when I got home

I flew home late evening and arrived to find a lot of people in the house drinking, music playing . Walls are still unpainted their bare plaster still drying or dusty. A friend, Jan, links arms with me and walks upstairs to a dimly lit, furniture-less room with few people in it. I haven't seen or spoken to her in a few years. She was my first girlfriend. She was upset and asked me why I'd done/said certain things. I was aware of a group of 3 or 4 men standing several feet away as she held my arms leaning back against one of the dusty walls her eyes looking directly into my soul. As I struggled to reply my girlfriend/partner, Ana, walked up the hallway into the room, pulling me away. She wasn't happy to see me perhaps because I hadn't even said hello when I came in, or so I thought. Ana, walked me over to the opposite wall, her petite east asian frame seeming smaller in the emptiness of the room. Holding me just as Jan had and piercing me with eyes welling up she asks me why I've been so cold with her, especially so soon after her assault, some lads/men had hit her a few times when she had been making her way home after a night out six weeks ago. I felt the pain of Ana's grip on my forearms as she became angrier, speaking with a trembling chin, louder and louder until she let go, pushing me away.
"I was fucking raped that night, haven't you worked that out!"
I stood in shock, contrasting emotions cascading over each other in a second. Anger/hate at them, guilt, love.
She stormed out, the room open mouthed, back down the hallway leaving me feeling emptier than I'd ever felt, me still speechless desperately trying to swallow the lump in my throat that felt like it was choking me.


I woke up this morning trying to comprehend what had/was happening. There is no Ana, it wasn't my house. Why had I dreamt this? Relieved. Confused.