Blood is Thicker Than Water
by Maria Fleming
Miami University
Maria Fleming is a senior Creative Writing, Psychology, and Social Work major at Miami University. She has also been published in Slish Slash Literary Magazine and will be continuing to pursue her writing in the NEOMFA program with a concentration in fiction in fall 2022.
The Incident
Our childhood house was beautiful. It was old, about a hundred years old, and each floorboard creaked. It was definitely haunted. The adults avoided the attic like there were demons up there, but us kids say it as another fun place to go play. It was truly a lovely place to grow up and I miss it a lot. The bathroom upstairs was so outdated that my mother decided to renovate it. There’s a joke in a lot of horror movies that once the protagonist decides to renovate their homes, it lets out off of the ghosts. I don’t think there was any more activity, ghost-wise, but something awakened inside my older brother. One of the first times, I was around seven or eight years old, and my brother and I were playing a game in the bathroom. It was a game he created, just for the two of us. He was my best friend, my hero at this time. I would cry every time he tried to run away, his anger even apparent when we were that young. This was around the time that started to shift.
It was a game about who can drink the most water before they peed their pants. And we couldn’t leave until I did. I’m not sure if I was too embarrassed or my subconscious told me this was wrong, but I couldn’t. We would stand in the bathtub, with the mirror across, watching our every movement. I was starting to hyperventilate, so much that I sat down, our bubblegum scented shampoo sitting on the edge, and he pulled his pants down and peed on me. There was a lead-up. It wasn’t like one day he just locked me in the bathroom, forcing himself on me, it started with texts. With sending me porn videos. With strange comments. With peaks in the shower. With nights of him standing in my room while I slept.
I eventually wrote a letter to them, telling the tale of what he did. Of him locking me in the bathroom and offering me money. Even when I denied it, he believed he had the right to my body. I didn’t remember the pee fetish events during this time. My brain had decided I needed to forget to decide.
I requested that she didn’t pull me out of school. That I wasn’t sure what I expected to happen. That I just wanted them to know. They placed us both in therapy. And I got stuck with a woman that insisted that if it wasn’t rape, that it wasn’t anything. I never claimed it to be that. I have always been aware it was molestation. But I had convinced myself at that point that my emotions were for nothing, so I shoved them down and carried on.
The most interesting part of this was listening to my parents trying to rationalize the event with me, while not changing anything about our schedules. He continued to wait for me to get out of the shower. I did not get my door put back on, which I had gotten taken away a few months earlier due to watching porn. I still rode to school with him the next year. His room remained next to mine.
The words of my mother saying, “He just wanted to know what boobs felt like,” still ring in my head. The casual way she said it, grinning after. It was casual for her, this experience will impact me for the majority of my life. The strangest thing is I still claim to have had a good childhood. I had food and I had my beloved razor scooter. We didn’t have much money, with my dad being a sixth-grade teacher and my mom being a stay-at-home mom, but I had the things I thought I needed. Maybe all I really needed was to be protected.
Denial
The peak event happened the weekend we celebrated my little brother’s birthday. When going back to school that Monday, I fell into my normal routine. I put on makeup. I listened to the same CD that I did every morning. I waited for the bus with my older brother, chatting with him about some girl he was talking to. My stomach felt wrong the whole morning. I sat by myself and stared out the window, my headphones in.
When I finally got to school, I continued my routine, going to my locker to drop my bookbag off, grabbing my items for my first three classes, then going to find my best friend at the time, Jessie. She was already huffing and puffing by the time I was walking next to her, going to drop off our books in the choir room, before wandering around the hallways until the bell rang.
“I had the worst weekend,” she said. “My parents lost so much shit when moving into our new house. You’ll have to come to spend the night this weekend, I actually have my own room at this one. But my sister was being such a bitch this whole weekend. We spent all Sunday yelling at each other.”
“I bet I had a worse weekend than you did,” I said and grinned.
“Oh, shut up, no you did not.”
So I told her. I told her how he locked me in the bathroom. The money offer. The shoving me against the wall, telling me I won’t ever tell anyone this. The trying to joke while he shoved his hand down my pants and up my shirt.
