Dr. Lane doesn’t speak, but I can see the grief in her eyes. It’s not pity. It’s witness.
“When I found out, I planned to escape. I ran the day I was to be married.” I recount my story vividly. WhenI’m done, the silence is heavy but not suffocating. “I was lucky. Nothing happened to me. My only regret is I’ll never know what became of my sisters.”
“Avonna, what happened to you wasn’t nothing.” Camille leans in slightly. “You were molested. Brainwashed. You’ve been shaped by it, conditioned in it. A superior insisting you belong to someone other than yourself is abuse.”
I nod, grateful for the confirmation. “I’m scared I’ll never be normal.”
“Thereisno normal.” She smiles. “You survived. Now we continue the work of healing you.”
She always makes me believe in myself and the possibility of a future. “I saw what happened to the girls who said no. Or cried too loudly on their wedding nights. They were forced into submission and they changed. Became robots. I didn’t want to live if I was dead inside.”
Silence folds around us.
“Sometimes I feel guilty.” Tears stream down my face. “Maybe escaping and knowing what these women endure is worse. My sisters won’t ever know better.”
Camille’s voice is like soft cloth wrapping around a wound. “You carry what’s called survivor’s guilt.”
My body is wracked with sobs. I can’t speak.
“Now,” she says carefully, “you’re noticing the stirrings of desire for companionship. Love. But you don’t trust it.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I don’t know if it’s what I want. Or if I deserve it. I see a man and I feel…dirty. Am I ruined?”
“Tell me what you mean.”
I shift in the chair. “I think about things a lot. About…sex. About being touched. I’ll be folding napkins at the hostess stand and suddenly I’ll picture something. A flash. Someone kissing me. My thighs parting. My breasts tingling. I don’t know if I actually want to feel things or if I’m fantasizing about stuff I shouldn’t be.” I breathe shallowly, afraid of my own honesty. “I’ve never even touched myself. Not really. Not the way I hear my roommates talk about. I tried a couple weeks ago and then felt sick. I cried for an entire day.”
Camille doesn’t interrupt.
“Part of me thinks, maybe I don’t need to figure it out. I can wait until I meet a man, get married and then my husband will show me what to do. Then I remember what marriage means where I came from and I panic. I don’t know…”
“What don’t you know?” she encourages.
I look at her. “I don’t want to be someone’s property.”
“Good.”
“I want to feel safe when someone touches me.”
“Yes.”
I blink, my throat closing again.
“Sometimes,” I choke out, “I think about letting someone see me.Allof me. Instead of fear, I feel warmth. Hunger. It’s faint. But it’s there. It makes me afraid.”
“Why?”
I stare at the carpet. It reminds me of pressed leaves.
“Avonna?”
I look up at her “Those feelings mean I’m not pure anymore.”
“You were never impure, Avonna.” Camille’s voice is firm. “You were controlled. There’s a difference.”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“Of course you don’t.” She nods. “You were taught to see your body as made for sin and your thoughts of sex as impure. None of this is your fault.”
