Friday, August 22, 2025

Pain, Probably

By Katja Mahannah

-

He was harsh, I’m sure. Must have been, right? ’Cause I woke up bleeding. That was the first time I ever got high, and I didn’t even want to be. He told me that it was normal to feel dizzy; he told me that it was normal to not feel anything; he told me I was going to pass out.

*

Maybe she fell over, hit her head, and passed out then. Maybe the drugs had nothing to do with it. It is surely possible that she fell on top of something and it made her bleed. Maybe no one was in the room after she passed out, and the next two hours were just quiet and peaceful. It could be that she was locked in a room for her own safety. There was a fire escape. She could have climbed out that way. She could have saved herself. 

*

I came over to hang out with him and play Grand Theft Auto V. We never did. As soon as I walked in, I was welcomed by his ma, who spoke either Tagalog or Filipino, neither of which were clear nor understandable to me. In any case, she knew little of what I was saying, and vice versa. She couldn’t save me. My teachers in the north always said that delinquent children were the ones who smoked weed, the ones who put mixes in their bongs, and that they were the ones who created all our problems. I was a straight-A student, a daughter of two teachers, and a devout, Christian child. I was sixteen years old. That didn’t change how little I fought back from being forced to take that mix of drugs or how willing I was to go upstairs and sit on the couch in his room. 

*

She may have wanted it all to happen. She was wearing something soft, and we all know that girls wear soft clothes to get people to feel them. She probably meant it all to happen. She could have called someone when his dad brought home a gallon bag of weed and threw it on the kitchen table. She could have asked for help when his older sister came into the room with her boyfriend. She really could have texted or called anyone for help any time before he took her phone, powered it off, and hid it in another room that he would lock within the next two minutes. They could have saved her. 

*

I knew it was a bad idea to go into a boy’s bedroom. I was in eighth grade, and my ma had always told me not to go into boys' rooms. That didn’t change where I went that day: right into his room. At first, when I went up there, he just sat next to me on the couch in his room and very awkwardly tried to make conversation. We had been friends, you know? We met in a physical education class and bonded over competing against each other in races, class units, and school-wide tournaments. I, of course, won more than he did, but there was never a day that passed where he hadn’t passed me doing laps in the gym. He played baseball (that should have been my first clue, or a red flag, as they say), and he was always very fast on his feet. I wasn’t. Especially not that day, I suppose. 

*

Her laughs could be misconstrued as awkward ones, but who knows? It may have been that she was easily-bruised, and it may have been that her numb body was a result of euphoria, not of fear or drugged inhibition. She could have dreamt it, you see. People tell crazy, made-up stories all the time. You can’t believe everything you read, and she does have quite an active imagination. Maybe there was nothing that she needed saving from.

*

No amount of dreaming could build up the sensations I felt that day. Sensations seem like a misleading word to use here; nothing I felt on that day was a good feeling, and nothing that I felt the day after was any better. When I “woke up,” after having passed out on the floor next to his couch, I was naked, bruised, and bleeding on his bed. The door had been locked when I passed out, but it was cracked open when I regained consciousness. Laying the wrong direction on the bed with my body contorted and twisted, I first noticed how bare I was, in many ways. Sure, there was a blanket partially covering my chest and waistline, but there was nothing covering me, you know?

I didn’t feel safe; I didn’t know what happened; I didn’t even know where my clothes were or what time of day it was. What I know for sure is that there was no part of my body that had feeling, there was blood between my legs, in my holiest of areas. To the extent of my memory and confirmed knowledge, this is how that date ended: I got out of his bed, put on my underclothes, leggings, and green, chenille sweater, re-braided my hair, tied on my rose-printed, black velvet combat boots, walked down the creaky stairs, and had the most confusing encounter I had ever had with a date; he smiled at me politely, gave me my phone (after running up and down the stairs to unlock a room where he had hidden my phone earlier), and let me go outside, where my sister was parked in the driveway, ready to drive me home.

 

About the Author


Katja Mahannah is an ICC student. She is a writer with an acquired taste; she is not afraid of the truth. Katja works in ICC's Academic Support Center, doing what she does best: policing grammar and judging the general lack of commas. Outside of necessities, Katja loves to write and clean. If you got to know her, though, you would know that she cares more about Jesus and her own, growing family than anything.

 

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