Authors: Trevion Burns
“One warning and one only,” the elderly guard warned, moving the flashlight back and forth between their squinting faces. “Then you’re out of here.”
“We’re very sorry, Sir,” Lila said, even as Chase remained planted between her legs.
“Sorry.” Chase’s apology was much less genuine.
After fixing her top, they unpeeled themselves from each other. The guard waited until there wasn’t a single inch of their bodies touching before he finally moved on.
Lila met Chase’s eyes, and they both burst into laughter.
He caught her as she collapsed into his arms, her laughter quieting down, and cuddled her close to him as he leaned against the back window of the truck.
“It shouldn’t have happened here anyway,” he said after a long silence, holding her close, smelling her hair as their frantic breathing gradually died down. “Not like this.”
“Good thing he showed up,” Lila said.
They’d been about two seconds from working out some serious frustration in the back of his truck. In their excitement to get to the Boston drive-thru so they could have a real date night, and avoid being spotted, they hadn’t even thought to check whether or not the theater had security scouring the area.
It had been a blessing in disguise. Lila was with Chase on that. She wanted their first time to be special too, and there was nothing special about the bed of a pickup truck, with a bad Will Ferrell movie playing in the background.
So she snuggled in close, she smelled his skin, and the detergent he used, nearly falling asleep to the feel of his heart thumping against her cheek.
It was enough.
She knew it always would be.
--
Lila looked around the circle and tried to smile, but the pain in the eyes that surrounded her made it nearly impossible.
She’d rounded up a dozen chairs for the secret meeting she was holding in her office that afternoon. Only seven had been used. Seven girls. It was a better turnout than she’d expected.
She’d arranged the seven chairs in a circle, and each bottom that occupied one was of a different age, different race, and different creed. They all had one thing in common.
They’d all been hurt on campus at Harvard. Raped, violated, or abused, in some way or another, and they were all too afraid to do anything about it, to say anything about it. The ones who’d found the courage to say something, to go looking for help, had been promptly silenced by their own school. They knew their university wouldn’t stand behind them.
Even Lila, the person who’d set up this group,
The Safe Space
, could see the distrust in their eyes as she shifted in her own seat at the head of the circle.
Her eyes landed on Julie, the student who’d spurred Lila to start this group in the first place. Lila was confused to see that Julie’s eyes were the most distrustful of all.
Knowing Julie used to sleep with Chase, a man that Lila now found
herself
completely wrapped up in, she couldn’t blame Julie for hating her. If they switched places, and Lila was eighteen years old, in Julie’s shoes, she would probably hate herself, too.
Ever since Chase had brought her to Lila’s office weeks ago, Julie no longer gave him the cold shoulder in class. Quite the contrary, she and Ronnie had even switched seats so Julie could be next to Chase during every lecture. Julie made it a point to hang all over him for the entire hour; eyes riveted to Lila. Chase never entertained Julie’s roving hands or sultry advances. He knew Julie was staking her claim, putting on a show especially for Lila, but he didn’t push her away.
Lila didn’t want him to. Julie was fragile. Any move Chase made that read as a slight could easily send a girl in Julie’s shoes right over an emotional edge. Lila didn’t have to tell Chase to treat Julie with kid gloves because he was already doing that by nature.
When night fell, and they were making out in his truck, parked in the safety of Lila’s garage, Chase made it perfectly clear whom he really belonged to, not just his heart, but his mind too.
Lila took a deep breath before speaking. “I started this group because I’m passionate about the therapy of talking. Talking out your feelings, talking out your problems, even talking out your hopes and dreams. I’m even more passionate about teaching young, brilliant people, like yourselves, not to fear the power of talking. Our words are powerful, and truly healing. I want you to know, talking to me will always be safe.” She shifted again, wiping her hands against her pencil skirt. “I also know that I’m an employee for the university, and that gives you every reason in the world to
never
trust me. I can see it in some of your eyes, that you don’t trust me.”
A few of the girls’ eyes shifted away, but some smiled unsurely.
