Promise Me You Won’t Tell

by Daniel Garcia

Honorable Mention, Ray Ventre Memorial Nonfiction Prize, selected by Natalie Lima

[content warning: sexual assault]

Because I hadn’t taken enough classes last semester, I wouldn’t classify as a junior by the end of this one, though it would’ve been my fourth semester. I didn’t want to go home for winter break, so I stayed on campus, and the January weather was enough to turn my breath to steam.

I first met Andy online. Can I see a face picture? When he said he was DL, he’d never been with someone like me, I didn’t push. I was nineteen then; I’d wanted to get laid. I only saw his brown skin, semi-erect above his toilet. Are you Latino? I texted. Half-Black, half-white. Outside my dorm, in person, I asked to kiss him. He got skittish, and I promised we didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to.

His lips were shrouded in a white curtain. Will you suck my cock? I nodded. We went inside.

. . .

As someone who agrees with the principles of feminism, I believe people’s experiences are informed by the systemic structures that shape their treatment in society. The myth of white supremacy penalizes people of color for not being white. Sexism penalizes non-men for not being men. Cis-heterosexism penalizes queer people for not being cisgender, heterosexual, heteroromantic. To me, feminism aims to dismantle institutions of penalty and privilege. Unless everyone is free, nobody is.

. . .

Every year on the last Thursday of April, my university holds an event just before my birthday: Take Back the Night, a nationwide event aimed at raising awareness for domestic and sexual violence. A few weeks before I turned twenty-two, I was invited to speak. Three days after the event, when I was sitting in an all-night diner sipping coffee and eating chicken tenders, I realized what’d happened: I’d been raped. Again.

That same semester, I took an introductory women and gender studies course. The class after we saw The Mask You Live In, a woman sobbed, afraid her toddler would develop the toxic traits described in the documentary. The class before, she said if he turned out gay, she’d do everything to keep him from being “like that.” He’s already Black, she’d said. She didn’t want another strike against him.

. . .

I spent most of my childhood in Florida, about twenty minutes from Orlando, where my mother, brother, and I lived at my grandmother’s house. One humid night, we had a cookout on the pool patio—hotdogs, I think. No one else wanted to swim, so I went alone. I was careful, though: I knew to wait at least thirty minutes before going in; I waited an hour, just to be safe.

. . .

From birth, Black men and Latinos are conditioned to believe their manhood will always be insufficient in the face of the myth of white supremacy. They associate this insufficiency with femininity, womanhood, weakness. To be clear, the DL refers to men who have sex with people who are assigned male at birth without identifying as bisexual, gay, or otherwise queer. Secrecy is key—at best, they’re heterosexual but curious. The DL is notable within Latino and Black communities, where being queer, especially among friends and families, is often a death sentence. Men of color can’t change their skin, but they can close their eyes when someone is sucking them off.

. . .

Eight months after Take Back the Night, on a night I was in bed doing homework, my phone buzzed. I wasn’t surprised to see a dick pic. Faceless, it curved, not like a banana, but like a wave. From the half-sideways-diagonal angle, the shaft inclined about two inches, dipped some, then rose again. It looked non-threatening, like the one Andy sent from above his toilet.

When it sunk in, a chill passed over me: they were the same.

. . .

In my room, we fooled around on the couch for some time before I sank to my knees. Tell me when you’re close, I said, and his abdominals crunched as I took him in. It stopped being a hookup when he closed his eyes and twisted his fingers through my hair and shoved down. It happened so fast. I couldn’t say no, couldn’t scream at the white flood cresting my mouth. When it was over, the taste wasn’t what made me want to puke. It was what he said after: Promise me you won’t tell.

. . .

When I lived in Florida, my mother took my brother and me on long drives. I remember the endless road leading to the men’s compound in Bushnell, the surrounding trees, the sky wispy with clouds. On quieter drives, I napped against the window while the summer air curled against my face like a blanket. It never occurred to me that normal families didn’t make trips like these.

The idea of justice as it relates to crime confuses me. I like the theory—you do a bad thing, and, after facing the consequences for it, you return to society knowing why you shouldn’t have done it. The practice is what baffles me: you do something objectively bad—like, say, selling an illicit substance—and then pay a horde of legal fees to take a plea bargain and avoid a harsher sentence.

Alternatively, if you’re caught speeding, you’ll receive a $400 ticket, then see a white man pay the same amount for assaulting a woman at a party while serving no time—if he does, it’ll be, at most, three months—despite evidence. Of course, that’s only if an officer doesn’t mistake your wallet for a gun, or, if you’re indoors, believes you’ve stolen a pack of Mentos you already paid for.

I didn’t understand that, because of their skin color and lack of financial access, the men in my family were trapped in an airless facility, working for pennies and facing daily violence from correctional officers and inmates alike. I didn’t know, come release, they’d likely have no greater sense of purpose, no option for societal participation beyond menial employment. Hell, I didn’t even know finishing their sentences meant they got lucky.

