I can’t remember the name of the guy who raped me.

I think I know it. I think.

But I’m not positive.

And I don’t have anyone else with whom to fact-check other than myself.

This might not seem like a particularly concerning feat, for me to forget the name of a person who caused me a significant amount of trauma and harm. But I remember everything.

Everything.

I remember details of meals. Lyrics of songs. Lyrics to hundreds and hundreds of songs.

I remember movie quotes. Smells. Names. Faces. Things people wore to school or B Mitzvahs or summer camp in 1995. I remember every single detail of the night in tenth grade when I accidentally threw an epic party on Halloween, left while people were still at my house, went pumpkin smashing (picture a bunch of asshole teenagers driving around the north suburbs of Chicago stopping at people’s porches and taking their pumpkins and smashing them into the sidewalk-less streets), and going home to watch SNL until I heard a swarm of juniors outside rustling in the bushes and trees toilet-papering my house (they were getting me back on behalf of their friend, who some friends and I had toilet-papered earlier that fall to protect our friend).

I recently told someone: I am a detail slut.

To recall. To remember. All too often to share. Also, very much so, to receive.

I want details. Every detail. Dripping from your pores. I want to taste what you see.

But I cannot for the life of me trust that what I think is his name is in fact his name.

Which is, ironically, all too often about how I’ve often felt about the rape.

The memory of the rape itself.

I realize this—that I can’t remember his name—while waiting in line to pee at Chicago Midway International Airport. I am mindlessly swiping my thumb over various apps in my iPhone when I notice that a friend has reposted something on LinkedIn by a person with the same first name as my first perpetrator. The guy who sexually abused me in high school for a year and a half.

I know his name.

I know his name like the back of my hand.

I cannot escape his name.

Not because I cannot escape him.

No, I have long learned how and come to escape him.

But this name is everywhere. It is literally biblical. It is almost as old as written historical time.

I know so many people with this name. So. Many. Friends.

I do not always encounter this name and immediately think of him, let alone the assaults.

But once in a while, once in a little statistical while, I see this name and I do. Think. Of him.

And this time in the bathroom at Midway International Airport on the other side of security (because at some point, we might end up on the other side of security), I know that it I am encountering this name on LinkedIn and thinking of him very specifically because I am very actively dating of late and sometimes when I’m out there very actively dating of late, I wonder what would happen if The Universe (with a capital T and a capital U) put someone with that name—his name—in my path. Like once, a really long time ago, a friend wanted to set me up with someone who had this—his name—name and I had to sit with it for a bit; I ultimately said okay, but I can’t remember exactly what happened, but ultimately nothing came of it; I felt relief.

Sometimes I wonder: what if the person I’m meant to spend my life with does have this name?

Now the truth is, I don’t think The Universe (TU) would do that to me or maybe even then in the end of the day, would I even do that to myself? Or maybe, who knows, but maybe, maybe I would be totally fine. Who’s to say what my body can and cannot ultimately remember or hold?

Either way, as I saw this name pop up in line for the bathroom at Midway International Airport, I thought to myself—just as it was about to become my turn to head into an empty, open stall—well, if I’m trying to potentially avoid dating or marrying someone with the first name [blank], what about the guy who raped me? And then I realized, as I turned the corner with my backpack and purse resting lightly on my right shoulder, that I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure because:

I couldn’t remember his name.

Like I said. I think I know. I think I might have it on lock.

But I can’t be sure. I really can’t.

I used to—years ago—mix it up with the name of the first guy I had sex with a few months after the rape. Vowels. They both started with vowels. I think. I think that’s why I would mix them up.

Or maybe the proximity. Time. Remembering a whole ass era, instead of two singular nights.

I keep extensive archives. Debilitatingly extensive archives. Of all of my writing. Of all of my work. Published. Unpublished. Thousands and thousands and thousands of searchable drafts.

But I wouldn’t even know where to start. Where to begin.

Like literally put into my Mac Book Pro finder app “What is the name of the dude who raped me?” ASKING FOR MYSELF. LOL. No. That’s literally going to do absolutely nothing.

Which is, maybe, what I need to allow myself to do.

Absolutely nothing.

Maybe revel in the fact that I can’t remember for certain or sure.

Maybe marvel in my memory inherently fallible self.

Maybe thinking my memory infallible is too much for a body remembering as much as its brain.

I think it’s interesting, the part where I keep questioning myself. The part where I go: I think.

Perhaps that is one of rape’s greatest legacies: the fracturing of the body and the brain.

The fracturing of time and space.

The fracturing of choice and force.

The fracturing of knowing and questioning.

The liminal space that becomes of a body and brain, grasping to remember as one.

Or maybe—just maybe—22 years after that singular night, my body is so good at remembering, my brain is so good at thinking and remembering too, that together they’ve co-conspired that his name is not worth any of the brain power. That knowing my power is to think of something new.