The smiles energized Lila, and the shifty eyes drove that energy to another level. “I know you have no reason to trust me, so I’m going to tell you my story. Hopefully, once I’ve talked to you for a while, and told you
my
truth, it’ll be easier for you to tell me yours.”
For the first time, every eye was on hers, and every eye stayed. Not a hint of malice, just wonder.
“When I was a kid, I was afraid to talk too, but it wasn’t always that way. I was taught to be that way,” Lila said. “In middle school, my math teacher was amazing. He would play us music at the end of every class, music that had touched him in some way or another. He played us a movie at least once a week. He gave easy A’s. He was, basically, every student’s dream.”
Soft, nervous laughter bubbled up.
“I idolized him so much. I wanted to spend every moment with him. What seemed even cooler to me back then was, he actually
let
me.” Lila breathed deep. “I was twelve.”
The air in the room stilled.
“When he touched me the first time, I talked myself out of it.” Her eyes traveled the chairs in the room. “And I talked myself out of it the second time too. The third time. Fourth, fifth, sixth… I was
afraid.”
An Asian-American sophomore already had tears pouring down her cheeks, nodding with each word Lila said, biting her bottom lip softly.
“I was thirteen,” Lila said, fighting back tears. “When I finally drummed up the courage to talk. To speak. I ran to the principal’s office, ready to talk. I told them I was scared. I told them about the seventh, eighth, ninth time. I told them everything. As it turns out, my math teacher was the son of one of the school’s most generous donors. A donor that was, pretty much, keeping the doors of that private school open. The guidance counselor told me I was being silly. That little girls shouldn’t tell stories. That year, I learned the meaning of the word ‘funding.’ I learned just how much it meant to a school, and the horrific lengths they’ll go to acquire it. They will muffle any noise, destroy any distraction, and they won’t think another thought about it.” Lila breathed deep. “They didn’t even call my parents. I never told my parents, either. To this day, they have no idea. I learned to stop talking when I was thirteen, and if I could go back and look young Lila in the eye, I wouldn’t tell her to talk. I would tell her to yell, to scream, to shout it from the damn rooftops.”
Several heads were nodding, causing tear filled eyes to bubble over.
Lila’s wet eyes traveled them. “Please don’t ever stop talking, you guys. I’ve spent a lot of time with a lot of hurt kids. It’s what got me this job at Harvard, and if I’ve learned anything… I’ve learned that there is rarely ever a
victim
who isn’t called a liar first, at least once. It’s wrong. For an institution of this caliber to perpetrate that kind of victim blaming is absolutely unacceptable. I plan to talk about it, and one day put it to a stop. But I can’t do it alone.” She sat a little taller. “So even if it’s not today. Even if it’s not at the next meeting, or the one after that, I hope you’ll be ready to talk, one day, because I’ll always be here to listen.”
--
Only two girls told their story at the meeting that afternoon, but Lila didn’t see that as a failure. It was a success. Getting the first kid to open up was always the hardest part. It would be smooth sailing from here. Once the rest of the girls learned to trust Lila, and got to know each other, she would have a new problem on her hands.
Getting them to
shut up.
“That was pretty cool of you,” Julie said.
They’d just finished stacking the last of the chairs in the corner, and Lila wiped her hands on her skirt. “Me? Cool? In the same sentence? Coming out of
your
mouth?...” She crossed her arms with a smile. “Julie, I must say, I never thought I’d see the day.”
Julie curled her lip. “It’s not like I like you, or anything.”
Lila made a face. “No, of course not.”
“It was just… cool of you, to open up like that. Tell the other girls your story.”
“It’s only fair for me to open myself up to people I’m hoping will open up to me. It has to be a two way street.”
“You said you had a club like this for other kids?”
Lila walked across the room to her desk and leaned on it. “Yes. I had a small group of students at a private school I worked at in Manhattan. It was a bit different from this one, but in a lot of ways, exactly the same. It was just a place for kids to come and talk. I didn’t have any real goal outside of letting them spill their guts out once a week. Not like I do now.”
Julie moved to the window of Lila’s office. It overlooked the football field where the cheer team was in the middle of practice. “And what goal do you have now?”