There were always just there to me. That was just where they lived.

. . .

It was easier to blame my body than anything else.

The semester before I met Andy, I got lucky: a man I loved assaulted me; I wasn’t raped. Ten months after that assault, six months after Andy’s rape, I wasn’t so lucky: the man I loved raped me, and I’d come to terms with those assaults long before Andy’s. But because the first wasn’t what I thought assault was supposed to be—the knife-wielding stranger in the alleyway—I didn’t name anything after it as anything beyond a bad hookup. Not with Andy, not with my love. I didn’t want to.

In hindsight, Andy’s assault seems obvious. Still, I struggled. It was supposed to be a hookup. We were intimate, if briefly. I didn’t know consent to one thing didn’t mean everything. I didn’t even know a lack of no didn’t mean yes. Blaming myself seemed natural. I should’ve fought. I should’ve screamed.

The night in the diner, I looked down at my plate. The ranch I’d been dipping my chicken tenders in suddenly looked like semen, and a scream flew up my throat—my first thought was, I was raped I was raped I was raped. My second was, not again not again not again.

. . .

It’s statistical fact: when coming forward, people rarely fabricate1 being assaulted and are often not believed. When they are, responses typically shift into what I call “an assault for an assault,” the notion of sexual violence as a means of accountability: when coming across an article or post on a (usually) cis male predator, I find numerous comments with some variance of haha hope you get fuken raped in jail scum faggot asshole, which I find disturbing—as if a reasonable solution to sexual violence is more sexual violence.

Still, would I begrudge a survivor that anger, that desire for revenge? No. The only difference, however, is I’ve never wished or enacted sexual violence upon the men who assaulted me. To me, it reinforces the belief that rape is the worst thing that can happen to someone; it says, look how you ruined my life with this thing you did; now watch me do the same thing to you.

. . .

I can’t say when it happened exactly, only that I was near the deep end of the pool. The drowning was sudden, and my tiny hands slapped the water, scrabbling for purchase. Before the white water crested through my mouth, I saw my grandmother, racing back and forth across the patio, unwilling to do anything other than wail her distress. Lucky—at least one of us could.

. . .

In feminist discussions of race and ethnicity, it isn’t uncommon to see Black and Latin people lumped together due similar experiences with the myth of white supremacy: both are likelier to experience police violence and greater overall systemic injustice. Sexual stereotypes as well: both groups are seen as sexually aggressive, animalistic. They also exist beyond a heterosexual context—once, a white man said he couldn’t wait to get my legs over my head, like one of those little Latina boys.

Because of the nature of race—that is, how it is most notably predicated upon basic phenotypic traits—it makes existing in a society that dehumanizes people like you, at best, uncomfortable. Doubly so if one is queer, given similarities in cis-heteronormativity’s penalizing of queer people.2 For people in both camps, the two methods of subjugation are often inseparable.

. . .

I should mention the eating disorder.

I was two months into recovery when Andy and I met. I got lucky: I didn’t relapse after the rape. But I wanted to, and as compelled as I felt to purge the night away, by keeping myself from sprinting to the communal bathroom at the end of the hall, I could put the rape away long enough for me to focus on something else, to reach for the phone.

I sobbed when I heard the sleepy Hello? on the other line. I saw my bloodpuffy cheeks in the room’s sink mirror and looked away. Mom—don’t let me throw up. Don’t let me throw up. I didn’t mention the rape, the press of him like a knife at my throat. I swallowed the shame.

I said: Mom, I met up with this guy and I hurt myself.

. . .

At the compound in Bushnell, people crammed themselves into the waiting room like sardines, using pen-gouged clipboards to rush through the paperwork. It could be hours before you were called up. Once you were, shoes, jewelry, and excess clothing went in the conveyor belt bins. Keys and coins needed to be kept in a see-through zippered bag. A red-faced guard, barking, a hand always hovering near their waistband. Step through the metal detector—beepbeepbeep!—get back in line, try again.

Then, at the visiting area, the awkward hugs, the how are you’s, and you’ve gotten so big’s. Overpriced snacks and worn out packs of cards. Families huddled around tables too small to fit everything they couldn’t say to each other. I don’t recall any officers beyond the waiting area. Perhaps I was too small to notice their crisp white shirts and black slacks; perhaps there were simply less officers than jumpsuits. Come to think of it, most of the jumpsuits were worn by men with brown skin.

. . .

I was shaking in bed the night I got the faceless dick pic. It wasn’t enough to confirm it was Andy, and I didn’t know what to do, so I reached out to two friends, both survivors themselves. One asked if I was sure it was him. I was but I needed the certainty. I needed to see his face.

Andy said: ur ass is calling my name i want it

. . .

