I Want to Be Lua

_{Content warning: discussions of rape}

My rapist gave me my first tattoo in his parents’ basement, which he affectionately called the den. The room was hideous with yellow-toned oak paneling and carpeting that was once white, failing to pass as a modern spectacled variety specifically made to hide dirt. He sat on his couch, red, over-stuffed, and with a lingering scent of cigarette smoke. He never smoked though, so I never quite knew where it came from. He instead tasted like the cinnamon-flavored gum he was always chewing, which was so much worse. Red Hots, Hot Tamales, Atomic FireBalls, and Cinnamon Bears have been rendered inedible since high school because of it.

The oblong Saturn on my tricep always impedes my short sleeve purchases. I would rather not have the questions every time I go out, but maybe, the surprise when people see it for the first time is worse. Those questions are harder to answer, and those people feel deserving of them. I don’t think they are, but that is hard to explain to a dear friend.

I should get it removed. I know it’s expensive, but I could manage it now. I should, but I think I need it there. I am not sure if I can be whoever I became after that, and that is the person I really like. It’s been here too long now; it’s become part of me in a way more significant than when the ink settled into my skin. I think I need the reminder every day that I can be fooled like that and might be overtaken once again. Overtaken, a complete fabrication. It would be easier to make the argument that I was overtaken with infatuation more than I ever was on that couch, his bed, his backseat.

I often wonder what brought that love upon me, especially now that I shutter to say I ever did love him. He was not someone that was easy to love. Even then, my friends would tell me that I was making a mistake, a confrontation most teenage girls do not have the confidence to undertake. He was older, which was intriguing enough to overlook his unbecoming looks. I might have thought he was attractive then though. I can’t remember that bit well. He might have been kind, maybe that was what kept me with him for so long. I don’t remember this kindness, but it is easier to believe there was some than to believe I was there without reason.

I still worry that I might not mean as much to him as he means to me. He doesn’t mean much to me. I don’t think about him often, and I almost never miss him. The not talking probably means I’m wrong about that all though. If he became truly insignificant, I think I would never have to worry about what people know about him, and I think that I wouldn’t work so hard to hide all the marks he left on me. I would probably speak more if he meant less.

I didn’t know how to make it stop, but more than that I worry that maybe I didn’t ever really want him to. This could have just been a prerequisite to the rest of my life, and that isn’t something I want to change. I got it over with because I had to, because I couldn’t go on without it. How was I supposed to go on without it? Maybe, I’ve made up that narrative to dull the loop in my brain that plays coercion on repeat. That sounds like something I would do. Saturn and its eighty-three moons, but I still hope I was the only one.