Page 94 - The Bridge Vol 17_pgs

The Bridge

Handprints bridge

award

Amaranta Martin
creative nonfiction

Was it rape?

I need you to tell me. You are the only person who knows. Isn’t that strange? Solo tu y yo. Y
este pregunta. Always between us. A third wheel spinning us into nothing. Forcing us together.
Wrenching us apart.

Was it rape? Dime la verdad.

What about the minutes, the hours, the days before? Walks through sepia, almost-autumn days. Your
hand in mine. Do they somehow negate it all? Is this a zero-sum situation?

I need to know.

Bueno, vamos.

¿Recuerdas esto? It was the weekend of my birthday. You came over to celebrate, armed with a pocket
full of feelings in powder, tab, and pill form. I couldn’t find a flashlight. We shoved some battery-
powered Christmas lights into an empty bottle of Patron Silver, an awkward lantern cutting through
the darkness of the city.

Yo tambien te amaba. So maybe it wasn’t.

We walked to the beach near my house. Streetlights flickered out around us. Was that a sign?
Laughter trickled out of open bar windows, sticking to the hot air.

Mi amado. Can I call you my rapist? Is that too harsh? You’d have to share that title with someone else.
I hope that’s okay.

A few tabs. A few bumps. A blanket in the damp sand. You told me about watching your mother die,
cancer spreading from her breast to everything vital. I pictured her hand, paper skin stretched over
sharp gray bones, disintegrating in your palm as her last breath floated through you.

We were drunk. And high. And tripping. And rolling. So maybe it wasn’t.

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