Gia C. Manalio www.lifeissurreal.com when it mattered most i feel safe with you. you say to your boyfriend at the time. he says, nothing is going to happen to you here. but you don’t mean just there and you don’t mean just now. he laughs at you like you just said the most stupid thing in the world. he’s still laughing when he says, you’re not in any danger. his laugh is like a knife. it penetrates you. again and again and again. he doesn’t know. how could he? you never told him. you tried to. maybe once, twice, three times. how could you—really? he lives in his own problems, his own world. and it’s a rough world, and they, they are such hefty problems. and even if you could tell him you weren’t even sure what to tell him if you even could. you had been putting together bits and pieces and pieces and bits from the very little you do remember and what your friends said about the time they were around to observe. but they weren’t there the whole time. not when it mattered most. how could you tell him that only one friend spent the night? uninvited. but it was 2 am and he was catching a train later and he didn’t have anywhere else to go. and you let him because you’d been friends for over a year and you considered him one of your closest friends. your conversations were always so open and honest— he once said to you he valued your friendship because it was “safe.” only a tad flirtatious, as all friendships are. how could you tell your boyfriend you remember thinking it really didn’t matter. your friend could do whatever he wanted. you were going to bed. you were fading in and out. your friend was in your kitchen eating chips and telling you they were good. handful after handful after handful. if he eats them all, I won’t have enough left for lunch on monday, was what you were thinking as you were fading in and out. you remember bits and pieces and pieces and bits. you remember you didn’t want it to be happening. but you also remember you must have invited this. maybe even made it happen. he was such a good friend. you knew you must be as into this as he was. you knew you weren’t stopping it. how could you without hurting his feelings he was such a good friend. and you invited it. made it happen. it was your fault. it was happening and it was all your fault. your fault. but you have only pieced this scenario together from bits and pieces and pieces and bits because you don’t really remember anything. the next day you will tell your boyfriend you had gotten the flu. how could you tell him anything else? morning came and you curled up against against your friend— you were so sick and so scared and so hating yourself and you just wanted someone to tell you everything was going to be okay.   he was such a good friend. you told him. about the guilt. the hatred. the sick. he was listening. then it was happening again. you are lying with your boyfriend at the time, wondering if you are convincing yourself that it was one way to kill the guilt—to keep it from violating you over and over and over. so that you don’t hate yourself so much. so that even months later, you aren’t sick to your stomach when you think about it. you therapist would say that no, this was absolutely not what you are doing. but he wasn’t there. no one was there. not when it mattered most. it was only you and your friend. and you don’t remember hardly anything.