Know My Name

by Chanel Miller

I recently asked him about all of this, after writing out the chaotic timeline of how we met, all that followed. I said, How were you willing to date me, when all that stuff was going on? He said, Because, you. I pushed back, Yeah, but what about the assault, my drinking, all of it. He said, What about you as you?

It is not a question of if you will survive this, but what beautiful things await you when you do. I had to believe her, because she was living proof. Then she said, Good and bad things come from the universe holding hands. Wait for the good to come.

The judge had given Brock something that would never be extended to me: empathy. My pain was never more valuable than his potential.

Many wrote to me saying they had been in my position before, wanted to show me who survivors become, told me about their careers, their kids, caring partners. This is what your life can look like in ten, twenty years. They gave me one thousand futures to grow into.

Orthopedic surgeon. Biomedical engineer. All-American Athlete. Olympian. The judge argued he’d already lost so much, given up so many opportunities. What happens to those who start off with little to lose? Instead of a nineteen-year-old Stanford athlete, let’s imagine a Hispanic nineteen-year-old working in the kitchen of the fraternity commits the same crime. Does this story end differently? Does The Washington Post call him a surgeon?