With the shower water running over me, I crouched in the tub trying to find any marks on my body that showed proof of what had happened. The only reminders from the night before was my pile of clothes in the living room and the pounding headache I felt in my eardrums. I knew he was still sleeping in the room next door.

 

I’ve never been interested in qualifying anger as an irresponsible reaction to rape. Of course there’s a validity in that response as a reaction and as a means of processing: rape is a violation of the most basic desire for autonomy. And that moment of rape reminds us that our bodies are susceptible to the most basic violence imaginable. So of course we get angry. Of course we turn those moments of fury into a desire to harm those who have harmed us. The anger surrounding rape and the cultures that indoctrinate us to normalize it is the most basic means to processing the pain that comes out of that violence.

 

I had agreed to pick up my friend from his apartment up the street to come with me to look at a Craigslist house I wanted to rent. I pulled into his driveway with my windows rolled down and my hair still wet. He told me I looked like shit and I nodded back. Driving up I71 West, I blasted the radio and belted out the only song whose words would stick to my mouth. Nathaniel stomped on the ground of the passenger seat, trying to hit a break that wasn’t there. I parked at the Taco Bell down the road and walked to the apartment.

 

But, when I say that I couldn’t process my own sites of rape with only anger, I don’t mean to say that anger was never a part of that process. In her speech "Uses of Anger," Audre Lorde, writing specifically about anti-black racism, says “[e]very woman has a well-stocked arsenal of anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and institutional, which brought that anger into being” (127 Sister Outsider). That anger, for any sort of marginalization, can be a powerful tool. And when that anger is articulated with the right people, it can represent a tool of healing. I have memories of nights, sitting in my dorm, drinking Merlot with my best friends, discussing how we sought to mutilate my rapist, laughing between bites of stale bread. It was never said directly, but we all knew that our talk was just drunken fodder. We didn’t stand a chance against harming him. The anger and imagined violence that we formed in those moments were a means to recreate a sensation of autonomy.

 

When we got to the apartment, the smell of a man who lived alone hung in the air. It made me sick and I asked to step outside. I saw a squirrel run across the length of the fence and knew that I would sign the lease there. I went back inside to take pictures and wondered if the smell of man would haunt me for the full 12 months I would live there. The bathroom had a window that looked out over the backyard and I imagined what it would feel like to fall asleep in the grass.

 

My choice to maintain contact with my rapist does not constitute forgiveness. I do not forgive what he did that night because there’s nothing that can forgive a harm like that. Him and I can have hour-long discussions of what happened that night, on a patio of a Columbus coffee shop, but nothing erases the marks still left on my body from that night.

 

When we walked back to the Taco Bell, I ordered nachos and a bean burrito. Nathaniel told me I was pale and I told him I had been drinking the night before. As we sat at the table, staring at the packets of hot sauce, I remembered the smell of his bed. I had to run to the bathroom because I thought I would vomit. Nathaniel told me to eat more to feel better and I asked him if he would ever hurt me.

 

I know that my story can upset many. And that’s a reason why I have, up until this moment, chosen to share it with only a select few people. Outing myself as an acquaintance to my own rapist can feel like a slap in the face to so many victims and survivors who have consciously cut ties with their abuser. Those survivors allow their anger to be the driving force in their healing process. And that decision to cut ties is a valuable one because it can grant an autonomy to those victims and survivors after their own rape so intensely striped them of it. But others being frustrated with my process affects my ability to share my story in spaces that are deemed safe for us survivors. Lorde speaks of the potential of articulating and reveling in these alternate reactions to oppression, writing “[b]ut the strength of women lies in recognizing differences between us as creative, and in standing to those distortions which we inherited without blame, but which are now ours to alter” (131 Sister Outsider). Creating safe spaces for survivors means making room for the different experiences that can come out of rape. This not only keeps the survivor story from falling into cliches, but provides a space for others to share their stories that appear to fall outside of the presumed norm. There are many spaces where I don’t feel safe sharing my story, despite that fear being counter to the atmosphere the curators of those spaces tout. And that seemingly misdirected frustration toward me, the rape survivor, can strip away my own autonomy in how I have dealt with my own trauma.

 

We sat in my car for hours, trying to hide our faces when the Taco Bell employees came outside to dump out the trash. He held his breath as my face got wetter and I wondered if he was trying to conceal the smell of man.

 

This story isn’t being shared as a call for all rape victims and survivors to forgive and reconcile with their rapists - I’m sharing this story as a means to process my own trauma and create a narrative I could never find when I needed it most.