Act II

It was around noon the next morning

when Melanie finally woke up. The first thing she noticed was that she was on her stomach now, her left cheek resting against her pillow, which had been moved into place. Her whole body felt sore, but in particular her lower torso and the area around her neck. Initially she felt paralyzed, able only to move her arms. She slowly moved her hands across the linen of her bedsheets, before she felt something familiar. It was her dress. At this point she realized that the slight breeze she felt from the fan was because she was fully nude.

Carefully, she began to pick herself off the bed. Her skin was cold, and her entire being felt out-of-balance. As she lifted herself up, she suddenly began to feel a terrifying sensation. Her body, as it began to wake up, began to prick her skin. It felt as though a thousand ants were crawling up her, all at once.

She began to panic. She stopped being careful and sat right up on the bed, touching up against the wall as she scratched at her arms and legs. She started hyperventilating, and tears began to fall from her eyes. She began to cry, continuously scratching at herself, until eventually her body woke up fully and the sensation subsided. She hugged her legs and sat like that, for about an hour.

At that point, she could finally find the ability to get up and walk. She decided to go over to her bathroom, and take a hot shower. She began to feel the soreness of her body again, but she could tell it was beginning to subside. She looked down at herself – she had a few scratches and bruises over her, but she couldn’t tell which ones were self-inflicted from the hour before. A few looked much deeper than what she could manage. A bit later into the shower, she noticed blood began to flow down from her vaginal area. She grabbed a washcloth and tried, gently, to scrub it. It felt like fire, and eventually she had to stop. She stayed under the water for a while, her eyes closed. She tried to think about what had happened the night before, but she couldn’t. She didn’t feel anything, either. There was no sadness, or pain, or anger. She just felt hollow.

She put on a plain white t-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants. She found her phone in the kitchen, and unlocked it. There weren’t really any alerts of note, other than her reminder to leave for her parents. She was supposed to have done it 15 minutes ago. At that point she considered calling them to say what had happened, but she stopped. She thought about the words she’d have to speak, what she’d have to explain, and how they’d react. Especially her father. She ultimately decided against it, and instead decided to call someone else.

…

Fifi was at home, playing Just Dance with her two younger sisters. The youngest, at about seven, kept trying to push Fifi to throw her off her moves, giggling as she did so.

“Missy, you gonna regret it if you end up making me lose the game,” Fifi spoke out in a playful manner. The little girl laughed again, continuing to try and throw her older sister off balance.

The middle sister, who was around 15, was sitting out watching the two on an armchair. At some point she noticed a phone on the table next to her light up.

“Yo Fifi, you got a call,” the girl commented.

Fifi nodded. “Aight. Let’s pause the game, okay?” The little girl backed off as Fifi grabbed the controller and pressed pause. She walked over to the phone, seeing the caller ID, and walked it over to the kitchen.

“Hey Mel, what’s up?” The young woman asked when she was sufficiently out of range of her two sisters.

When Fifi finally picked up, Melanie wasn’t quite sure what to say. She opened her mouth.

“Um…” she began, meekly. “Is it okay if you… if you come back over to the dorm, sometime today?”

Fifi could hear the weakness in the girl’s voice. She quickly got serious.

“Mel, is there something wrong?” She asked empathetically.

“I just…” Melanie looked at the ground, staring off into space. “It might be easier to explain, if you’re here.”

“I’m coming right now.”

Melanie’s eyes came back up. “I-I mean, I don’t want to interrupt-”

“Mel. It’s okay. I’m coming. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“O… Okay.”

Fifi hung up, quickly getting her stuff together. The two girls looked back at her, seeing that she was shuffling about. Fifi pointed to the older one.

“Arielle, can you watch after her for a bit, please? I gotta leave for a while, but I’ll be back for dinner.”

Arielle nodded. Without much room for any other discussion, the two just watched as Fifi opened the front door and walked out.

…

Fifi arrived twenty-five minutes later. Melanie was waiting for her in the living room, and stood up when she heard the door open.

“Hey, Mel,” Fifi greeted as she put her purse on the nearby counter. “Tell me, what happened? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah… I’m okay, I just…”

Melanie sat back down on the couch. Fifi took a seat next to her. For a while, Melanie was silent, fidgeting with her elbow. It took a bit more coaxing from Fifi.

“Did something happen at the party last night?”

Melanie shook her head. “No, it’s… well…”

“Is it something with Nathaniel?”

Fifi saw the spark in Melanie’s eyes. She was onto something.

“Well…” Melanie began. “When we got back, from the party… Nate was really drunk, and so I wanted to calm him down… so I, I gave him some water, and let him rest… but, he really wanted to kiss me… and, I don’t know, m-maybe I was just… I was just being insensitive, to what he wanted, and so he… we… but, I mean, he didn’t…”

Melanie stopped. She could feel Fifi taking a tight grasp of her hand. When she turned to face her friend, she saw that Fifi was looking right at her, beads of tears forming at the ends of her eye.

