Thought for Food

You should see the other guy.

In response to my last post, BagCoffee wrote: “Nora. You have to face the truth. End the abuse.”  Which reminded me…

I fell of my dorm room bunk bed a couple weeks into Freshman year at Tulane, face first. I was awake and completely sober, which makes it worse.

My suite-mate Liz (now one of my best friends), heard an awful thunk.  She found me crumpled on the industrial carpet, and took immediate action.  Minutes later, I was on a stretcher in an ambulance headed to Memorial Medical Center, and she was riding up front.  They did the usual tests and assured me that I would not look like a boxer for the rest of my life (my nose was flattened in a way that reminded me of a dinosaur).  They sent us on our way – being Freshman girls, we went straight to a frat party.

The next day, my nose was no longer misshapen, but the bruising had begun.  Two black eyes, each the worst you’ve ever seen.  I looked liked a particularly menacing raccoon.  No amount of concealer could help me.  I donned dark glasses and tried to hold my head high as I made the campus rounds. 

But I couldn’t wear the glasses everywhere.  People stared in the cafeteria.  People stared in class.  I looked a fright, and every day worse, as the purple turned blue-black, then green, then yellow….

Late one night, I was in a campus café with the guy I was dating.  A cop came up to me when he was in the bathroom and told me that it was safe — if something was going on, I could tell him.  I tried to explain what had happened and assure him I was definitely not in an abusive relationship, but every denial sounded like admission.  When the guy came back, the cop glared at him threateningly.  I didn’t bother to explain.

It was quite a way to start my college career.  People would come up to me months and even years later and say one of two things – “Oh, you were that girl who got beat up by her boyfriend” or “Oh, you were that girl with the topless photo in the Freshman Facebook.” 

No, see, I fell off my bed…

Well, I was actually wearing a tube top…

Eh, what’s the point?

“Yeah, that was me.”