I gained consciousness in the emergency unit of the local hospital. I really had no idea where I was for a few minutes-I was incredibly disoriented and scared, but then an old grandmotherly nurse came in to help me out.
“Where-I-“ I sputtered. I tried to sit up but felt a terrible pain in my arm. I realized it was in a cast, and that I was in a hospital gown.
“Shh, honey. You’re in the ER of Alten Hospital. I’m Nurse Elizabeth Gershom.”
“But-why am I here?” I asked, confused.
“Listen, I’ll go get Dr. Sterling, and he’ll answer all your questions, okay?” I nodded and she left. I was still trying to figure out what happened when a tall, burly man in a doctor’s coat walked in. All of a sudden everything that happened up until I was knocked out came flooding back-Keith-The Pink Fish-the car…everything, and I was really frightened of this man, even if he wasn’t Keith. I wished that the nurse would come back.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Sterling.” He held the chart out and pulled a chair up by my bed. He looked at me and my feelings must’ve been scrawled all over my face because he suddenly stood up. “Would it be more comfortable for you if Nurse Gershom were here?” I nodded and he quickly retrieved the nurse, who was smiling but looking concerned at the same time. She took the chair by my bed and squeezed the hand that wasn’t in a cast, and the doctor cleared his throat to start telling me what happened. “You were found unconscious beside a dirt road a little ways from here. An elderly couple brought you here, where we discovered that you’d been severely beaten, and your right wrist was broken. We have reason to suspect that you’d been raped.”
I looked down and nodded, visions of Keith forcing himself on me coming back fully.
“Dear, can you tell us your name? Where you live?” Nurse Gershom asked kindly.
“Ye-yes. My name is Katherine Jacobson and I live in 1322 Beechwood Rd.” Dr. Sterling quickly wrote it down. “Is there anyone you’d like us to call?”
“Yeah, please. My best friend David Jones.” I gave them the number and they left, Nurse Gershom giving me one last squeeze.
A little while later the nurse came back in. She sat down on the chair and patted my hand again.
“Your friend David couldn’t be reached, but there was another young man there who says he’s a friend of yours too. He wanted to come by and see how you were. Are you alright with that?” “Um, yeah. Thank you.” I wasn’t really, but I wasn’t going to turn down Peter-I was sure it was him. She walked up and opened the door, and to my surprise it wasn’t Peter but Mike standing there. I looked away as he sat down on the chair beside my bed. “I think this is the first time I’ve seen you without your hat.” I said, still avoiding his gaze.
“Davy is still on his date, and the others went out to see a movie and hadn’t gotten back yet when the hospital called. I certainly wasn’t goin’ to wait for them to come see you, let alone look for my hat.” I stayed silent. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him there, but I was feeling ashamed. “Katie, look at me.” I did slowly. His eyes had tears in them; his face was etched with worry. Taking a deep breath, he continued. “I know we haven’t been the closest of friends-in fact, I’ve been downright mean to you before-but you are a part of my life. A part of my life I like, and don’t want to change. All I’m sayin’ is that I’m here for you, as I know you’d be here for me if I was in your position.” I looked down for a minute, than reached over and hugged him tightly. I began to sob as he held me like that, letting all my pent up emotions out freely.
“How could I have let this happen to me? I didn’t even think this could ever happen to me. God, Mike, we were having such a good time-I was so fucking stupid!”
“It’s not your fault, Katie.” He kept saying over and over as I poured out the whole story. We must’ve been there an hour before Nurse Gershom came in again.
“I’m sorry, I think that maybe you should leave so Katherine could get some rest.” She told Mike quietly. He looked as if he was going to argue, but I rested my hand on his shoulder to stop him.
“Mike, could you call Davy for me? I’m sure he’s home by now.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.” He gave me a small reassuring hug and got up to leave. I leaned back in my bed trying to will myself to stay up for Davy, but my medicine must have kicked in because I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
“How could anyone do this to her?” What a fuc-“ I woke up to a fuming Davy. Apparently he was ranting to Mike, and they both looked ragged and like they hadn’t slept a wink that night.
“Davy, she’s up.” Mike whispered quietly.
