Starfish

by Akemi Dawn Bowman

try to take a breath, but I feel like throwing up. “Are you trying to say you think you were sexually abused when you were a kid?” My voice is so dry I’m sure my words are going to crumble into thousands of tiny, brittle pieces. I try to think logically. I try to be calm. She shrugs and twists her face like this is a genuine possibility. “I mean, who knows? Maybe a hypnotherapist could find out.” “Do you have any memories at all that are making you think this? Did anything weird happen to you?” I ask through stiff breaths. Like, I don’t know, an uncle sneaking into your room? “No,” she says pointedly. “But that’s what I mean—just because I can’t remember anything doesn’t mean nothing ever happened. When I was younger, I was very attractive and very naive. I didn’t even know there were mean people in the world. Someone could have taken advantage of that.” WHAT I WANT TO SAY: “Nobody took advantage of you, nobody molested you, and you don’t have any repressed memories of your childhood. I’m the child who was hurt, not you. You didn’t believe me, but now I’m supposed to believe that you’re worried something ‘might’ have happened to you, even though you don’t have any reason to think that whatsoever? Why are you trying to diminish the horrible thing that happened to me and make it about you?” WHAT I ACTUALLY SAY: Exactly that. I leave her and her reality TV show and her stupid, stupid made-up problems on the couch, and when I’m miles away from her, blasting Wilco in the car, I...

YESS KIKO!!!!