Jessie grabbed me, pulling me into the bathroom. She stared at me for a long time. Then she said, “Maria, you can’t tell anyone about that. That’s really bad.”
I kept my mouth shut for a year after that. Jessie was the only one who knew. I would update her whenever something new would happen. I stayed silent. It seemed too big for anyone around me. We were all only in seventh grade. None of us could handle this.
His friends started asking me after a few months if it really happened. I would confront Jessie, and she would insist she hadn’t said a word to anyone. So, the next time one of his friends asked, I asked who they heard it from, and apparently, my brother was telling people on his own. Bragging.
I always said no. I would rather him be seen as a liar than people thinking he was actually right about this.
Anger
People always talk about the turning points in their lives, like when their little brother was born or when they met the love of their life. Moving or marriage or success in careers. It all falls to the good in life, the innocent, it all is surrounded by love and warmth. Frankly, this was my turning point. I was a different person to this prior. I was the innocent in life. My goals were small and simple. If I met that girl today, I don’t know if I would even recognize her, or like her at all. Maybe that was who I really am, or maybe I was just a kid. I have a laundry list of sexual assaults, a laundry list of men who found me so desirable that saying no was never an option in their eyes. Or maybe I was just convenient. When it happened those other times, later in life, I didn’t notice my whole personality shift, my faith in humanity disappear, or watch myself become so self-destructive I have to turn around all of my mirrors. Maybe it was because I was older, wiser, or maybe because I expected it at that point. I eventually went to a trauma group my freshman year of college, and I would always the way the girls would widen their eyes, glance at me sideways when I would bring up another experience, another guy.
Why am I so scared to write this? What am I so afraid of? I’ve been through hell and back, what’s the harm in putting in on paper? What’s the harm in letting it out, getting angry, and feeling hatred? Maybe it’s something that’s ingrained in me, not hating anyone. But is that fair that someone can do such a hateful act, but me saying I hate them and I don’t forgive them makes me the bad person? When they took something that was supposed to be mine? But in the eyes of many, I am dramatic. I am a slut. I asked for it. I should’ve fought back harder, louder, with more emotion. Does that mean I can’t be angry now because I was numb then?
Frankly, I am. I am angry. I am so fucking pissed. What am I supposed to do with this? This knowledge and this experience? I can’t use it to my advantage. I was strong before this and I was beautiful before this. I never needed this. I have to see my assaulter every holiday, get a half-assed hug, holding my breath. I have to buy him a fucking gift on Christmas and go on family vacations with him. I have to meet his stupid girlfriend, someone who could never earn my respect. An old friend of mine, a girl I put my trust in with the experience and claimed her equal anger and sadness, but now lives with him. She must have been really upset, huh? It’s strange for me to push all the responsibility on him. It’s unfair for me to blame him for what the other men did after, but once someone that is meant to protect you, a father, older brother, uncle, takes advantage of you, how can you even begin to trust anyone who is simply thin water. This isn’t poetic. This isn’t meant to be a beautiful piece. This is my life. There is no happy ending to this. This didn’t bring me any revelations or bring my family closer. There was no reason for this. There was no reason for this violence and pain. Only excuse.
“He was only ten.” I was eight.
“He was only fourteen.” I was twelve.
I don’t see this as a mistake. I don’t see this as something that can be fixed with an apology letter, some sorry fucking excuse when he can’t even look me in the eyes. He knew it was wrong. That’s why he tried to fucking offer me money. That’s why he claimed I’d never tell anyone. That’s why he ignored my fear. That’s why he locked the door. It was an act. It was premeditated. But he will never get jail time because my parents care more about his future than they can about my present. Yes, I recognize I sound bitter. I fucking am.
I always think of ways I could’ve avoided it, the other times. The timelines of assaults in my life. Maybe if I didn’t go to that party or didn’t drink a drop of alcohol there. I was seventeen and he recorded it. Maybe if I never said yes to going to the movies or if I chose to drive separately. I was nineteen and he was my childhood best friend. Maybe if I switched study halls. I was fourteen and it was four against one. Maybe if I didn’t go for a walk with him. I was sixteen and I had to get an abortion. Maybe if I locked myself in my room, but where is my safe space if I can’t even find safety in my own home? He was in my house, in my shower, in my bed. I couldn’t lock my door. Hell, I didn’t have one. My parents took my door off the hinges for watching porn months before. That was my punishment. He didn’t even get grounded.