“Katie, how you feeling?” Davy’s voice changed so radically from being angry to concerned that it made me smile.
“Well, my wrist hurts a little, but other than that…” I realized I was exhausted. “When did you get here?”
“About four hours ago. Micky and Helen are in the waiting room, Peter’s at the apartment waiting for a police call.”
“Police?”
“Yeah, we told them that you had gone out with a man named Keith, and Helen gave them a description of his looks. They wanted to question you now, but the doctor wouldn’t let them in.” Thank you Dr. Sterling, I thought to myself. The last thing I wanted was to be interrogated by the cops just then-I was going to be answering tons of questions for my friends soon enough, anyway.
“I should call my sister. She’d want to be here.” I grimaced, thinking that if I were to call my little sister up my mother would most certainly hear about my attack too.
“You don’t want your mother to know.” Davy said quietly. We’d taken up the habit of reading each other’s minds at times.
“Why don’t you-?” Mike broke in. Davy, for once in his entire existence, had the opportunity to give Mike a reproachful look. He got the hint and left Davy and me alone. I felt a pang in my chest after Mike disappeared from sight, as if I didn’t want him to leave.
Almost like I had developed feelings for him in that hour he comforted me. This isn’t good.
The next day I was allowed to leave the hospital. I was relieved to get out of there, but I didn’t feel I was ready to go back to my apartment by myself-so Helen invited me to stay with her until I could go back to living alone. This arrangement would have suited me better if I weren’t thinking certain things about her boyfriend.
Of course, the feelings came and went. On one hand, men still frightened me-including Mike, Micky and even Peter at times. Davy was excluded from this for some reason. I told the shrink at the hospital about my odd reaction, and he said that the reason I didn’t feel the same fear from Davy was because “he has a non-threatening structure to him, and being so close as friends helps you eliminate the sense of alarm you have for other men.”
So, having a sort-of crush on Mike set off an anxiety about sex that I never had before.
On the other hand, having thoughts at all of that sort was bad. Very bad.
“Okay, Katie, you can sleep in my bed tonight, if you want.” Helen offered kindly, only deepening my guilt.
“No thanks, Helen. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“You sure?” She asked, concern knitting her eyebrows together.
“Yes!” I said playfully, though my old sense of craziness had washed away during this whole ordeal. I sighed, and then screamed as the telephone ringing scared me half-to-death. Helen raced to get it before it could ring again.
“Hello?” She asked tentatively. She glanced over at me as she listened, nodding her head as if the person on the other end could see her. I smiled, recalling that I often did the same thing. “Yeah, you two can come over… Mike and Micky will be over later… Fine. Um, Katie and I are going to the police station tomorrow to answer more questions, you can come if you want…oh, maybe not. Okay, bye.” She hung up and looked my way. “Davy and Peter are coming over, is that alright?” I nodded, glancing up at the clock.
“They’ll be here just in time for Dark Shadows. I missed yesterdays episode.” I smiled faintly remembering Davy had said those words just the other day. Helen sat down next to me on the couch.
“Katie, I don’t know how one is supposed to feel after an incident like this, but you seem very nonchalant about it.” Well, I’m not; I just said everything I needed to say on the subject already to Davy, the shrink and the police. Oh, and your boyfriend, whom I’m currently in love with. What should I tell you?
“It’s hard to talk about, you know? I don’t even want to think about it. I just want to…get on with my life.” She remained silent. “Um, would you mind if I used your phone? I still want to call my sister up.” She nodded, pointing to the phone in her room.
“If you want privacy.”
“Thank you so much, Helen.” I leaned over and gave her a hug.
“You know I love you like a sister, Katie.”
“I know.” I headed to her room and sat on her bed, working up the courage to call my house. Finally I just picked up the receiver and dialed my number.
“Hello?” I smiled and felt a rush of relief that it was my sister Emily.
“Hi, Em.”
“Katie! Where were you? You haven’t called in, like, forever!” She squealed loudly. I automatically shushed her. “Oops, sorry. So?” Always the persistent little teenager, isn’t she? I thought, recalling the fifteen-year-old fondly.
“Well, actually Em, I need to talk to you about-something.” I’m sure the apprehension was noticeable through my voice.
