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CLEVELAND, Ohio – As a columnist in the subway, I try to avoid national politics. The battle for confirmation by Judge Brett Kavanaugh made it difficult to define the color of the interior of these lines, as this brought a national problem to the home. It's all the women I know who have spoken.
That's why calls to the rape crisis center in Cleveland tripled the day after the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her while she was a teenager.
He divided households, here as everywhere. A recent CNN poll on Kavanaugh's impressions found that men were equally divided, 41% versus 41%, but a majority of women, 53%, have a negative view of justice.
And that remained for me, for both political and personal reasons.
I thought the worst was over when the Senate decided to send a man criminally accused of attempted rape in front of the country's highest court.
On Monday, Kavanaugh was officially sworn in for a celebration with cocktails and group. President Donald Trump apologized to Kavanaugh, on behalf of the nation, for "the terrible pain and suffering" he had had to endure, and claimed that Kavanaugh had been "innocent".
Earlier that day, on the White House lawn, Trump said Blasey Ford was part of a big hoax. "Everything was done," he says. "Made."
What I can not forget is that all this – the idea that a woman would blithely make false accusations, or that it would not be believed if she did not suddenly remember all the details, or that the theatrical denials of a man would invalidate his measured narrative – steal from reason. And my own experience.
I was 16 at the time, about the same age as Blasey Ford, when she says that Kavanaugh threw her on a bed and covered her mouth to stifle his cries. I was not at a house party soaked in beer, but at a debate camp in a small private south university.
He was my coach, a smart, funny and geeky adult. When I made her laugh, I felt smart too.
My roommate from the summer m got teased. "He likes you," she says.
"Not at all," I told him. It was rude and weird. This was a man in his early twenties and I had just learned to drive.
My trainer asked me to walk after dinner one evening as the sun slid. "Of course," I say.
While the dormitory lights had gone out and we headed for a maze of dark hedges, I felt a shudder of worry but I dismissed it.
He grabbed my hand and told me to follow him inside. I bleated weak protests. "We should go back" and "It's getting late" and "People will pick me up."
He reassured: "It will not take long." "You must see him." "It's too cool."
These are not textual quotes, of course. I did not take notes.
Moments after entering the labyrinth, I was on the back. He was on me, planting drooling kisses, his hands everywhere.
I froze and felt myself getting into the night air. I looked down and saw a man riding a motionless girl.
Zziiipppp. The sound brought me to Earth. My knee has risen and in his groin. He moaned and fell. Iran.
Like Blasey Ford, I do not remember how I got back to the dormitory. But I will never forget how the grass stung my back through my shirt, like a bed of tiny nails when it crashed against me. I will never forget his name. Or his face.
Before entering the room that I shared with my friend, I closed the zipper of my jeans.
"Where have you been?" she asked.
I did not say anything about what had happened. Why did I agree to go for a walk? And in the dark? My fault. Everything is my fault.
I wanted to go home, but how can I explain it? My parents had paid for three weeks of camp – or was it two? I do not remember this detail of the calendar.
I called my boyfriend and cried telling him that it was because I had homesickness.
At school this fall, I could not concentrate. I did not want to get out of bed, take a shower, or dress. He did not rape me. So why did I feel ruined and so ashamed?
Like Blasey Ford, I finally told a few people: my boyfriend, who had forgiven me my naivety, and my father, although I refused to give Dad a name, fearing what he could do. Drop it, dad, did I plead. I just want to forget it.
But we can not forget, as hard as we try. We may not remember everything, but Trauma is a ruthless publisher that removes excess information to allow your mind to focus on a larger theme: survival.
How to get out of the house in the suburbs of Maryland, or how to get out of the maze.
Some members of the Senate may think that they have neatly solved an image problem by claiming to honor Blasey Ford's testimony while expressing votes classifying it as delusional. The White House may think that it has avoided a problem of proof by ordering the FBI to interview only very few witnesses.
I feel differently. I have the impression that they put their hands on my mouth and said, "Shout whatever you want. Nobody will hear."
And I have the impression that November is coming.
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