“No, Mel,” Fifi spoke authoritatively. “This isn’t your fault. None of it is.”

Melanie was still unsure, but she nodded her head in response. Fifi let go, but her fists kept clenching.

“Fucking bastard,” Fifi murmured under her breath, her voice breaking in both fury and sadness. “I hate him. I hate myself too, for not seeing it when I could’ve.”

“But, I mean… maybe he doesn’t deserve that. H-he’s a good person, Fifi, he just-”

“No,” Fifi spoke once again with conviction in her voice. “I’m sorry, Melanie. But he does not deserve my sympathy. And you sure as shit did not deserve what he did to you.”

Fifi began to cry, lightly. Just as quickly as it started, she turned away, wiping her eyes with her hands. It took her some time to compose herself, but once she did, she got up.

“You should go to the counselor,” Fifi said. “Let them know what happened. I’ll go with you.”

“Fifi, I don’t think I can… I don’t think I can tell anybody about this yet. I could barely tell you.”

Fifi kneeled in front of her roommate. “It will be okay, I promise. I’ll be right there. It’s just… with something like this, the faster people know the better. Okay?”

Fifi’s voice was different now. It was sympathetic, singsong – she looked up at Melanie with comforting eyes, and a small smile was on her face. It made Melanie feel a little better.

Melanie nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

Fifi’s smile grew. “Thank you. I’ll take you there. Let’s go right now, alright?”

The two stood up. Melanie looked down at herself.

“Should I… change into something else?”

Fifi grabbed her own purse, as well as Melanie’s. “No, you’re ok with that. You ready to go otherwise?”

Melanie nodded. “Yeah, lemme just… get my phone.”

Melanie left into the bedroom. While Fifi waited, the fear began to creep into her head again. The fear that part of this whole thing might have been her fault. But Fifi shook it out, and focused more on the urgent task at hand. Melanie came out of the bedroom, and the two left.

…

The campus counselor was a clean-shaven young man of Turkish descent. He greeted Fifi with a firm handshake, and waved to Melanie, who stood a bit farther back.

“Nice to meet you too, I’m Doctor T,” the man mentioned as he shook Fifi’s hand.

“Fifi.”

“Mel,” Melanie answered in the back.

“Please, sit down.” The counselor beckoned to two chairs in front of his desk. Melanie and Fifi did as they were asked. The doctor sat in his own chair across from them. “So, could you tell me why you girls are here today?”

There was a brief silence. Fifi spoke up first.

“Well… it’s mostly about her,” she motioned lightly over to Melanie. “Last night, there was… a big party, over at Delta Phi. She had gone with a male friend of hers, and… when they got back…”

Fifi looked over at Melanie now. The doctor did too, expectantly. Melanie began to fiddle nervously with her elbow again. She looked down at her lap, finally beginning to come to terms with her situation.

“He… forced me to have sex with him,” Melanie spoke, finishing Fifi’s story.

The young counselor nodded. There was a look of pity in his face but for the most part he was able to keep a professional composure about it all.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he answered. “Everytime a student comes in to tell me their story it breaks my heart. But I want you to know you aren’t alone in this.”

The man rolled his chair over to a cabinet on his right. While he did so Fifi took hold of Melanie’s hand and squeezed it gently. Melanie was actually rather annoyed by this gesture, but she did not say anything.

Out from the cabinet the counselor had grabbed a packet of papers stapled together. “So, what we can do…” he began, placing the packet in front of the girls and grabbing a pen from a Hill Valley College themed cup, “…is first, we can submit a police report. This doesn’t automatically press charges against this boy, but it allows us to do a thorough investigation of the whole thing. It is also all anonymous – it’s done under my office, so they won’t know you submitted anything. The second is that we have a free program for remedial therapy done by one of our campus partners. It’s over, by the – you know the shopping complex, over at Cactus Plaza? – yes, it’s in that building over there. But I can give you more details about it later.”

The counselor pushed the packet over in Melanie’s direction. She scanned it briefly, and noticed the emboldened and intimidating font which titled the document: SEXUAL ASSAULT AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE REPORT FORM.

“All I ask is that you fill out that form,” the counselor continued, referring to the packet. “And, also…”

The counselor paused here. It was obvious he was coming up on a stipulation that perhaps previous students had found worrying. Both Fifi and Melanie looked up.

“…as part of the process, we’ll have to inform your parents, or family guardian. Now, it’s not recommended they hear of something like this from us first, so we always insist… that you tell them first.”

Melanie shook her head, vigorously opposing the notion. “No, no no no, I can’t do that… M-my dad’s gonna freak out, my mom… I can’t have that stress on them right now.”

Fifi also looked confused. “Yeah, I don’t understand… why would she need to tell her parents?”

“It’s part of the Title IX procedure,” the counselor clarified, “if we don’t follow it, then unfortunately there’s not much we can do.”