The Blood Stained Coat

I went to the police station and sat there waiting for a detective to come out to hear what I had to say and to add to my sexual assault case. I expected to be taken into the usual back room, interviewed by the detective, and then sent on my way.

This is not quite what happened. A cop came out and asked why I was there and I calmly explained. He told me I was overreacting. I explained that the case was already documented and that I’d like for it to be updated with this new information — retaliation I’d received just minutes before I left to go home, and was side tracked by the glowing blue lights of the station where I decided to report it. The cop did not take me seriously. He did not bring me into a back room. He talked to me in the lobby and wrote down about 1/3 of what I was saying, but seemed to have no interest. I finally started to crack a little, so I asked him: “How would you feel if your daughter spent every night with a boy that had sexually assaulted her, all because they were on the same club together?” He hesitated before responding, “Well I have a son.” Before tears could start streaming down my face, I walked out of the police station. I acknowledge that this probably came across as ‘hostile,’ but I wasn’t about to deal with a sexist cop on top of a Title IX case. By the time I got home on the freezing February night, I was hysterical and covered in my own blood, courtesy of my frequent (and typically anxiety induced) nosebleeds. The proctor barely looked at me when she swiped my ID to get into the building.

I barely managed to make it into my room and by the time I did I collapsed to the floor. I was physically and mentally exhausted. I was dealing with too much — too much — and at this point I was just hoping for survival. Several of my friends texted me and I turned my phone off. I couldn’t look at the light. The pitch black of my room matched my darkness of my coat, my jeans, my shoes. There was something comforting about the darkness.

I sat in the corner of my room for an unknown amount of time. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I felt like I didn’t want to.

I heard a knock on my door later, and the person announced herself. My friend had somehow managed to force her way past the proctor to get to my room after I turned my phone off. I crawled to the door and opened it. She asked if she could turn the lights on and I said nothing. She turned them on and gasped.

It took me that long to realize that my nose was still bleeding. That the sticky, red liquid was covering myself and my floor. I was sweating in my coat and couldn’t manage to get it off. I didn’t have the energy.

So she cleaned up after me. She got my clothes off and into the laundry basket, wiped up the blood from my floor, and hung my coat on the rack. She stayed with me until I’d gotten ready for bed and then stayed a little bit longer.

I woke up the next day exhausted before realizing I had to get ready for work. I put on my coat and noticed the blotches everywhere — the still blood soaked coat. I tried to clean up most of it, and thought I succeeded in that moment.

But today I looked down, and I saw two remaining spots of blood that have survived the wind, rain, and snow and still managed to stay. They have managed to stay despite an effort to get rid of them, despite battling many obstacles that Mother Nature has thrown at them.

So why do I still feel like I can’t?