It’s odd, understanding the concept of fight or flight but being unable to move at the moment. Instead of doing what everyone says, to bite, kick, scream. If for one second, you. the reader, place your bias judgment on me for not fighting as hard, I hope you feel shame. I went numb. If someone ignores your initial “no” and holds you down, what’s the point? It’s pathetic to admit I didn’t fight back as hard as I could. My body was moving in slow motion, focusing on things that didn’t matter. The crooked painting on the wall. How dusty the radio had gotten. The look on my face in the mirror. Do you know how numb I was to be making jokes while my brother forced his hand down my pants? Fuck this. Fuck all of this. I hate him, I do. No, I don’t. I can’t. I have to see him this week, at a wedding. We’ll have to take pictures and smile and pretend like we’re fine now.
Bargaining
In middle school, I proclaimed that I was going to be waiting until marriage. For sex. It wasn’t necessarily for religious reasons. I found myself doubting God around the age of eight. I would pray and ask for certain things, simple things, like for my mother to pick up strawberries at the grocery store, and nothing happened. Later, I would find myself praying to be straight, and that never happened either. There were too many terrors in the world for God to exist and not hate humans.
Either way, I stood by this idea, even up the second before I lost my virginity when I was fifteen. It wasn’t the plan when this boy came over. We had only been talking for a week and he had a girlfriend, who he was insisting he was going to leave for me. I’m sure I’m not the only person who has heard this statement before, insisting that maybe I was the exception to the rule that has always been that these men are liars. He came over after church. The rest of my family was gone to go to my older brother’s doubleheader, and I was left behind to watch the dog and have dinner together when everyone got back. So I invited him to come over.
I’m not necessarily sure what I was expecting, but when we went into my room and were kissing and he pulled out a condom, I said no. At first. It only took one sentence to change my mind.
“Okay, but my girlfriend would, so,” he said, trying his best to be nonchalant.
So, we tried, but it hurt, so I stopped him, in which he said the same sentence, staring at me this time as he said it. So I grabbed a towel and put it in my mouth. I told him to do it quickly.
Whenever I tell people this story, they look at me with some kind of pity, assuming I stayed away from sex for a long time after this. But something in my brain woke up. It felt like power and beauty and control. It didn’t feel like anything for me, but god damn, did it make me feel like I had authority in my life. So, I became hypersexual, sleeping with just about every guy that seemed mildly interested. I kept a bottle of lube in my purse and condoms in my bookbag.
People spent way too much time looking at me like damaged and sad, but now they looked at me like a whore. Boys chased me and girls didn’t want me around their boyfriends. I got glared at in the hallway instead of pity glances. It felt like respect. I felt like a force. There was no way I could be too damaged when I could put out.
I became the definition of toxic masculinity, using men to make me feel better about myself and my life before pushing them to the side. I had a list of rules. They could not kiss me. They weren’t allowed to touch me. And they weren’t allowed to tell anyone until I told first. Simple. Most followed.
This became my deal. My parents could only blame themselves for their daughter being a slut. So, they couldn’t question me when I came home smelling like sex, as long as I stayed in line and didn’t make a big deal about the “brother situation.” That last till right before I turned twenty. They got five years of peace and I got five years of power. And I was ready to start a war.
Depression
I’ve always hated summer. I have the opposite of seasonal depression. The warmer it gets, the worse I do. It probably started when I was turning 13 and I decided to have a party with all my friends. One of my friends at the time decided to tell everyone that I was a really fucking bad person and everyone ended up leaving my birthday party to hang out with her. They would stop over on days they knew my parents were working to yell at me through my windows or send me pictures of them all hanging out without me. Eventually, one of them sent me a letter telling me to kill myself. So, I tried to. My parents decided not to take me to the hospital to keep my reputation and I got all of my electronics taken away. My mom told me she wouldn’t have given me a funeral because I would have gone to hell if I succeeded. Touching.