At the beginning of the women and gender studies course, the instructor gave a trigger warning for the topics we would discuss during the semester. There is a victim in all of us, she said, and something thrashed inside me, closing around my windpipe. I didn’t yet understand I’d been raped, and two years would pass before I’d write an earlier draft of this essay and come to learn what it was: a scream.

. . .

In a previous essay,3 just before I called my mother, I’d written: “I can’t remember what his come tasted like. I remember…walking to the sink in the dorm room, spitting into my hand, then walking back over to the couch. I’ll never fully understand why I did it. The best I can come up with is…my brain did what it could to protect me: convincing myself…I must have consented.”

Which, of course, is where assault differs from sex. The former is an absence of consent, the latter the presence of. But I also think its simpler than that: sex is done with another person. Assault is done to another person. Still, why did I have to convince myself I consented? I said I’d gotten lucky with my first assault. It’s true: he was white and claimed to be heterosexual. With him, I could blame simple racism. I could call him an animal.

When Andy was in my mouth, I wasn’t doing with. I was being done to. I couldn’t blame racism. It was just us, queer and barely older than kids. I couldn’t call Andy an animal. It would mean I was one too—after all, brownskinned people are crazy, sex-hungry savages. Blaming my body meant I could exercise agency where it’d been stolen: “fingers slick, I gripped myself and a few minutes later, I came.”

Which also proved my consent. It was my choice, my hand wrapped around me, my proof I could endure an eviction from my body without it having to hurt. If I consented, it wasn’t rape, meaning nothing bad happened, and no one had to know. In other words, by naming it a bad hookup, I could minimize my experience and assume responsibility for it. I blamed myself before anyone else could; I spared myself the shame of having been raped.

It worked: I hurt myself.

It is, after all, impossible for someone to cut out your tongue when you were the one holding the blade in your mouth.

. . .

An hour south from the complex in Fort Lauderdale, I had family in Miami. We didn’t go often because of how far we lived, but one day we piled into my mother’s car, headed down to Miami, visited, then collectively made the drive to Fort Lauderdale. After, we went to a hospital; someone must’ve been there, sick. I don’t remember much beyond standing outside the gift shop near the lobby, my cousin’s mother pulling me aside, stooped to look me in the eye. Don’t tell nobody where we went today, okay? She seemed so earnest. Okay, I murmured.

The message was clear: Pretend each day you’ve seen these men never happened. Pretend they don’t exist. Keep quiet, and no one has to know. Don’t bring shame to your family, to yourself.

. . .

After I’d convinced Andy to send a face picture, he said: can u please delete it man im sorry im just paranoid I said:

He said: please man i cant let anyone know it would ruin my life

I said:

He said: im literally begging u man just please let me know asap

I said:

He said: please just keep my secret safe again sorry for my paranoia i cant have anyone know

I said:

. . .

Of all my assaults, Andy’s is perhaps the saddest for me. It wasn’t the usual reasons that keep me from reporting once I’d understood what happened—I just didn’t think it was what good feminists did. How could I risk putting Andy into a place where he’d likely be raped himself? Men of color face so much inequality within the justice system. Even if Andy were convicted and sentenced, it wouldn’t be because he raped me.

It would be because he’s Black.

. . .

Promise me you won’t tell. Promise me you won’t tell. Promise me you won’t tell. Promise me you won’t tell. Promise me you won’t tell. Promise me you won’t tell. Promise me you won’t tell.

. . .

In August, four months after Take Back the Night, I walked across campus to my race, class, gender, and ethnicity course. It was the first week of the new semester, and I’d left my dorm early, wanting ample time to get to class. Campus was empty, not yet alive with the roving buzz of students and staff, and the morning heat was pulling tight beads of moisture down my cheeks.

I’d be a liar if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind at some point. Not sexual violence, but physical. It’s not something I’ve ever actively wanted, but I have wondered what it would be like to permit my body that kind of anger, to take revenge, to speak with my fists the shame that my voice couldn’t, this is what happened, this is what you did to me.

It happened like something from a nightmare: a man stepped out of the library and began walking in my direction. I couldn’t see him clearly yet; he was shrouded by distance. I wouldn’t need a face to know. I knew that athletic body, that frizzy hair, that brown skin. The university fountain sprayed white in a continuous curtain.

I wish I could say I snarled. I wish I could say I swung. I wish I could say there wasn’t a victim in me that day. But when our eyes met as we walked past each other, I was on my knees again, and I had to get to class but his fingers were in my hair, and my legs were still moving, and something in my throat was squirming but I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream—

In her office, the then-survivor advocate informed me of my options: correspondence with the Dean of Students wasn’t necessary. I could respond to any emails if I wanted. I could have an investigation launched, or not. I told her what Andy did, what the other men did, the men I haven’t mentioned in this essay. When it was over, she told me to email if I had questions. I didn’t howl.

