August 30th, 2017
Instructions:
Select the best words to fill in the blanks after reading the passages below.
1. This word is a place people go. They get this when they need help with things that are wrong with their brains or hearts. Last year, when I told my clinician how stuck I felt, she said, gravely, Daniel, he’s gone. Behind her, a pair of trees swayed in the window. One canopy, shrunken with autumn, seemed to be fighting to keep from falling over. Perhaps it was reaching for the other canopy. I clamped my lips together to stem the sob budding in me; a small agony emerged: Shut up.
2. This word is a noun and verb. Though its implications vary upon context, this word is undoubtedly an act of human intimacy—often, it’s a gesture of affection between family, friends, loved ones. Against another pair of lips, though, this word becomes a facsimile of palms, a site of devotion. The closest I can come to an explication of that site is: right here, between us, is how you have me. I’m not going anywhere.
3. This word is a forced kind of touch, an act some argue is the most horrific violence that can visit a person. It doesn’t matter: if it isn’t what that person wants, if that person only wants a shower—anyone who experiences this should report immediately.
4. This word is a noun and verb too. Here it is in past tense and ends in -ed. A pair of objects often associated together: a needle and ________. This word often refers to binding or braiding, usually to mend a hole. Sometimes the hole is fabric. Sometimes it’s bleeding.
5. This word is a point of inquiry, used to compile information. Useful in building opinions or proving facts, there are six basic, essential question types: who, what, where, when, ________, and how. It’s worth noting that a report or investigation is considered incomplete if these questions remain unanswered; that, unlike the others, this question refers to motive, for a reason behind something that’s happened. Often, though, it’s best not to ask—people sometimes do bad things when they’ve had too much to drink.
6. This word is a kind of picture. Its purpose is to denote whether a person has been taken into police custody for committing a crime. These are stored in online databases that tend to be available to the public, though it may take time to locate them.
7. This word is a plural noun; the smallest accessible areas compiled within an electronically displayed artifact. When clustered, these tiny colorful squares create, capture, and hold an image together.
8. At its heart, this word is a thing’s primary identifier, conveying imbued meaning, emotion. Where syntactical detail of something would be cumbersome, this word cuts through explication, arriving at meaning while retaining context. In other words, a wound is a wound because wound is its ________ and encompasses its essential fact: it hurts.
*
By the time I’d stumbled into the green lounge chair outside the Dean of Students office, I’d made up my mind: I wouldn’t crumple. If I wanted, the survivor advocate said, I could pursue an investigation. She was clear, though: I didn’t have to respond to anything from the Dean of Students or provide any information. It was my choice. She also recommended ____1____. But I didn’t care about the assaults; I’d left him two years earlier, and I already had a counselor.
I wanted Cariño’s lopsided smile, his lean, steady arms whenever we’d ____2____. I wanted back the night of the ____3____, how I pressed to his side in bed after and ____4____ our legs together like flower stems. Had anyone asked ____5____ I stayed, or a reason for even reporting after so long, I would’ve said: I did it for me. Because I’d only wanted to tell someone; I was ready to. I thought it might feel like a victory, but I didn’t want any questions. I put my face in my hands.
A few hours later, my phone buzzed. An email from the Associate Senior Dean, a message at the end: if you fail to open, read, and respond to this notice in a timely fashion it may impair your ability to persist as a [university redacted] student.
I laughed.
*
Sitting in the study café on campus the following spring, I stumbled across the site with the old ____6____: two counts public intoxication, $500 bond, then his personal details. I thought of the email from the Associate Senior Dean some days after our meeting, the one that said my report would be closed without further investigation because at this time I do not have a sufficient amount of information to conduct an investigation, specifically, no respondent has been identified, how I’d crawled into bed while the covers swallowed me.
Seeing the facsimile of him invented and captured across my eyes, my fingers sprouted towards my lips, then his. What would an investigation yield that sifting through the collage of ____7____ to reach for something to plant inside the yawning hole in my heart hadn’t? Had anyone asked the reason for withholding his ____8____, my answer would stay the same: I did it for me. Because how could I give up the last thing I had left of him? How would I not be a traitor by the end of it? I thought I was done with him, and given the chance, I’m sure the wound would beg: how are you so far from me; how can you be with me and not, at once? Its essential fact, proven by what nourishes its ache: I love him still.
But my fingers held nothing, and I couldn’t stem the blossom this time. My lips unclamped. How did I not know? The day I reported: it was his birthday.
I crumpled.