I’m not denying that I’ve always been a good person. Frankly, I spent the majority of my high school experience as a terrible one. I was extremely rebellious. Yet, every summer, I spent most of my time locked in my room, avoiding my family, and trying not to have another attempt. I don’t think I’ve ever lived a summer without at least considering suicide. It seemed easier at the time. Especially knowing that the unconditional love I was supposed to receive from my family never came, so why should I expect anyone else to love me? Still, every summer was worse than the last, so I tried my best to be fully prepared for the summer of 2020.
I had been home for quite a while at this point. My roommate ended up getting it, so I went home and stayed there. It wasn’t so bad, mostly because I was constantly in classes, preventing my parents from constantly being up to my ass. The school year ended, and I didn’t really think much would change. I was taking fifteen credit hours of all sprint courses, so I spent most of my days doing homework and nannying a kid down the street from me.
The nightmares started getting worse. I partially blamed it on me being home for this long for the first time since high school. It was bearable until the nightmares started leaking into the days. I couldn’t deny that they seemed to be more real than I was telling myself. It only flashed anyways. A hand on my waist. The look on my face in my bathroom mirror. Someone lying next to me while I slept, slipping their hand over my mouth. It continued to flood my mind, to the point that I started picking up my old habits. I showered with the curtain open, refusing to close my eyes. I put things in front of my door at night to make sure if someone came in, I would wake up. I was barely sleeping. Barely eating. My fitness pal was downloaded on my phone, with a calorie count of 800 each day.
I decided to go back to therapy. I assumed this was because I was in the house where every bad thing ever happened to me. I reached out to my old therapist, the one who coddled me. Pitied me. Let me lie right to her face and pretend like I was happy. It seemed so simple to stop lying to her. Maybe it would help. During my first session, she suggested I set boundaries with my brother, assuming, like I was, that this was a weird trauma response. That my mind was going rampant.
It started simple. I just wanted a warning when he was coming over. He had been living with his girlfriend for a year at this point, so it shouldn’t have caused any issues. He shouldn’t be coming over without a warning anyways. But it didn’t stop. I would be in my room and hear his voice, booming from downstairs to complain about his job. So, I decided to stop it all. Whenever he was coming over, I would leave. I didn’t want to see him at all. My boundaries weren’t working, and I was getting worse.
I have always been aware my parents didn’t like me. Forget love, I’ve always been the one who was ignored. It was something I grew used to a while ago, but I couldn’t afford to deal with it now. I am the only girl in my family. I am the best on paper. My older brother has always been my favorite. Either way, I tended to have my dad on my side. Yet, I don’t think I had ever felt hatred the way I did that summer.
I spent the majority of my time in my car, screaming at the top of my lungs, my fists slamming against my steering wheel, begging myself to crash it. To end it. I had become the problem, like always. I had become the one making a big deal out of nothing. I spent all of my sessions talking about my parent’s reactions. The punishments they were putting me through for trying to process. At some point, I had to question if I deserved it all.
I even questioned if my purpose was to die. If my purpose was to end it and be a change for those who refused to take fucking accountability. To let them know that their actions were what ended me. For them to live in their guilt and sorrow because they were the ones who made this life so not fucking worth living.
My mom and I argued every day. It always ended with her calling me a bitch and storming in the house. One time she asked me what she could have done. What she could have said when I told her that her son was molesting me, was harassing me. She insisted that sending him to therapy was the right answer. I told her that when a kid punches another kid, that you’re supposed to punish the one who was hit. She told me that she wished I was never born and went to go make dinner. I sat in my driveway for a while, before deciding that I was leaving. I had packed all I could and drove to my grandmother’s house, just to stay till the school year started.
I was there for two days before my dad showed up. I heard the yelling from my room. Him told my grandma that he would get the police involved. Get a restraining order against her. That I needed to come home. So, I went home.
Things were okay for about a week. My brother had realized that he wasn’t wanted there, so he stopped coming over. I went to my job and did my schoolwork. It was almost my birthday, and I was finally going to spend it without him there. I came home from work one day and my dad was waiting for me. He simply said I could either tell the truth or he’d knock my teeth out. So, I sat and waited for his question. All he asked for was all of my therapists’ information, saying that he did some digging and found out that my therapist had gotten in trouble multiple times for keeping her patients sick to make more money. That he was going to sue her.
