Chapter Twenty-Two
Tamsin
I get back to the dorm late and wake Rikki up.
We talk for hours. She tells me to cut my Monday classes, which is pretty wild—she never ditches herself and she always gives me a hard time when I do.
But I don’t do it. I don’t get a lot out of my lectures today, but I go to them.
I talk to Izzy about her Juliet cap at dinner, and she tells me not to worry about it. Daniel might bring it to class tomorrow, and if he doesn’t, she’ll ask him to bring it next time. I won’t have to talk to him.
I’m more grateful for my friends than I can ever express. Every time I think about them I start to cry.
But that’s not the only thing making me cry.
I didn’t cry last night when I was talking to Rikki. My anger was too hot and fierce then. Tonight, though, Rikki’s at the library and I’m alone in our room. I can’t focus on studying, but I’m afraid if I don’t give myself something to do I’ll start thinking about Daniel.
I’m not ready to think about Daniel.
I decide to do laundry. I gather all my stuff, including everything that’s under the bed and on the floor of my closet.
That’s when I find it: Daniel’s red button-down shirt. I stuck it in my closet the night of our first date and forgot about it.
Now I pick it up and go sit on my bed.
It’s just a regular men’s shirt. Nothing special about it. But the thing is, it smells like him. Like soap and mint and something uniquely Daniel.
And before I know what’s happening, my face is buried in that damn shirt and I’m sobbing like I’ll never stop.
* * *
By the time I go to Experiments in Drama on Tuesday night, I’m feeling a little better. I’m not crying anymore, which is good, and I’m not mad anymore either. I feel sort of…I don’t know. Not tired, exactly. More like I’ve been emptied out. Like so much emotion has been wrung out of me in the last few days I don’t have any left.
There’s been one piece of good news. The cast list is up, and Charlie and Izzy and I all got the parts we auditioned for in Romeo and Juliet. I’m genuinely excited to start work on the play.
Or at least, I will be once I get some feeling back in my heart.
I’m not looking forward to seeing Daniel, but I don’t think he’ll try to talk to me or anything. He texted once, this morning, to say he has Izzy’s crystal cap and he’ll bring it with him tonight.
Ok, I texted back.
Can we talk after class?
No.
And that was it.
Which is why I don’t think he’ll bother me tonight. I’m pretty sure he’s gotten the message.
I get to the theater before him and sit between Charlie and Izzy. They know things went south between me and Daniel, and though I haven’t told them as much as I’ve told Rikki, they’re on my side and will play buffer if need be.
As students trickle in and Professor Washington makes her appearance, I tense up in spite of myself. Daniel usually comes five or ten minutes early, and now it’s seven-thirty-two. Is he skipping class? A part of me hopes he does, but I know it would be better to get the first awkward sighting over with. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.
Oh God, wrong metaphor. That’s the phrase I used to Daniel the night I crawled through his window.
And just like that I’m back in his bed, sharing the sweetest, most intense sexual experience of my life.
I hate thinking that Daniel might have lied to me about being a virgin. I hate thinking he might have lied about loving me.
I don’t want to believe it, and in my heart I don’t. My instincts tell me he was honest about those things.
But that, of course, is the whole problem. I don’t know if I can trust my instincts anymore.
Then Daniel walks in the door, and all the warmth drains from my body.
I keep my head down, pretending to look at my phone. Charlie and Izzy shift a little closer to me, and that small comforting action makes me feel better.
I sense rather than see him walk up the stairs and past our row of seats. He usually sits up front, but tonight he goes to the back of the house.
And just like that, it’s over. The first post-breakup encounter is in the books. He didn’t try to talk to me, and I didn’t burst into tears or recriminations. I call that a win.
But as Joan comes to the front of the stage and starts class, I don’t feel like I’ve won anything.
“Okay, guys. Today we’re going to dig a little deeper.”
Great. Just what I don’t feel like doing tonight.
“You might think dramatic skill starts with monologue and advances to dialogue. The more variables you add to an equation the more difficult it must be, right? But in acting, that’s not necessarily so. In a dialogue with a scene partner, you can draw on the other person’s energy. When you’re doing a monologue, you have only yourself to rely on. So tonight, we’re going to try some monologues. We’ve been talking about the intersection of the personal and the political, especially as it relates to our bodies, our beliefs, and our relationships. So tonight I want you to get as personal as you can. Tell us about a time someone else tried to define you. A time someone imposed on you—whatever that means to you.”
She looks around the room for a moment and then zeroes in on me. “Tamsin, you’ve been very brave in your scene work so far. Why don’t you start us off?”
Izzy grabs my arm and whispers, “You don’t have to. I’ll go up if you want.”
I shake my head. “Thanks, but I’ll be okay.”
And as I walk up onto the stage—Joan put a wooden chair there for us to sit on—I realize it’s true. It might take some time, but I’ll be okay.
I sit down, take a deep breath, and look at the front row.
“My name is Tamsin Shay, and I’m Queen of the Sluts.”
That gets a laugh.
I look up a little higher now, into the second row where Izzy and Charlie are.
“I say that for the same reason anyone says stuff about themselves. So that other people can’t say it first. If you head them off at the pass, they don’t have as much power to hurt you.”
I shift a little on the chair, leaning forward and clasping my hands between my knees. I’m looking out at the whole audience now—except for the back row where Daniel is—but I know that if I need to focus on a particular face, I can look at Izzy.
“I got called a slut in high school even before I slept with anyone. I liked short skirts and high heels, and freshman year they called me Slutty Shay. So it was no big shock when they called me a slut sophomore year, after I did sleep with someone—or junior and senior year, when I slept with a lot of someones. I figured out when I was a virgin in high heels that it honestly doesn’t matter what you do. If you’re a girl who likes sex—or even just being sexy—someone’s bound to call you a slut sooner or later. So why not own it, right?
