac in Journalism.” Oh shit. I’d said too much…again. Stupid stupid filterless mouth. Why oh why couldn’t I have just stopped at TA? I knew what the widening, followed by the narrowing, of my mother’s eyes meant. She’d figured out way more than I’d wanted her to. And she was suspicious. I knew this because every time I looked at my mother, my own blue eyes stared right back at me.

  “Look, I don’t really know him.” I turned back to the sink to deposit my empty glass and bail. Then, realizing how lame that was to dump my dishes on my mom, I washed the glass, taking care to use plenty of soap and hot water so as to avoid my mother’s penetrating stare for as long as possible.

  “Ok. I think that you think you can convince me that you don’t really know him, but clearly you know quite a bit.” My mom started going to therapy after I was attacked, a decision that even in my demented state made me feel something that resembled happy for her. I objectively and abstractly understood that others were just as affected as I was. Rachel, bless her, has been with me since the beginning. Essentially, since Nurse Diane “Fighting One Rape at a Time” Michaels had handpicked her for me, before bringing Rachel with her daily for short periods of time, so that I could get used to trusting another person.

  Diane really was the first person that I trusted, as much as someone who had brutally learned the price of trust, could. I had trusted my safety out alone during the day, in a public place. What I had thought was a human right, was in fact a privilege that I had never been destined to be rewarded with. So I had built a wall…

  No, I had hand sewn the shreds of my heart back together in a manner that would have made Mary Shelley covetous. I had taken this barely beating lump of humanity and flash frozen it with liquid nitrogen, locked it in the case with the Hope Diamond, drawn a treasure map to where I had hidden said beauty and beast, which I subsequently burned and scattered the ashes of to the sea, from the precarious edge of a Finnish Fjord.

  I was a little guarded.

  So Diane, who had started visiting me during her free time and breaks, was the first to don the scuba gear and prepare for a deep-sea reconnaissance mission.

  Slowly, so slowly, I changed. The doctors called it ‘Healing,’ but they had no real understanding of the concept. Yes, my bones knit, I began to be able to blink my right eye, and it started aching just a little less when I inhaled. And how could I forget the wiping? Wiping oneself is glorious.

  But Healing? When one of my many revolving-door doctors had reviewed my chart for the 4th time that week (did doctors have to navigate so much input that once they moved on, they had to do a mind wipe? Maybe the reason it was so difficult to become a doctor was because you had to be an MKUltra to be able to handle the occupation), he'd looked up at me and smiled.

  “It won’t be long before you’re completely healed!” He was still smiling, and most likely assumed that my lack of expression was due to my injuries. But even if I had been inclined to respond, I was literally at a loss for words. And let me tell you, no one has ever in the history of Cassandra Lila Ward said that I was at a loss for words. Generally the opposite was communicated, and not in an especially flattering way.

  Diane had been in the room and witnessed this exchange with her usual practiced expressionless face. But I wasn’t fooled. Diane might think that she was providing me with companionship, and maybe a little real-world fueled psychological guidance, but the more frequent her visits became, the more I started to suspect that this was a mutually beneficial relationship.

  Diane didn’t fit in at the Hospital. She’d once confided this in me, briskly, but not well-hidden enough for me to not understand the hurt that underlay her statement. “They gave me this field as my own department, and kind of made me an apprentice-made specialist.” She’d told me this before and there was still pride ribboning through the words, but something bled through this time as she made her offhanded commentary. “I think they just had to find a place to put me where they had to have as little contact with me as possible, and Gregor’s closet smells grossly of Ammonia.” She’d cracked a small grin, but it wasn’t her usual true-of-heart smile. This one was a little wobbly, and practically resembled a grimace.

  Diane, one of the coolest ladies I’d ever met, had single-handedly collected the evidence to convict over 200 sexual assailants. She liked what she did and she was good at it. But seeing women like me day after day had to take a toll on Diane. She was probably already harder than she used to be. Brusquer, I corrected myself. Diane wasn’t hard at all; she was serious about a serious issue and that serious issue happened to be her job. Her serious job.

  I’d learned little by little that Diane had married young, but was no longer married. After one too many beatings, this time with the additional treat of a partial scalping complements of a broken Budweiser bottle, Diane had moved in with her sister, who had been begging her to leave ‘the Bastard’ since before they had married. Diane went back to school, supplementing her Nursing Certification and becoming an RN with a specialty in microbiology. She once bragged that she was just the trash collector, but that you should never assign value to someone based on their job. Diane could easily analyze all of the data that she collected; she’d had to learn this skill in order to be given her position.

  “My father once told me, ‘Everyone is the same, we just do different jobs,’” she’d said, and I wished, for not the first time, that I had a journal. These were the things that I wanted to write down. I was immediately slapped in the face by my subconscious, for forgetting that I was completely incapacitated and I couldn’t even move my arm, let alone write my own name. This of course was before I had been ‘assigned’ journaling, when I still viewed the task as an opportunity to document interesting and meaningful ideas.

