Red Cedar Review Vol. 53

a boyfriend (I have never had a boyfriend), waved, and kept going. I got lucky.

I am not a very fearful person when it comes to fights, but I don’t run by the school anymore. I run on a residential street full of street lamps on at all hours, houses with friendly dogs, and late-night porch readers who wave at me. I know I did what was smart, but I also know men claim catcalling and solicitation is harmless because girls smile and laugh. I know we don’t like it. We don’t want to die.

I don’t want the guilt of spreading something that allowed men in a black car to pull up and call me over, but I don’t want to be raped or killed. Maybe, I should just carry a gun.

I made a friend my first semester at WKU whose girlfriend was raped on a blind date. She can’t or won’t remember his face. She was so sure no one would help, and that she was alone or at fault, that she went home and hid and that was all. She didn’t tell anyone until my friend, several months after they’d been dating. That guy is still out there, answering casual dating app matches. He could be anyone I pass by in the halls.

I would believe her, I would know it wasn’t her fault. If I could find out who he is, I would show up at his apartment and fight him for her. Maybe I should try to.

My roommate a semester ago had a boyfriend who was always there, always wanting sex, always yelling at her. I would go to my coffee maker in the kitchen and hear her crying. One day I heard her say, amidst sobs, “Why do you hit me?” so I panicked. I hid a butcher knife in my sleeve and banged on their door and told him he couldn’t beat his girlfriend in our apartment, the unintended addition of the words “in our apartment” will haunt me forever I think, and to get out. She promised she was ok, let me check her for bruises. She said he’d just smacked her hand away. I heard her cry and him yell. I talked to her I think three times, alone, usually outside in the cold air.

She was so sad and lonely; she thought maybe she would go home.

She left a few weeks after the altercation in her apartment, I don’t know where. I don’t know if she’s still with him, or why she ever was.

She texted me a goodbye.

I wonder if next time there will be someone to bang on the door with a hidden kitchen knife whose words are better, but I am afraid MAHONEY 161