The Confidential Hotline on Campus

When you call the Confidential Hotline on campus,

practiced gentility asks,

"How can I help you today?"  

I stay silent on the line;

maybe a dial tone is still ringing,

maybe someone did pick up after all.

Maybe I don't know how to answer yet.  

"Is everything okay?"  

I recollect on some parts of that night.

The party and the drinking; music and dancing, holding his hand  

and thinking I could trust him.  

I say,

finally--

"I know I had too much to drink that night.

I know I invited him into my room that night."  

The woman on the other line holds her breath.

Waits for the inevitable.

Like hearing screeching tires and then listening for the crash.

She has been here before;

before the autopsy report.

Before the police statement.

Before the court house testimony. Before the questions and motions

of another college statistic.  

I say, "Ive spent the past few days wanting to vomit.

I sleep on the other side of my bed,

Thinking--

Maybe this 

Will keep the memory away."  

​

I tell her that I went to church.

I thought the word mercy 

over and over again

as I knelt at an altar,

and asked god to believe me.

Please believe me.    

"Would you like me to connect you to other resources on campus?"  

​

We've both been here before.

Designated reporters

supposedly trained in dealing with instances like this;

Hold the crying girl.

Tell her this wasn't her fault.

Tell her there are people here who want to help.  

So I sit on the floor and press my palms to my ribs.

I keep myself upright  

and the woman on the other line goes through the motions. 

She follows the rulebook.  

She says she'll be here as long as I need it,

and I wonder how many more phone calls like this she'll answer today.

How many more people

she'll try to put back together again today.  

"I don't know what to call this,"

I tell her.

"Don't know what to call foreign hands roaming my body

when he thought I was sleeping.

Pressing parts of himself against me,

when he thought I wouldn't notice."  

She says it wasn't my fault,

and I want to believe her

more than I believe myself.

More than I believe the memory of me

opening the door for him that night.  

At the end of the call

she gives me her condolences.

"I'm sorry you went through this."  

The silence holds us both upright again.

Feels like the end of a eulogy.

Like people saying goodbye at a funeral.

Like not knowing what comes afterward.  

I reply, "Me too."

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