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You Are My Valentine How One Woman's Rape Changed My Life By Sarah Wright The yellow tape reading "POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS" stretched tight across the bathroom doorframe as officers and fingerprint experts ducked under it to get in and out of the crime scene. The red crepe paper that had once spelled out "HAPPY V-DAY" in the foyer now dangled, leaving only a few letters legible. It was now 5:30 am on Feb. 14, 1999 and the investigation was in its third hour. I staggered into my bedroom - the alcohol buzz had worn off and I could feel the hangover headache encroaching on my brain as I kicked off my two inch patent leather heels and peeled the black lycra dress off my body. I lay, huddled under the blankets, waiting for the forgiveness of sleep. Perhaps I would awake and find the situation wasn't so bad after all. Perhaps I would awake and find it had all been a dream. But every time I dozed off, footsteps and whispers could be heard outside my bedroom as investigators and others had stayed. A dispatcher, mixed with static, broke over the walkie-talkies leaving the other sounds as background noise. After two hours of restlessness, I looked out the window and saw the purple, pink and grey of the early morning Los Angeles sky. I picked myself up out of bed, put on sweats and walked out of the room. Walking past the bathroom, which was still infested with the LAPD and camera flashes that lit up the room like lightning, I entered the kitchen where I found my three roommates making coffee and giving police reports. I rubbed my eyes and sat slumped in the brown wicker chair. Across from me was an officer sitting in matching wicker. "Do you want some coffee, Sar?" one of my roommates asked. "Um, yeah," I said. "Now, what's your full name?" the officer asked, flipping his notebook page. "Sarah Denise Wright," I matter-of-factly answered, wrapping my hands around the full coffee mug. "And were you here during the incident?" he continued. "No. I went to someone else's apartment for a few minutes." "Then how did you find out a rape had occurred?" he asked, puzzled. "Some other girls came to the apartment where I was and told me that someone was raped in my bathroom." "So you didn't see the suspects?" he pressed. "Well, yes, kind of," I said. I had seen the suspects earlier in the evening; I had even offered one of them some drinks. But they were supposed to be Jennifer's* friends, not rape suspects. Approximately 80 percent of sexual assaults on women are committed by friends, acquaintances, intimates, and family members. Jennifer was the quiet, lanky girl from school, whose shirt sleeves never reached her wrists and whose pant legs never reached her ankles. That night Jennifer shed that shy facade as she danced through the crowd. She was also one of 75 guests invited to the party that night and when she asked each of us who lived in the apartment if she could bring some friends, we all thought: "The more the merrier." It was those "friends" who would later rape Jennifer on our bathroom floor. "So you could ID the suspects then?" the officer asked, snapping my thoughts back to the present. "I don't think so..." I said, looking down at the once-white carpet, now brown from dirt. "Were you drinking?" he continued. My eyes shifted back to him and, upon catching his ethereal blue eyes, which stared back at me without expression, mine quickly shifted back to the brown splotches on the ground. I was 20 years old and under the legal drinking age. I had never been in trouble - not with my parents, not in school and especially not with the police. "I'm not your parent; I'm not going to tell your parents if you were or weren't drinking. I just need to know for the report," he said. I looked around to the kitchen where the homemade sign I had made listing the prices for different drinks still hung. One dollar for a Jell-O shot. $2 for a Screwdriver. "Yes. I had a few drinks," I said as I stared at the gold police badge on the left side of his chest. More than one in four college-aged women have been the victim of rape or attempted rape. I had heard the statistic since middle school and considered myself more than lucky to have, in my junior year of college, no friends who had been assaulted. But now it had happened and though I had only known Jennifer from classes, the reality of the statistic was now in my bathroom. There was talk of us moving out of the apartment. Each of us, it seemed, could hardly bear to walk by, much less use, the bathroom. All four of us were soon using the bathroom in the back of the apartment exclusively. For several weeks the weight of the incident pressed on the four of us. We each felt some degree of responsibility for what had happened. And though we agreed that we would treat no one differently than we had before, awkwardness towards everyone who was there that night ensued. It felt as though people were constantly whispering about us and the party thrown at our apartment. I walked with my head held in shame, feeling like I had somehow caused the incident by not being careful enough. I had always been careful. I never walked alone at night, I never gave out my real phone number and name and I always poured my own drinks and made sure they never left my sight. But that night was different. I felt safe that night, like I was on top of the world. My party was a hit; people were having fun and, although I had hated L.A. for the previous month, I didn't want to be anywhere else that night. Therefore, when Matt, the attractive boy on the soccer team, asked me to take a walk, I agreed without hesitation. I had only known Matt for the month we were in L.A. together, but I was so excited when he spent the night talking to and dancing with me that I would have gone anywhere with him. We ended up going to his apartment and listening to music. It was at Matt's house that the other women came in and told us about Jennifer. It wasn't until later that I realized the potentially dangerous situation I had put myself in that night. And, although I now know Matt better and don't think he's capable of such atrocity, it still remains that I could have been the one who was raped that Valentine's Day. Because my actions that night had been so foolish, the rape that did occur affected me more than I thought it would. Not only did I have to deal with that fact that a woman my age, who attended my school, was raped in my bathroom during the party that I threw that night, but also that I had put myself in very risky circumstances that could have resulted in the same thing. The investigation ended two weeks later when the three suspects posted bail and moved to Chicago. Though they had left California, the impact they left on all of our lives remains. * Names have been changed to protect the identities of the parties in this story. Sarah Wright is bound for glory on the west coast.
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