Platial | Who and What's Nearby
Platial | Who and What's Nearby
I'm looking for
near
0 People have been here:
Description:
My friend was sexually assaulted last weekend.
It happened early Sunday morning. I found out later that afternoon. I held back my anger and waited to unleash it after I had gone to talk to her. It took me 3 minutes to get somewhere that would normally take me 20 seconds. Down the hall, five doors down, she was reliving it over and over in her mind. When I walked in, she was sitting up covered with a blanket, holding her knees up to her chest. She was just staring at the floor in front of her…trying not to picture it anymore. She was trying not to feel it anymore. I sat in front of her right at her feet. She didn’t even look up at me. She just started crying…sobbing. I started crying…sobbing. Her room, covered in bright oranges, pinks, yellows, was now covered in fear. Every picture that decorated her desk, her closet doors, and her walls, were reminders of the hell she was forced into. They were reminders of people she thought she could trust. Her clothes were reminders of the nights she thought she’d never want to forget. The next day, she would get rid of three trash bags full of them. She would throw away the pictures. She would attempt to clean every inch of the square room, but no matter how much of this place she tried to get rid of, she would never be able to escape it. “This is the room I came back to after that night…” “This was the bed I couldn’t get comfortable in after that night…” “This was the jacket I wore on that night…” “This was the campus that it happened…” Now, this is the place where she can’t stand being alone…where she’s scared to be alone.
Monday night we made a few phone calls with hope that it wasn’t too late to take her to the hospital. Whether or not she would press charges was still up in the air, but because of how distraught she was the day before, we couldn’t convince her to handle things a certain way. The first phone call we made was to the hospital. We gave the nurse the benefit of the doubt when she answered our questions angrily with an “Well, she can just do this and this and we’ll do this, but I don’t know about this and that.” Thanks, Lady. Next. Every dorm room has an ugly poster glued to the back of the medicine cabinet’s mirror. WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE SEXUALLY ASSAULTED. “Sexually assaulted” in bold letters. Sadly, we weren’t surprised to be directed to a voice mailbox. As if we weren’t angry enough with this entire situation, we got an answering machine. In the end, we found a 24-hour crisis hotline with an angry voice on the other end. “Hi, um…our friend was sexually assaulted the other night and were just wondering…” only to be replied with “Oh, well…I don’t know.” We were directed to someone else. Finally, we got an answer. There was still time.
On our way to the hospital, my friend asked me if I could tell the doctor what happened. Once we were there, she requested that the word “rape” not come out of any of the staff’s mouths. When we walked in, I stood at the Register desk, whispered to the nurse what had happened and of every rude voice we’d heard on our way to this moment, he beat them all. I suppose we were too naïve to assume that a bit of compassion would be shown. As I tried to explain to him what she wanted, he turned away from me as I spoke and asked, “Alright, who did it happen to?” It? IT? All I could be glad about was that he hadn’t called it “rape”…yet. He took my friend with him and the rest of us sat in the waiting room. It was around 11:30 and we caught the end of an Oprah episode. For the three hours that we sat there waiting, all I could do was drum my fingers, flip threw the magazine’s pages without reading a word and barely looking at the pictures, sway back and forth and chip away at my finger nail polish…and all of this, not because I was impatient, but because I was angry. I was pissed. I was fucking livid. We shouldn’t have had to be there. We shouldn’t have had to bring our best friend to the hospital because she was…the “r” word. I hated every minute of sitting in that room, walls covered with those wispy paintings of streaks of pastels over a beach…a broken vending machine…plastic flowers…I hated every minute of sitting in that room. For three hours we waited only to be told that we’d have to wait 2 days until we got the results. When she walked into the waiting room to let us know she was done I looked into her eyes and all I could think was how I never truly knew hate until now. I just sat in that chair hating everything about its floral upholstery, hating everything about those paintings, hating absolutely everything about this place. I’ve always hated hospitals but more than anything, I hate him.
