A Girl's Guide to Ending Rape Culture

Chapter 1

"What's your name, sweetheart?"

I look towards the direction of the voice and push down the urge to vomit. The voice had come from an older man, old enough to be my dad. He's wearing a white wife beater and running a hand through sweaty hair that is matted to his forehead.

I answer him anyways, since everything I do matters for my image. I never knew who was watching.

"Emilie Hanley."

"Sing us a song, Em, honey."

I hate when people call me Em, hate it even more when people call me honey, but I ignore it and start to sing one of the original songs I had written.

It was a song about getting too comfortable in a relationship and the feelings slowly dying. It was one of my favourites that I had written; I felt it was realistic.

At the end of the song, I got a fair amount of applause. I didn't get as much applause as some people, but I was always happy with what I got.

"Thank you," I say to the small crowd. Most of the crowd had already turned back to what they were doing: drinking coffees and chatting with the person across from them.

Sometimes, I wished I could catch people's attention for longer than the time it took to complete a set. There were the occasional people who were interested in my CDs, but it never usually went any further than that. I was grateful, but isn't it human nature to want more?

~

I walk towards the Campus Commons: the grassy area surrounded by the four buildings on Campus. The usual lush, green grass was now a dry brown color; the kind that when you sat down, it would stay flat rather than spring back up. I couldn't wait till Summer when the grass would be green again.

My eyes search the area for my friends, Ani and Lucas. I see them, laughing as they walk the path that went around Campus. Ani notices me and waves.

I walk over to Ani and Lucas. I give Ani and hug, and Lucas a side hug that feels more awkward than friendly.

There's always been this tension between Lucas and I. Not necessarily a bad tension; we don't have any negative energy between us, but it's not quite positive either. Awkward is the way I would describe it.

"How are you guys?" I ask. I resist the urge to look at Lucas when I say this. I always feel the instinct to look at him when he speaks, to see how he reacts to the things I say. Instead, I focus on Ani.

Ani smiles warmly. "I'm good, we were just heading back from English. You missed a lot of important stuff," she says, rolling her eyes in a way that suggests I really didn't.

I suppose I hadn't; Mrs. Peters tended to go on and on about her life before it seemed to occur to her that she was, in fact, an English teacher and should probably be teaching English. By that time, the class was mostly done. I had considered dropping the class before, but it was the only class I had with both Ani and Lucas, and Mrs. Peters usually got so caught up in her life stories that she didn't really mind us using the time to talk amongst ourselves.

"Sorry, I was just at the cafe, I had a set."

"That's okay," Lucas says. "We get it. How was the set?"

I brighten and look over at him. "It was okay, the usual. The occasional wanted attention, then the unwanted attention. You know how it is."

They both did. I'd told them both about the unwanted attention of men (and sometimes women) before.

Ani looks disgusted by it, as usual. Lucas looks disgusted, too, but there's something else in his expression. Annoyance, maybe?

I raise an eyebrow. "What's that face for?"

His face straightens. "Nothing."

Ani looks between us, probably sensing that tension that's inevitably occurring between us again. "Okay, you guys. If you're done staring at each other, let's go do something fun."

I break eye contact first, and look at Ani. "Fun?"

"Yes, fun. Let's go to a club or something. Do some dancing," she says, shimmying her shoulders towards me.

"I don't know," I say. "We're not even old enough to get into a club."

"Come on, Em. They barely even check IDs here. It'll be fun. And I'm sure there'll be a karaoke contest or something."

She had me there; she knew I never turned down an opportunity to sing. "Fine," I say. "Let's go get ready."