My Boyfriend tried to rape me once, I suspect. Thinking back, I can’t seem
to understand what took me so long to realize what he had almost done to me.

It was 2004 and sometime mid year between the months of April and July.
*Thomas was on the phone with me and I was in a state of hysteria. He was
threatening to break up with me again. This time, I was in a complete state of
shock. We had just spent the Easter break up in Brisbane with his family and
everything was going so well for us. I thought he loved me. The moment he flew
back to Singapore, everything went to hell again. He constantly abused me with
words, accusing me for cheating on him. None of it was true. I was in love with
him. I spent hours and hundreds of dollars calling him. Nothing I did was enough
to appease him it seemed. That night, I had made a slit in my wrist and had
taken a ridiculous amount of pain killers. I was over the phone crying. I was
begging him to love me, begging him to believe me, begging him to make
everything alright again. The abuse kept coming. I remember the words so
distinctly now. “Don’t you have a lot of guy friends? I’m sure you know a couple
of them willing to come over and give you a fuck over the web cam for me. If you
don’t I wont love you anymore.” “Why do you want me to do this?” I was
screaming. “Why don’t you love me?” his voice was cold when he answered with
“you’re about to die anyways. Does it matter?” At that point in the madness,
through desperate sobs, unable to reason with my situation, I asked him how it
should be done. I asked him how I should have the web cam set up so that he
won’t know that he was being watched. Thomas gave me the details. The next
problem was the fact that I did not know anyone. All my friends had vanished
from me over the months since Thomas’s insecurities and abuse took over. A name
popped into my head - *John. He was a boy I had spoken to a few times at
university and he had just given me his number out of familiarity. I called him
over my mobile and begged him to come over. I didn’t say what was wrong. I
didn’t tell him about Thomas’s plans. My head was swimming. I wasn’t thinking at
all. The cuts on my wrist had crusted over. All I felt as this strange bruising
and pain. My stomach felt empty and my soul hallow. I kept telling myself that
if I went through with this, Thomas would love me. It didn’t matter that I was
disrespecting myself. I just wanted to make him happy. I wanted him to love me.
I washed my face and I remember how the cold icy water stung the cuts on my
wrist.

The moment John walked through the door I burst into tears and
led him to the bedroom. Needless to say, he was in shock. He had no idea what
was going on. We sat down on the bed. And he asked me what was wrong. He tried
to calm me down and at that moment, I broke down. I confessed everything. He
looked at my hand to check with the cuts were fatal and suggested that I should
go to the hospital to check on my stomach. I was too weak to move. The
confession took everything out of me. I don’t remember when I stopped crying. He
didn’t contest me when I said I wanted to be left alone. I apologized for asking
him over and he waited till I was calm enough before leaving. The moment he
left, I called Thomas over the phone. He was not impressed. I swallowed more
pills; made a few more, deeper cuts, this time in both my wrists, told him I
loved him. I loved him so much and said goodnight. I hung up the phone. Sometime
later, I blacked out in bed. I was alone. I had dreams. I don’t remember them
now, but I was very alone. Sometime during my sleep, I remember wake up and
running to the bathroom. I remember vomiting up blood into the toilet. I
remember putting on a red jumper. It was close to 48 hours when I woke up again.
I had failed. I didn’t do enough to kill myself. That was all that I was
thinking about. I couldn’t eat but I managed some tasteless oatmeal. I took a
walk down my street. No one seemed to notice me. I thought I was dead. There
were a hundred miss calls on my phone, from Thomas and his parents in Brisbane.
I don’t remember hearing the phone ring. The phone rang again. It was Thomas and
he was relieved to know that I was still alive. He thought he had lost me.
Unwittingly, I threw myself at him, I loved him. I still loved him. I told him
that I was sorry for the way I behaved that made him react in such a way.

I’m shaking my head in disbelief as I recall all this. Thomas and I
broke up in July 2004. I had had enough of him. I decided that I wanted my life
back. After that suicide, I made several other attempts on my life, unable to
cope with Thomas’s abuse while we were still together and after we broke up, the
incapacity to live without him.

It’s been almost a year since I broke up
with Thomas. In some little way, I still wished that we were together and that
things were good between us. However, when I recall that night of madness and
those many long hard months of pleading with him, I know I’m better off now. I
still cry when I think about what he had almost made me do that night. Did he
force me? Would someone consider that rape? I think he did force me and in many
ways I do constitute that as an attempt at rape. Perhaps I’m being overly
dramatic, but the pain I felt and the scars I bear are all too real to me.

- Speedy Chic, 2004