“What’s wrong?”
“Um, well-“ I took a deep breath and was about to rush out the whole story when Peter burst in.
“Katie, you alright-oh, oops, sorry. You’re on the phone.” Peter ducked out sheepishly.
“Who was that? What’s going on?” Emily asked with a note of urgency in her voice.
“You know, Emily, I’ll call you later, okay? Love you.” I hung up and burst into sobs. I was never going to push this out of my mind-not with everyone bringing it up all the time. And what would telling my little sister help things, anyway?
“Katie?” Peter poked his head back in. I continued crying without looking up. I heard the door creak open and then shut quietly as he approached me. I flinched when he laid his hand on my shoulder-but he ignored it and pulled me into a giant embrace anyway. As I did with Mike in the hospital and Davy later on, I just let it all out with big, wrenching sobs that shook my whole body. Peter whispered comforting words and let me cry. Finally I stopped and let go, and rubbing my eyes sleepily.
“God, how dramatic can I be?” I joked half-heartily.
Peter laughed. “You’ll be a great Broadway actress. Probably win twenty Tonys.”
“I couldn’t tell Emily what happened.” I stated abruptly.
“That isn’t a surprise.” I sighed. “C’mon, I’ll make you some kugal.”
“Make me kugal? All right! Just so long as you don’t add any carbonated beverages.”
“How about orange juice?”
“Oh Peter.” I giggled and we headed out to join Helen and Davy.
Two months passed, and I was feeling a lot better about everything. I went to see a psychiatrist two times a week-once a week I had to bring a friend. I think I brought Peter five out of the eight times. Davy might’ve been my best friend, but Peter was easier to talk with about the attack.
I even started to consider myself normal again. I’m not saying I was cured and could forget all about the rape-that’s far from the truth-but I moved back into my apartment two weeks after the phone call to Emily, and returned to work not long after.
As for my feelings for Mike-I kept them well hidden. After all, he was practically engaged to one of my good friends, and he was Mike. Besides, we had lapsed back into our old routine of teasing each other, though he had become more protective of me. Which kinda sucked at times.
“It’s summer! It’s summer!” Emily had called me up in early June. I never told her about what happened to me-I couldn’t bring myself to getting her all worried.
“You know what, Em? Maybe you could spend part of the summer with me here in California.”
“YES YES YES!” She screamed. Emily was always more popular with the peers back east, but she was pretty envious of my whole life out here-I’d sent her pictures of the boys, Helen and me, and she’d developed a crush on Davy. Of course.
“Ack! Don’t scream!” I scolded.
“Sorry sorry sorry!” She giggled. “Well, will you talk to Mom about it? You do have enough money to feed me, right?”
I burst out laughing. “You! Let Mom and me do the worrying. Just get packing, okay? Oh, how would you feel about coming over with Allison?” Allison was one of the “real” friends from home.
“Groovy! I’m putting Mom on the phone!”
“Okay, bye.” I heard her drop the phone and scream “MOOOOMMMMMM!”
“Hello?” I cringed at the sound of my mother’s voice. I avoided speaking to her as much as possible, but if I wanted Emily to come visit I had to talk with her. So I braced myself for the coming insults as I tried to keep the waver out of my voice.
“Hi Mom. It’s Katie.”
“Oh, hi Katherine. How’s life treating you as a waitress, hmm?”
Well, not very well considering I am recovering over a traumatic experience you don’t know a thing about, but other than that just swell. “Fine.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“Yeah. Listen, I want Emily to come visit for a couple weeks.”
“You want Emily to come and spend time with a bunch of long-haired older boys? I don’t want my only other daughter to become a slut.” She snarled.
“It’s not like that at all.”
She snorted. “Oh yeah? Explain those pictures you sent her. There’s only one other girl.”
“Well, you see it the way you want, though it’s so not the truth. Anyway, I spoke to Allison and she’s willing to fly up and visit with Em.”
“Well, if Allison’s there…all right. I’ll call you tonight after I arrange the flight tickets. Bye.” She hung up.
“Great Mom.” I sighed and smashed the phone down. “I wonder what the guys are up to?” * Simon & Garfunkel lyric from the song “America.”