  I looked down at my right hand, which had apparently suffered several breaks in the carpals. When the doctors referenced my Lunate, it made me feel like Diana the Moon Goddess had transcended the realms and shown herself to me as Nurse Diane Michaels. When they spoke of my Trapezium, I always imagined some colorful Menagerie Circus, with rinestone encrusted ringmasters and scantily costumed aerial artists swinging from the equally Baroque inspired fabric-swathed rafters. That image was less spiritual.

  “My father once told me, ‘Shit happens. It’s what you do about it that matters,’” I’d countered. The laugh that had escaped Diane was such
a lovely and carefree one, that came from all of her, without being overwhelming and grating. I realized that I wanted to make her laugh more often. “Hey, it’s a pretty good way to live. You gotta admit that!” I cracked the corner of my mouth in a gesture that I knew Diane understood to be equivalent to a smile.

  I suddenly recognized a look in Diane’s eyes. I saw it in my mom’s and my sister’s every time that they visited. I even saw it in Joan’s eyes, which kind of immaturely rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn’t even meet James’ eyes, since that first week. His eyes were so pain-filled, the pure agony seemed to leach out of them. I felt awful that he was so upset, that they were all upset. I really did. I’d trade anything so as to protect them from this.

  Well, clearly I wouldn’t trade anything.

  But I couldn’t stand that look. I couldn’t see the pain and not feel helpless to remedy it, not feel responsible for causing it, and not feel enraged that He had been the ultimate source of it. And I couldn’t stand the pity, that seemed to go hand in hand with the pain.

  “Um, I’m kind of tired Diane.” I immediately closed my eyes and she silently left the room. This was what our routine had developed into, a far cry from the first days when Diane would look at me with those eyes, thinking that I wasn’t looking. I’d have to ask her to leave and we’d have an awkward conversation comprised of parting niceties, while I studiously avoided her gaze.

  That’s when she’d introduced me to Rachel. One day she had just shown up with her and introduced ‘her friend Rachel.’ I later accused Diane of lying to me, to which she’d angrily yelled back that Rachel was her friend. Rachel was also a Psychiatrist. Right then, closing my eyes and yelling at Diane to leave and not come back, I declared to myself that I would always refer to Rachel as my therapist. It made me feel less permanently damaged. I apologized to Diane the next day, which she waved off like she always did. I wondered if I ever hurt her feelings, but then I doubted it.

  ELEVEN

  Back in my room, after leaving the kitchen, I was shaking. Why did my mom’s asking about Charlie make me feel so wound up? I was doing what everyone claimed that they wanted for me, I was learning to reintegrate into society. I smiled at other girls, and was open to making friends, but University isn’t the best environment for a shell-shocked and socially inept new girl.

  Oh, don’t forget, a Pretty new girl.

  Charlie was Charlie because he was the only person whose name that I knew. That was all. My mom should be happy that I was attempting to make friends. I wouldn’t tell her that my own confusion about my ‘friendly’ feelings was hard enough for me to deal with. I flopped face down on my blue and white striped comforter, the same one I’d picked out for college when I still thought that I was going to succeed at my launch into the world. When I thought that my trajectory was those of fairy tales…or at least, normal.

  And, I was definitely not going to tell my mom that when Charlie looked at me, he seemed like he actually saw me. Or how for the first time in a long time, I kind of wanted him to see me. We were a month into the semester, and maybe, just maybe, I could do this. Or at least, that was what I told myself every morning as I stared at myself in the mirror. There was that same pretty girl, vivid blue eyes contrasting with long dark hair. Nice natural waves, thanks again to my mom. But I also saw the fact that at just the right angle, I could take your breath away. I noticed where my natural imperfections had been smoothed and contoured.

  Dr. McElhatton once said, “My Dear, you are quite lucky. Your Mother here gifted you with the genetic blessing of a ‘nose job nose.’ And I’m talking, the expensive kind.” This didn’t have the intended effect, on me, until I looked at my mom and saw that I was wrong. The statement had definitely had its intended effect. I’d just mistakenly thought it was me, that the effect was for.

  TWELVE

  “No one asked you to come visit me! No one told you to re-enact my worst nightmare of the ultimate violation, smear it all on some damn slides, and then become my friend.” I practically sneered at that last part. I was sick of being everyone’s damn pity project.

  “And no one brings me any damn mini-muffins!” If Diane hadn’t started laughing heartily, I’m not sure where this altercation would have gone. I wasn’t ready to apologize, and I couldn’t imagine that Diane liked to just be yelled at. But laughing? Suddenly I felt both lighter, and filled with hot shame. Why had I behaved like that? Why had I lashed out at the one person who had become my only friend?

