Girls Who Get Themselves in Trouble
My name is Gabrielle. I’m seventeen and I’m a good girl. I’ve decided that I’m going to be either an RCMP officer or a missionary, so I spend my weekends doing things that will make my university applications stronger.
On Sundays, I sing in the church choir at the 8:30 service and teach bible study to kids at the 10:30 service.
On Saturdays, after I finish my shift at my dad’s printing company, I drive to the shooting range for target practice. I’ll be getting my restricted license in August when I turn 18, so I can shoot handguns without “direct and immediate supervision” of an adult. I think that’s a dumb law, but I know I can’t break it if I want to be a police officer.
During the week, I keep my head down, my grades up and I stay virtually unnoticed in my giant, polyvalent high school in rural Quebec. Except when I’m at my locker; that’s about the only time other kids pay attention to me because this year I got stuck beside Bobby, our school’s most popular pot dealer.
He used to be a grade ahead of me but he was suspended so many times last year for dealing, that he has to do grade eleven again. It was weird and uncomfortable at first, seeing all the drugs and money and which kids are buying, but Bobby and the kids he sold to are pretty nice to me, now that they know they can trust me not to tell on them.
I wasn’t sure if not telling was against the law. Like when you know a crime is taking place but you choose not to see it. Turns out, it’s a grey area. And my grandma has always said that good Christians take the “live and let live” approach to life, so long as nobody’s getting hurt. So, that’s what I do.
At least, that’s what I used to do until the day Bobby asked if I’d hold his backpack in my locker since it had been rumoured the RCMP would be doing a sweep for drugs that day.
“I can’t, Bobby. That would be illegal and if I get caught it’ll ruin my life.” I stared into my locker, not able to make eye contact with him.
“But you know that if the cops come today they’ll search my locker for sure. They always do. And your locker would never be checked. Ever.” Bobby took me by the shoulders and forced me to look into his eyes.
“I’m sorry. Really I am. What about asking one of the guys who buy from you?”
“Come on, Gabrielle. You know they’ll all be checked, too. You’re like one of the only people in this whole school who doesn’t do drugs. Please. If I get kicked out again they won’t let me graduate. Then what? I’ll be doomed to dealing my whole life since…who will hire a drop-out with a record?”
I knew he was right. I felt terrible but I just couldn’t say yes. I was battling conflicting thoughts. It’s against the law but wouldn’t it be the most Christian thing to do, to just let him put a bag 12 inches to the side of where it normally hangs, so that he could have a chance at a better life after graduation?
I felt sick having to put my own needs over his, especially since it was a certainty that he’d be caught and I was at least ninety-nine percent certain that my locker would go untouched.
“No, you can’t put your bag in my locker,” I said, “because… normally I don’t even lock it. I just hang the lock so it looks locked. It would be too risky. Your stuff might be stolen. I’m sorry.”
I closed my locker door, left the lock unhitched for the first time in my life, and went to my morning classes.
The RCMP did visit that day. I didn’t go back to my locker until the next morning and the lock was still hanging the way I’d left it. Bobby said, “Thanks,” and I said, “For what? I didn’t do anything.”
That was at the beginning of October. It quickly became habit to leave my lock open. Sometimes I’d see an extra bag in my locker but I just looked past it. I’d never touch it. It was always hung on the back hook, basically invisible behind the hoodies that hung in the front.
It still surprises me that on a Monday morning in June I was met at the school bus by the principal and escorted to his office. Bobby’s backpack sat on the table, emptied of its contents for me to explain. I could barely breathe.
“It’s not mine,” The words spilled out of my mouth, but even as they hit the air I realized how stupid it sounded.
Principal Cook raised a single eyebrow, “Then who’s is it?”
“I can’t tell you. You’ll expel him.”
“Fine. Then we’ll expel you.”
The unfairness of it all hit me like a punch in the gut, shoving aside the fear with rage. “Why couldn’t you have let him write his provincials and then done the raid? You’re basically condemning him to a dealer’s life if you don’t let him graduate. That’s why I was helping him — so he had a chance to become a better person.”
Five days before exams ended, two months after his eighteenth birthday, Bobby was arrested. I didn’t get to see him before he was sent away.
They said I got off easy. That they could have charged me, too. But because I was a girl who never got herself in trouble, the only punishment I received came from my father who sent me away to an all-girls boarding school, saying I clearly wasn’t mature enough to live on my own for my first year of college.
My name is Gabrielle. I’m twenty and I’m a good girl. I’ve never tried drugs and it goes without saying that I’m still a virgin.
That incident in the principal’s office taught me that I’m not well-suited to be a cop since I struggle to follow dumb rules. And being a missionary also doesn’t suit me anymore. I mean, who am I to impose my religious and cultural beliefs on others?
So I’m taking a year off to figure out what I want to do with my life. I got my own bachelor apartment in Montreal, the City of Saints. And so far, the name’s held true. My landlord even helped me get a job, working as a waitress in a local pub that caters to day labourers — Le Carpe Diem.
My interview consisted of proving that I can do math in my head and give the right change. On a good weekend, I can make my whole month’s rent in tips — if I don’t wear a bra.
Anyway, that’s where I saw him. Bobby. He sat down at one of my tables, joining a man who had neck and face tattoos. Most of the guys here (there are rarely women) have lots of ink.
Bobby and the guy with “SKINHEAD” written across his forehead acknowledged each other but didn’t speak. I approached the table from Bobby’s left side. He didn’t bother to look up, “Pitcher of Bud.”
