Stop in for a hug if you're hella triggered this week, I am peak triggered.

[betsuni]

54. I've been thinking about my sister.

At her 10th high school reunion (she graduated in 1983), a guy apologized for raping her. They'd both been at a party in high school, my sister passed out and woke up in a closet with the guy, who was a friend. She thought something had happened but he denied it.

She went to a lot of parties, drank in the morning before school, had pregnancy scares. I'd left home already and didn't know any of this until later. We weren't close, I was busy with my own life. My parents were going through a divorce and she had to deal with our nutty mother. My sister was a perfect target.

The summer after graduation, she visited me with her boyfriend. I knew all her friends hated him but didn't know why. He was upper middle class, headed to an Ivy League college in the fall. A lower-level Brett Kavenaugh.

I lived in a studio apartment. I was in the kitchen making dinner and at one point turned around to see them having sex on the sofa. He'd been pawing and groping her and although he seemed aggressive, I thought it was just Young Love. Turns out this is why her friends hated him, he treated her like a plastic fuck doll. There's no way my sister would do this willingly, have sex in front of me. Thinking, "Well, this is happening," I continued making dinner. Then after it was over, he complained to my sister that she had just laid there like a dead fish. LIKE A DEAD FISH. I still hear the words. Like a dead fish.

I don't remember if I discussed it with her, she's quick to irritation and anger and I didn't want to set her off. The boyfriend didn't stay for dinner. He went to college and she never heard from him again.