Lila’s eyes followed Julie out of the window. “To wake this university up. To remind them that victims of sexual abuse need a safe place to go, not an admonishing. The fear you felt when you went to Chase? You shouldn’t have to feel that. You didn’t even want to say anything to anyone. He had to drag you to me against your will. Society has programmed you to keep quiet, and this school is perpetuating that problematic programming. It’s not acceptable.”
Julie was no longer listening. “Oh my god,” she whispered.
With a frown, Lila went to the window, stopped next to Julie, and the sight that met her made her gasp.
--
“Don’t do this Professor,” Julie was losing steam as she hurried to keep up with Lila, who was currently speed walking onto the football field, where about fifty cheerleaders were in the middle of practice. Lila had always admired the cheer squad for working through the summer while the rest of the students were on vacation, but now all she could see when she looked at them was blind rage.
“I’m doing this,” Lila spat, stepping onto the grass and almost losing her footing in her heels. “This is disgusting.”
As they approached the cheerleaders, a few of them stopped in mid-chant, pointing to Lila and Julie. Soon, all the girls were looking their way. Some giggled quietly, and others made their laughter known, loud, cruel, but not as cruel as the shirts on their body.
About half the girls were wearing white t-shirts with Julie’s face plastered to the front. Across her face, the words ‘
LYING WHORE’
were written in a bold red font.
Lila marched up to the captain of the team, who was laughing the hardest, and took her t-shirt in a fist, going to work ripping it off her body. She managed to get the shirt up to the captain’s head, but it got stuck, causing Lila to pull her along in a stumbling match as she attempted to get it off.
Screams and commotion erupted as they wrestled across the grass. In seconds, Lila was surrounded. Some of the girls were now clawing at her hair and her clothes.
But she didn’t care. She had gone blind.
Once she got the shirt off, leaving the captain in just a black sports bra, Lila threw it down in the grass.
“You crazy black bitch,” the captain screamed, flanked by her teammates.
Lila was so angry that the words didn’t touch her. “You’re all so damn proud of yourselves, huh?” Her heart felt shredded. She was hurt. Angry. Feeling so many different emotions, so succinctly, and all at once, that she could barely take a deep breath. She looked around to each face. Some were still smiling, and others looked downright horrified at Lila’s actions. “You’re all women too, you know. You’re all women, taking pride in hurting another woman. That is
pathetic!”
Silence zeroed in as Lila screamed at the top of her lungs, pointing at the t-shirts that still remained.
“You have no idea how pathetic this is. How embarrassed you’re going to be, as a woman, when you look back on this one day. This could just as
easily
be one of you right now.” Lila watched them laugh, and tears came to her eyes. “Yeah, it’s really fucking hilarious. Keep laughing. You’re pathetic!” A pair of hands took her arms from behind, and she immediately turned, ready to scream at whoever had the gall to put their hands on her. Her face dropped in shock when she came eye to eye with Jack.
His brown eyes widened. “Walk away.”
Lila tried to pull her arms from his. “Do you see what their shirts say?”
“I see it,” he said. His voice remained calm. “Walk with me.”
Looking into his eyes, Lila begrudgingly allowed him to pull her away, but not before looking over her shoulder. The girls were still laughing.
Julie was gone. Lila was sure she’d run off from hurt and embarrassment, which only made her blood boil more.
“You’re going to look back and regret this one day,” she cried, before turning back to Jack, allowing him to pull her away.
--
It wasn’t until they were in the safety of Jack’s office that Lila tugged her arm from his, covering her forehead with her hand. “I really lost it out there.”
Jack closed the door to his office, pushed his hands into his pockets, and moved across the room to his desk as Lila paced wildly.
She was still catching her breath, adrenaline racing, so her chest heaved. “I can’t believe there are young girls at this school,
brilliant
young girls… supporting those monsters. How is it possible that Harvard girls are not smarter than this? They’ll stand behind a slew of rapists before they’ll stand behind a fellow woman? Why? Because they can throw a football? Pathetic! I’m so disgusted right now, I could…”