  My best friends came a lot in the beginning. My boyfriend, Kenny, came every day for the first week until I asked him to stop visiting. I figured it was better that way. I couldn’t be with him anymore…I couldn’t be with anyone anymore.

  Anymore.

  Times Infinity.

  Carve another notch in the bedpost for things that He stole from me.

  Kenny had argued, but I knew that it was for show. He couldn’t be with me anymore than I could be with him. Not after this. For so many reasons. I didn’t blame him. Diane had visited shortly after and written down what I’d asked her to transcribe in the brown leather journal that she had nonchalantly tossed onto my bed one day, during one of her ‘constitutionals,’ as she referred to them. The journal was beautiful and had a little leather tether to wrap around it and tie it closed.

  It became my most valued possession.

  For the first while, it just sat blank as I stubbornly refused to dictate my most private thoughts to Diane. Finally one day I'd screamed with frustration. Diane looked at me expectantly, but not with much interest.

  “Fine!” I’d yelled. Yelling isn’t nearly as fun when you can’t really add any gestures or punctuating body language. “You! Pencil! Now.” I'd closed my eyes and exhaled with aggravation. Ultimately, I'd started talking. “One thing I've learned: People can’t be held responsible for their actions when face to face with the unimaginable.” There. I’d expressed my feelings about Kenny, said a whole lot more about me, and broken the seal on my journal.

  I was beat.

  THIRTEEN

  My mom had followed me upstairs, obviously on a mission, depsite my insistance that I was tired and wanted to rest, before rolling over on my bed and away from her. I knew by the dead silence that my mom was still standing there waiting for me to tell her about Charlie. And I was so not going to tell her about Charlie. I closed my eyes and exhaled through my nose like Rachel had taught me. I wasn’t about to tell my mom that Charlie was one of the most interesting people that I had ever met, and quite possibly the most good looking. He had sandy blonde hair and perpetual scruff, hazel eyes that surprisingly matched his hair color almost identically.

  I was not going to tell my mom how he was my student teacher but also my classmate, and by some unicorn, he was my Journalism teacher’s mentee. Which meant that he was there for both of my classes. That was a lot of hard work and diligence devoted to not staring at him. I liked boys, as much as any hetero girl my age, or I think that I did. That part of me got erased and re-programmed so it’s hard to say, which is why I was Not going to start enabling my mom’s own PTSD.

  I had a whole lot of my own shit to figure out.

  Like how he came in late to our first class of Lit and squeezed into the empty chair next to me. In a half empty auditorium. It reminded me of this flight that I had been on that was literally only 1/3 full. Windows or Aisles for All! Hey, lie down and get comfy! That was when I noticed the timid businessman who suddenly sat down in the empty middle seat between an obvious husband and wife…who I was assuming were ‘spreading out’ like any remotely well-adjusted person would. When we'd disembarked, the flight attendant had kindly told him that there was no assigned seating on this airline. The look of horror and mortification that washed over this nebbish man, who was quite possibly flying for the first time, was so acute that I'd feared it was contagious.

  Had this person who had just sat next to me in class not gotten the memo about Southwest Airlines? I had specifically chosen this class as
my first to springboard from, because it was being held in one of the largest lecture halls but was also only half enrolled. Before the stranger next to me started breathing my air, the Professor finished telling us how lucky we were, that our experience would be that much more enriched by the smaller class size, with more opportunity for one-on-one time with the instructors.

  Experience. Enriched. Opportunity. Instructors.

  It was like he was stringing along all of the hopes that I had built up, in anticipation of returning to college. After my first year was cut short, a mere month from completion, I had taken a sabbatical. Granted, I had a whole lot of healing to do, therapy, physical therapy, and many many doctor visits. It was a good six months before I could see my face. It was another good six months before I could look at that face.

  My Pretty Face.

  Horribly, I was prettier now. I was just that much more symmetrical, contoured and sculpted by a nationally renowned Cosmetic Surgeon (who I suspect had been having more than a doctor-patient relationship with my mother *shudder*). Luckily I was “easy to match.” Apparently, I had a pretty good left side. I intentionally tuned out as Dr. McElhatten, or Richard, as my mother insisted on calling him, detailed the damage to my face and the extreme and minute measures that he had been required to practice in order to save “That pretty face.” Thankfully after the first time that he had said it, I drew from survival instinct and tuned him out before I could hear that phrase again.

  I want to see your pretty face.

  That first time that Dr. McElhatten had uttered those words had required an extra-tired Diane to draw from her well of strength and entertain me for an hour, before she went and got Rachel and informed us that she was, “too tired for this shit,” and that she’d appreciate it if, “Rachel could do her fucking job once in a while,” so that she didn’t have to, “Baby-sit a self-sorry invalid.”