Thirty Happens by Elizabeth Butts Page B

printed in the mother lovin’ Beacon?”
    Did I mention that Lynnie was trying to clean up her language to prepare her for the world outside of college? Some of the combinations she was coming up with were hysterical. One day when we almost got plowed down crossing the street, she raised her fist at the driver and called him a rooster sucker. I’m not even kind of kidding.
    “Yup.”
    “So why aren’t you freaking the heck out?”
    “Oh, don’t worry. I totally am freaking out. On the inside. So much that I’m worried that I’m going to throw up.”
    We were chilling in my dorm room, sharing some college pizza. If I kept eating this takeout food every night to avoid going to the cafeteria, I was going to be waddling up to get my diploma.
    Mental note, go for a run tomorrow. I hated running. I didn’t really trust people who claimed to love it. They were either liars or not quite right in the head. Either way, not to be trusted. Or, if not go for a run, maybe return to the world of the living and suffer my way through the looks, pointing and hushed talk so that I could hit the salad bar.
    Maybe.
    I decided to push that decision till tomorrow. I just wasn’t ready to add that in on the pity party that was starting to crowd out my brain.
    “Since when do you let a little bit of work scare you?”
    What?
    “A little bit of work? Don’t make me beat you.”
    She giggled, a string of cheese hanging out of her mouth and spreading sauce on her chin.
    “Nice look. Seriously, it works for you. Lyn, I don’t even have any idea of what my article is going to be about!”
    She gave me the most incredulous ‘what, are you stupid?’ look.
    “Seriously, you have no idea what you could possibly write about?”
    She pointed a finger at me and sort of made a circular motion indicating my face, head, etc.
    Oh.
    That.
    No word of a lie, I felt like a total idiot at that moment. Report on the news, don’t become the news. But what if I could report on a problem or situation that I had been an unwilling participant? Would that work?
    “If I do this, I won’t be able to be a part of the story, and I’d have to find some way to avoid putting a bias spin on it.”
    I started gnawing at my lower lip as I mentally sorted out how to report on this without it being about me. I mean, there was no way it wasn’t going to be a little about me, in general. But I would have to take myself out of the story.
    “Okay, that makes sense. Obviously, you’re not the first person to be attacked on a college campus. So the obvious route is statistics. Then go into highlighting stories. See if you can get some victims to come forward and tell their story. Find out what percent of these attacks are between strangers. How many are like you, where you actually knew the guy, and he had some sick twisted obsession with you.”
    I nodded as she was speaking. She was absolutely correct. My personal experience might be the catalyst for the story, but this way it had absolutely nothing to do with what happened to me.
    “Maybe I could see if there are any guys who have been attacked, as well. I mean, people consider... um.. r- rape to be only against women.”
    I swallowed hard against the bile that rose in my throat at that word. The first time I’d been able to say it out loud, despite the fact that it had been blazing in my mind like a flashing neon sign since I woke up in the hospital yesterday morning.
    Lynnie was grinning ear to ear.
    “Exactly. Now, we just have to figure it all out. Like, how do I get people to share their story with me, without knowing me?”
    We sat huddled together at my computer, trying to search out statistics and resources for information on college age rape. A lot of colleges had their own online bulletin boards, so we were going to post up messages there, giving them the opportunity to reach out to me directly. I explained that I had also been a victim and that I was trying to shed light on this problem. I also wanted