My first crush wore cotton T-shirts, soft and warm, like a woman. I accidentally bumped into her one day while filing into Algebra class. My arm rubbed against her back, feeling her bra clasp through the thin, white fabric. My entire body involuntarily froze for several seconds. I remember feeling as though I had just touched something sacred, maybe defiled it, like Moses at the burning bush or Isaiah in the temple.

I had been familiar with cases of violent rape. Hell, they were why I volunteered as a victim’s advocate, because I needed to feel I was doing something to help. I saw women come into the hospital with bloody mouths, black eyes, missing teeth, fist-sized bruises, concussions, broken bones… I’d seen it all, or at least I thought I had. The worst case I had ever seen was a girl of 14 they had carried in on a stretcher. A clump of her hair had been torn out; two of her fingers had been broken; and her right hip had been forcibly dislocated. And I won’t even try to describe the sexual violence she had suffered, or the injury to her psyche. I had nightmares for a week. But somehow I got through it, stronger for the experience. After that, I thought I could handle anything. So when they asked me to talk to a Clydene Jackson, after her condition had stabilized, I had not sufficiently prepared myself for the shock.