Then he insisted I told him. I had to tell him why I didn’t want to see my brother. I told him I hadn’t even talked to my therapist about it. He used this as support that she was trying to keep me sick. So, I told him. About my nightmares of him fulfilling his weird fucking pee fetish. And my dad told me that happened. That my mom and dad knew because they did the laundry. And that he was doing it to my little brother too. That he was traumatized from watching porn too young. That his stupid fucking Psychology minor told him repression wasn’t real. That I needed to think about my older brothers’ feelings. That my birthday party was a great time to apologize to Domenic. Then I drank. God, I drank.
I spent the rest of the summer drunk. He kept coming over. I ghosted my therapist. Maybe for her protection from my parents, but also because I couldn’t talk about it anymore. I couldn’t stand another fight. I wouldn’t live through it.
Acceptance
The voices continued to boom through the house, making each room feel small. Doors didn’t seem to shut tight enough and locks didn’t seem to make a difference in the concept of staying hidden. The arguing didn’t stop for a long time. Several nights I’d spend on trial, sitting at the living room table with my parents sitting opposite to me. It made me feel radioactive. Dangerous. Eventually, I buckled.
So, a compromise came about. I had to apologize to everyone in my family individually for being dramatic and mean. I’m not sure whether this was to show that I was the main person at fault, or if it was a lousy excuse to attempt to show what good parents mine were. Either way, I gritted my teeth and apologized, my fingers crossed behind my back the whole time. Part of me thought this would pause the arguing enough to enjoy my birthday. Most of me believed that was too good to be true. The evening before, my father and I got in another fight, which resulted in him taking my phone and sending my older brother a text. Apparently, I had to apologize to him for my behavior.
Hey. Sorry to bother you. Can you come to mom and dads at 8 or 830 to talk tonight? If not, I know you had a long day at work and I understand. I just want to talk the two of us and put this behind us.
What I would’ve said is: Fuck you, but you win. I cannot afford to die on this hill. With fewer grammar errors, as well.
Of course, he couldn’t, meaning I’d have to have this wonderful, completely fair, and rational conversation the morning of my birthday. I didn’t sleep that night. I chose not to. At least I could have power over one thing in my life, a little sense of control. The last thing I expected in the morning was to get the suggestion from my father that morning to talk in the basement, to allow my parents to tidy the house before people came over, and then hear the door shut. And lock.
I guess that’s one way to get the outcome he wanted.
I couldn’t deny the anxiety in my chest. I was still scared of this man, who transferred to colleges three times before dropping out and couldn’t even comprehend how to make a quesadilla without a microwave. I needed to shut my emotions off. If no one was going to respect them, what’s the point of feeling them at all? So, I sat. And waited. People have always told me that they were scared of me. Perhaps it’s a talent of mine. To be able to ruin lives. I tried to switch to anger, to glare at him with as much hate as I could afford. Some may have assumed my face was red from embarrassment, not rage, but it kept me from finally getting the satisfaction to make it hurt. To ruin his life. I couldn’t keep feeling the hatred from my family.
He paced in front of me, classically wearing the ugliest shirt known to a man with a pair of sunglasses worn on his head backward. His bicep showed the custom family tattoo he got two years ago, each of us having a specific symbol. Apparently family is the most important thing to him. He’s always been a tattoo enthusiast, most of his body covered at this point. He even has a Tomorrowland tattoo, a music festival that he’s never attended. Making fun of him in my brain allows me to concentrate on keeping my breath stead. Maybe he was finally scared of me, knowing the steps I would take to stand my ground. Or maybe he’s just as stupid as he’s ever been. I wanted him to talk first. Silence is powerful. He didn’t stop pacing when he started.