“Hi Bobby,” I said, more as a whisper than a greeting.
He tilted his head up. Squinted, “Who the fuck are you?”
I took a step back as he pushed his chair out to stand up. He was way bigger than I remembered. I crossed my arms several inches away from my chest, ready to block an attack, took a deep breath and squeaked out, “Gabrielle. From high school?”
Bobby’s whole demeanour changed. He smiled, took a step and before I could react, grabbed me in a strong bear hug.
Between four-thirty, when Bobby came in, and nine, when my shift ended, I served his table, which had grown to five heavily tattooed construction workers, at least a dozen pitchers. And when I said, “Good night. See you in here again, sometime,” Bobby pulled out a chair and invited me to sit. I hung out with them until the pub closed.
Bobby offered to walk me home, “Not a great neighbourhood for a pretty girl on her own at midnight,” he said.
I flushed, I liked that he called me pretty. When we reached my door, I thanked him and gave him traditional, Quebecois air kisses on each cheek.
“Can I come in?”
I shrugged. “No. It’s late. I’m exhausted. And I work again at eight tomorrow morning.”
“I was hoping I could crash, actually. My brother gets pissed when I come home late, drunk,” he made an exaggerated pout, “Please? I can’t find my keys.” He patted his jeans pockets, to prove the point.
I opened the door and pointed at the couch. “Seriously, you won’t be comfortable. It’s at least eighteen inches shorter than you are.” I hoped that Bobby would take one look at the sagging cushions and make an excuse to leave.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, pushing past me. He dropped his backpack by the door and flopped onto the floral patterned loveseat, legs, with filthy construction boots on, hanging over the end. He closed his eyes and said, “Sleep well.”
I did sleep well. Until he came into my room and crawled into my bed. Naked.
No amount of pleading or fighting back was able to stop what happened next.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it? And next time, I promise you’ll enjoy it more.”
I desperately wanted to run, to get as far away as I could. From his smell. From the sound of his breathing. But where would I go in the middle of the night? And wait, why should I leave? This is my bed. I reigned in every unChristian thought I’d ever had, to find my voice, a voice dripping with hate, “Get out.”
“Can’t. Like I told you, I don’t have my keys.”
Bobby adjusted the pillow and closed his eyes.
I stared at the shadows of tree branches on the wall, as my mind exploded.
I have to call the police.
Really? What will you say when they ask why you let him in? He’ll tell them you never wear a bra to work, that you were asking for it. Were you?
How will you explain why you didn’t scream? Why you don’t have his skin under your fingernails.
What will your mother say when she finds out that you’ve become a girl who gets herself in trouble? You do not want to deal with that.
Bobby started to snore.
I stood up and immediately felt the warmth of fluid running down my inner thighs. I dry heaved and ran to the bathroom.
I need to shower.
So… I guess you’re not calling the cops, then?
I spent an hour weighing the consequences of calling the cops and of pretending this never happened, just the way I pretended Grandpa never touched me when I was twelve.
“This is your fault,” he’d said, “running around the yard in your bikini. You’re basically asking for sex. Let me give you a taste of what it feels like.”
He forced his fingers inside me and that’s when I decided I’d be happy to die a virgin. And now, sitting in my living room while the man who raped me slept so soundly in my bed, I wanted to die. Or kill.
Easy enough to pull off, thanks to Grandpa’s Last Will and Testament. His old Colt .22 Woodsman handgun was hidden under the sink in my bathroom. I pulled out the towels that hid its small lockbox, pressed to the back of the cupboard, invisible unless you knew it was there.
I sat back down on the couch and opened the box. The note from Grandpa, obviously written when he was drunk, still taped to the inside.
One day you’ll understand men and when that day comes, you might need this.
I stared at my closed bedroom door. If I wanted the ammo, I’d have to go in, risk waking Bobby. Not worth it. I tucked Grandpa’s note into a Maclean’s magazine on my coffee table. Then I closed the gun case and, for the first time in my life, did not lock it. I placed it on the floor beside Bobby’s backpack.
I called a cab, put on my shoes, pulled a hoodie on over my nightgown, and slammed the apartment door loud enough to wake him as I left. Within twenty minutes I was at emergency, being examined by a female doctor.
“I have to call the police, to report this, you know,” she said.
“Will they come here or want to meet me at my apartment?”
“Here first, then they’ll take you home, in case he’s still there.”
I didn’t press charges for the sexual assault; didn’t have the stomach to do the whole he said, she said thing. But I did press charges for the theft of my handgun, which was found, with ammo thankfully, in Bobby and his brother’s apartment.
Bobby got the maximum sentence and I don’t feel bad about a single day he’s going to serve.
My name is Miss Gabrielle. I’m twenty-six and don’t define myself or anyone as good or bad.
I have my Master of Social Work degree and I’m a high school guidance counsellor. I keep my head down and my caseload up, so I stay virtually unnoticed by the administrators.
I protect my students and teach them how to protect themselves. I look away when I need to and intervene when I must, so they don’t become kids who get themselves in trouble. I teach them that no-means-no, how to take down someone who doesn’t understand that and give them the self-confidence to never allow themselves to be manipulated, molested or messed with in any way.
On Saturdays, after my boxing class, I go to the shooting range where quite often I provide “direct and immediate supervision” to my students.
On Sundays, I lead the One Voice Chorus, a choir that sings for social change and raises money for LGBTQ+ youth programs.
Bobby’s out now and I don’t care. If he ever comes around again, I’m ready. I have my Grandpa to thank for that.
© Danika Bloom 💜 2019
