‘Hope!’ he said. ‘Hey, how are you?’ His smile faded as he saw the look on her face. ‘You okay?’

‘I’m fine. What are you doing here?’ It came out more bluntly than she intended.

‘I know, right? I’m way too old for this party.’ He smiled, as though he knew he was exaggerating. ‘A student I’ve been helping, he asked me to come. But now I don’t think he even showed up. Anyway, no big deal. You have friends here?’

‘No.’

His voice became more gentle. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I often see you on your own. Are you sure everything’s okay?’

‘I’m fine, I just …’ She hesitated, torn between ‘don’t know anyone here’, ‘don’t like the noise’, and ‘don’t belong here’. The alcohol made everything fuzzy. She was on the verge of tears.

‘It’s okay,’ Shannon said. He wrapped an arm around her, like a concerned big brother. ‘Let’s get you out of here, okay?’

She nodded, and he held her hand and helped her down the stairs. Only later did she think he’d held it a little too tight. Possessive, not protective.

She walked back to his car, huddled into him for protection from the wind. He rested his hand on her leg on the drive home, and she didn’t want to offend him by pushing it off.

‘I’ll come up with you,’ he said, when they’d parked near her dorm building. He made it sound like it was for her safety.

‘You don’t need to do that,’ she told him.

‘It’s okay.’

As soon as the room door was closed, he was kissing her. His breath tasted like cheap beer, and this made her feel like he wasn’t taking advantage of her—they were both drunk, not just her.

She was drunker, though. Too drunk to fight him off, if she tried.

‘We shouldn’t,’ she said, when he broke off the kiss. Later, she hated herself for saying that instead of ‘you can’t’ or simply ‘don’t’.

He was already unbuttoning her jeans.

‘Please,’ she said. But he just tore at her clothes with renewed energy, as though he’d misunderstood.

In the end, she let him do it. She even made encouraging noises, just wanting it to be over. She didn’t even allow herself to think the word rape until days later, alone at an STD clinic, her vagina still sore, a bruise fading on her upper arm where he’d grabbed it.