. . .

One side effect of bulimia is teeth and gum damage from purging. I can’t remember now if it was days before or after I reported, but one day I brushed my teeth too fast and the toothbrush skidded, ripping a portion of pink above my right big tooth. Even though I kept dabbing at it with toilet paper, the sliced area wouldn’t dry, the blood wouldn’t stop flooding my mouth.

. . .

He said: i am just super worried that you’re going to out me. my life would be over man please just keep me dl i’ll literally do anything

I said: why would it be over?

He said: bc of friends and family

. . .

A few hours after I reported, I received an email from the Dean of Students. There was a link to an external website, as well as was a blurb at the bottom of the email: “If you fail to open, read, and respond to this notice in a timely fashion it may impair your ability to persist as a [university name redacted] student.” Days later, when I met with him in his office, I asked the Associate Senior Dean—a tall, athletic white man—what all it meant.

He said: Anything that comes from the Dean of Students office you’re expected to respond to, and if we can’t get ahold of you, and it somehow impairs our investigations, what we’ll do is we’ll put a hold on your account until you come and meet with us. So, the hold bars you from registering for next semester. The message was clear: comply, and you can continue your education.

So much for having options.

I said:

. . .

This is what I can say about Andy:

According to Facebook, he studied environmental science and philosophy. Based on an article he shared, he believes Black lives matter. He also shared a photo of a red hat with the words, “make the football man stand up again.” Andy isn’t his actual name, and he lived half a block away the night he raped me. His Facebook account, to the best of my knowledge, no longer exists.

I never saw guilt. Not when he dressed, or left, or rushed for the stairs at the end of the hall. I never saw an animal. I only saw a man more afraid of being queer than a rapist.

In my memory sits a black and white photo from before his account disappeared. There’s a restaurant, a pretty Latina pressed up against his chest, a hand clutching at his jacket, an arm looped around her back. She’s happy; he looks tired. He looks like someone I’d meet with for coffee and chicken tenders after class. He looks like anyone else.

. . .

Despite everything, my life hasn’t been ruined by my assaults. Irrevocably changed, sure, but not ruined. I went to therapy. I finished college. I have meaningful relationships with people. January will make seven years since Andy’s rape, and I haven’t purged in just as long. On the bad days, sometimes I fall apart; I scrub my teeth. On those days, I gather the pieces, pick myself up, and go on.

. . .

Daniel,

As you know from my previous email, I work in the Dean of Students office and I am contacting you because you may have been subjected to a violation of the Code of Student Conduct relating to sexual assault. This notice serves to inform you I am closing this complaint without further investigation because at this time I do not have a sufficient amount of information to conduct an investigation, specifically, no respondent has been named—

I clicked back to my inbox. I looked at the email containing the link to the letter. It looked the same as the others, except the fail to open bit was gone. The Associate Dean never said he’d be removing it.

About two weeks after I reported, I attended a lecture led by the survivor advocate, the student feminist alliance, and someone from the local survivor crisis shelter. I’d signed up for a Feminist Foundations course with the instructor from last semester, who offered extra credit: visit a feminist, on-campus event and do a write-up of it after. There was talk about intimate partner violence, how white women receive the most representation among survivors in media. The attendees watched clips from movies and television shows depicting moments of informed consent before sex.

After, I told the survivor advocate about the warning message in the emails from the Associate Dean. She said, slowly, I thought the hold was placed on the accused person’s account. I told her how he’d removed it without explanation. She looked alarmed.

I almost laughed. She didn’t even know. How many other students would be forced to come forward at the threat of their education held hostage, if the Associate Dean wasn’t informing them of what would happen if they didn’t, and she was telling them they didn’t have to?

I was so tired. She sent an email: If there is anything I can do to assist with resources or accommodations, please let me know!

I never did the write-up.

. . .

Even on good days, I keep scrubbing.

. . .

Sitting on my mother’s drenched lap, things came into focus. A white plastic chair, my trunks pulled across my hiccupping legs, the water twisting through my hair like a warning as she’d lifted me out. But this was before I learned of frightened men who sliced open anyone they might hook their hands into. There was no way I could see it coming.

The night air curled against my face. Above us, a blanket of white stars shrouded the Floridian sky. Pruned and shivering, I finally had air, so I did the only thing I could, the only thing that made sense:

I screamed.

Daniel Garcia’s essays appear or are forthcoming in Slice, Ninth Letter, Guernica, The Offing, The Kenyon Review Online, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Poems appear or are forthcoming in The Arkansas International, Ploughshares, Zone 3, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, and others. A recipient of awards, prizes, grants, and scholarships from Bat City Review, So to Speak, Tin House, PEN America, and others, Daniel currently serves as a memoir reader and InteR/e/views editor for Split Lip Magazine. Daniel’s essays also appear as Notables in The Best American Essays.