“I don’t know what I ever did to you to make me hate you so much,” he said, not even glancing my way. “I had been a good brother to you my whole life and that last thing I fucking deserve is to be treated like shit.” I sighed and crossed my legs. His tantrum will have to end at some point. “You’re making me look like a fucking idiot by constantly posting Black Lives Matter all over your Instagram and donating to shit.” It took just about every ounce of my body not to start laughing. All I did was raise an eyebrow. “I would never judge your profession like that. What would you do if I said I didn’t believe in therapy?”
“You’re entitled to your own opinion,” I muttered. Frankly, I wouldn’t blame him for not believing in therapy. His time in it years ago obviously did not change his absolute predatory ways.
“Bullshit!” Still pacing, he glanced at me and said, “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
You never knew me at all. All you’ve ever seen me as was a fucking object. What kind of psychopath does shit to their sister? You’re literally adding to the narrative that cops are bullshit. So, congratulations. You’ve backed me into a corner, so I’ll go back to hating you in my brain. Happy?
I could never say it, so after a moment of silence, I said, “Okay.”
This conversation went on for an hour, him stomping around and claiming that I was at fault, that I made him mad because I posted shit on social media. It never circled around. His voice continued to rise, he got blotchy and pissed, and I waited till my father let us out to finally let myself cry. For myself. For the fact that this is the family, I’ve been dealt with. For the fact that I will, again and again, choose silence because I would rather make it out alive. For the fact that this will kill me if I go on. I’m done. And they all win. Again.
There’s a limit to everyone’s emotional capability. Most people don’t reach it for a long time, I’m assuming. Maybe right before a divorce or that period after death when days don’t make sense anymore. The body just flips the switch, all emotions turning off. I had realized the day I turned twenty that I had reached it too many times.
Numb
Time will always continue to move. Whether I want it to or not. I have found myself riding along, keeping my head down, trying the best I can given the circumstances. I have a role to play in my family. The mediator. I will one day take the power of being the matriarch, the piece my mother currently holds. I will be the puzzle that holds them together.
There is no option to cut certain people off in my family and keep others. It’s either all or nothing. Black or white. Love or war. If a person cuts someone off, we all have to either cut them off as well or cut the person who cut them off in the first place. It keeps us as a unit. As a typical big, Italian family. Meaning, I have to get my shit together in order to prepare for my role.
This trauma, one that has impacted every part of my life, must be pushed aside, for the betterment of my family. So, I chose to become a shell. It is the only way to continue on in my family. One of my biggest fears is dying alone. I’m sure it’s many people’s biggest fear. We, as humans, need interaction. So, I will choose to stay in a “tough love” family in order to get some kind of love. And I will one day be running the whole thing.
This isn’t an entirely new development for me. I knew when it happened that there was no way out of this without it getting messy. Without someone being banned and ending up alone. So, my parents went neutral. And it caused me to go neutral with the assaults afterward. Now I know that those other ones would’ve gotten damage, charges, and pain, but not my brother. But, at the time, I thought it was part of my purpose.
I’ve been raped twice by two men separately, one resulting in me having to get an abortion. I’ve been molested two other times, once with a group of boys. Four against one. It didn’t change me as a person as this did. Honestly, the timeline doesn’t matter. The only thing that really matters is I told my parents about my brother prior to the rest of these experiences. So I never told, I never went to the police. I never yelled or screamed or kicked. I simply lay there, going back into my head. Maybe I expected it at that point. Expected me to be used as an object.
There is no happy ending to this story. I don’t know if there will ever be. I’m not even sure I could hate my brother for what he did, I don’t think I’m capable, but my body certainly hates him. It’s hard to hate someone when everyone loves him.
Interview with the Author
1. What was your inspiration for this piece?
My inspiration to write this piece was both from my beloved nonfiction professor, TaraShea Nesbit, and my therapist, who both pushed me to go completely out of my comfort zone and write what scared me most.
2. What is your creative process? (How do you go about writing or creating?)
Honestly, my best way of describing anything close to a creative process is getting out of my room and holing up in a coffee shop. Getting out of a space I’m comfortable in really opens my mind to writing subjects I typically would not. It also just aids with feeling like a fly on the wall and having some great background noise, even to my music. I do also solely listen to old Taylor Swift when I’m writing. I have since I was in the fifth grade. So, creative process, get in the zone and just write. Editing can always take place later.