I hope that bastard rots in hell.
My friend was sexually assaulted last weekend.
It happened early Sunday morning. I found out later that afternoon. I held back my anger and waited to unleash it after I had gone to talk to her. It took me 3 minutes to get somewhere that would normally take me 20 seconds. Down the hall, five doors down, she was reliving it over and over in her mind. When I walked in, she was sitting up covered with a blanket, holding her knees up to her chest. She was just staring at the floor in front of her…trying not to picture it anymore. She was trying not to feel it anymore. I sat in front of her right at her feet. She didn’t even look up at me. She just started crying…sobbing. I started crying…sobbing. Her room, covered in bright oranges, pinks, yellows, was now covered in fear. Every picture that decorated her desk, her closet doors, and her walls, were reminders of the hell she was forced into. They were reminders of people she thought she could trust. Her clothes were reminders of the nights she thought she’d never want to forget. The next day, she would get rid of three trash bags full of them. She would throw away the pictures. She would attempt to clean every inch of the square room, but no matter how much of this place she tried to get rid of, she would never be able to escape it. “This is the room I came back to after that night…” “This was the bed I couldn’t get comfortable in after that night…” “This was the jacket I wore on that night…” “This was the campus that it happened…” Now, this is the place where she can’t stand being alone…where she’s scared to be alone.
Monday night we made a few phone calls with hope that it wasn’t too late to take her to the hospital. Whether or not she would press charges was still up in the air, but because of how distraught she was the day before, we couldn’t convince her to handle things a certain way. The first phone call we made was to the hospital. We gave the nurse the benefit of the doubt when she answered our questions angrily with an “Well, she can just do this and this and we’ll do this, but I don’t know about this and that.” Thanks, Lady. Next. Every dorm room has an ugly poster glued to the back of the medicine cabinet’s mirror. WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE SEXUALLY ASSAULTED. “Sexually assaulted” in bold letters. Sadly, we weren’t surprised to be directed to a voice mailbox. As if we weren’t angry enough with this entire situation, we got an answering machine. In the end, we found a 24-hour crisis hotline with an angry voice on the other end. “Hi, um…our friend was sexually assaulted the other night and were just wondering…” only to be replied with “Oh, well…I don’t know.” We were directed to someone else. Finally, we got an answer. There was still time.
On our way to the hospital, my friend asked me if I could tell the doctor what happened. Once we were there, she requested that the word “rape” not come out of any of the staff’s mouths. When we walked in, I stood at the Register desk, whispered to the nurse what had happened and of every rude voice we’d heard on our way to this moment, he beat them all. I suppose we were too naïve to assume that a bit of compassion would be shown. As I tried to explain to him what she wanted, he turned away from me as I spoke and asked, “Alright, who did it happen to?” It? IT? All I could be glad about was that he hadn’t called it “rape”…yet. He took my friend with him and the rest of us sat in the waiting room. It was around 11:30 and we caught the end of an Oprah episode. For the three hours that we sat there waiting, all I could do was drum my fingers, flip threw the magazine’s pages without reading a word and barely looking at the pictures, sway back and forth and chip away at my finger nail polish…and all of this, not because I was impatient, but because I was angry. I was pissed. I was fucking livid. We shouldn’t have had to be there. We shouldn’t have had to bring our best friend to the hospital because she was…the “r” word. I hated every minute of sitting in that room, walls covered with those wispy paintings of streaks of pastels over a beach…a broken vending machine…plastic flowers…I hated every minute of sitting in that room. For three hours we waited only to be told that we’d have to wait 2 days until we got the results. When she walked into the waiting room to let us know she was done I looked into her eyes and all I could think was how I never truly knew hate until now. I just sat in that chair hating everything about its floral upholstery, hating everything about those paintings, hating absolutely everything about this place. I’ve always hated hospitals but more than anything, I hate him.
I hope that bastard rots in hell.
Photos:
Tags:
Watch Related Videos
View Related MapsMeet Relatives