“I did own it. I still do. But sometime in the last few days, I realized something.”
For the first time, I glance up into the back row. Daniel’s sitting absolutely still, his eyes fixed on my face. I look away again.
“I thought I was comfortable with who I am. Comfortable enough that no one could hurt me like I’d been hurt in high school. I thought the assholes had lost their power over me. And you know what? I was right. Their words can’t hurt me anymore.
“But here’s the thing. I still hurt. I still hurt, because somewhere along the line I let the shame inside me. It snuck through the door and wormed its way in.
“That’s what I realized over the last few days. I’ve been telling myself all this time that no one has any right to judge me, and they don’t. But that’s not the problem. The problem is that I’ve been judging myself. I haven’t forgiven myself for the choices I made when I was a teenager.
“Until I accept myself—until I forgive myself—nothing anyone else says or does will matter a damn. And that’s where my real struggle is. Not out there, with them—but inside.”
I get to my feet. As I cross the stage toward the stairs, there’s silence in the house. Then, as I take my seat again, my classmates applaud.
“Thank you, Tamsin,” Joan says. “I’m looking forward to seeing your work as Juliet. Now, who wants to go next?”
“I will.”
My whole body tenses up at the sound of that voice.
As Daniel gets up and comes toward the stage, my heart starts to race. Goose bumps prickle every inch of my skin. And I wonder how long it will be before my body stops reacting to Daniel like he’s the love of my life.
Stupid body.
He sits down on the wooden chair where I just was. He’s wearing khaki pants and a navy blue button-down shirt. He rests his hands on his knees, and all I can think about is how those hands felt on my skin.
A few seconds go by and he doesn’t start talking. A few seconds more, and it’s the awkward moment when you’re not sure if the actor is taking a dramatic pause or if he’s forgotten a line. A few seconds after that, we’re all wondering if Daniel has frozen up.
But now, finally, he begins.
“My dad died when I was a kid. It was a bad time, but we did the best we could. There wasn’t a lot of money. My mom’s a nurse and my dad was an ambulance driver, and most of his life insurance went to funeral expenses. We moved out of our house and into an apartment, and when one of our neighbors offered to babysit me and my sister so my mom could pick up extra shifts at the hospital, she was so grateful.
“Henry watched us on the weekends. He worked in a music store and played drums in a garage band, and he was the coolest guy I knew. When he told us he was moving away, I was really upset.
“A week before he left, my mom took my sister to some ballet thing. Henry invited me over so I wouldn’t have to go with them. Then, when I got there, he offered me a beer.
“I was twelve years old, and I’d lost my dad. I had all these ideas about being the man of the family and no clue what that actually meant. Now here was this guy I looked up to, offering me a beer and treating me like a man.
“I chugged that beer like I’d seen people do in movies. Then I had another one. The next thing I knew, I was lying on Henry’s couch with my head swimming, and he was touching me.”
I freeze in horror.
Please, I think to myself. Please, no.
I don’t even know what I’m pleading for. This happened in the past, and I can’t go back in time and stop it.
“I didn’t understand what was happening. He was touching me outside my clothes. Then he tugged down my sweatpants and pulled down my underwear and touched me again.”
A wave of nausea goes through me. For a second I think I’ll vomit right here in the theater. But I take a breath, and another one, and I manage to keep it together.
“I was still just lying there. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t jump up and run away. That’s one of the reasons I thought what happened was my fault. For years I thought that.
“Of course, I tell myself now that Henry spent months making sure I trusted him. He knew I’d lost my dad. He knew I saw him as a surrogate father or whatever. And then he gave me alcohol.
“I tell myself all that now. It wasn’t my fault, I tell myself now. But back then, all I knew was that I stayed there on Henry’s couch and let him touch me.
“It was only when he took my hand and put it on his penis that I got up and ran away. I went into my apartment and locked the door. I went into my room and locked that door, too. I never saw Henry again. And I never told anyone what happened. Not my mom, not my minister, not anyone.”
His eyes are on the floor. He’s not looking at us. He’s remembering the shame that bastard made him feel, and there’s nothing I can do.
“There are guys who say that if a girl doesn’t fight it can’t be rape. They don’t understand what it’s like when someone you trust—or someone with more power than you—takes advantage. They blame the victim, and that’s fucking evil. But even when I tell myself that, it still doesn’t stop me from blaming myself.”
He glances up for the first time, and his eyes meet mine.
“It’s like Tamsin said. The hardest fight is always with ourselves. But, here’s the thing.”
He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.
“The hardest fight is with ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we can stop fighting the assholes. Even if the assholes are our friends—or our ex-friends.”
His eyes are still on mine. “I never told anyone I was molested. There are a lot of reasons for that, and most of them have to do with shame. I’ve known that for a long time. But what I didn’t know…what I still don’t know…is how much of my shame is because I’m a guy. Men aren’t supposed to be victims. And so when we are, we don’t talk about it.”
He takes another breath. “The last couple of days, I’ve been wondering if the whole toxic masculinity thing isn’t as stupid as I’ve always thought. And if women aren’t the only ones hurt by it.”
He stops talking, and there’s dead silence in the theater. All around me the other students are just sitting there, frozen. But I’m not focused on any of them. I’m looking at Daniel, and he’s looking at me.
Then he gets to his feet.
“Thanks for listening,” he says.
He crosses the stage and goes down the steps. But instead of returning to his seat, he goes out the door.
There’s still dead silence in the theater.
Then, after a moment, Izzy touches my shoulder.
“Go,” she says, and I do.