Tully begins an affair with Chad Wiley

Tully’s affair with Chad Wiley turns a relationship that may have begun as a career move into an intimate bond that gives her a kind of contentment she has never known. As her professor and mentor, Chad offers both professional guidance and a counterexperience to the sexual violence that has shaped her understanding of intimacy: the past remains part of her, but gradually loses its immediate power.

From Fear to Intimacy

When Tully recounts an encounter with Chad to Kate, she admits that she was frightened at first. The fear brought back the night Pat raped her; she thought she might become sick or run away. Chad kissed her, however, and her apprehension gave way to a physical response she describes as melting. She says that he had taken off her clothes before she was fully paying attention. The account does not erase the earlier assault, but makes clear how strongly it initially shadows her experience of sex.

An Affair and a Mentorship

By the time Tully reflects on the relationship, sleeping with her professor has become a full-fledged affair. She is unsure how that change happened and no longer remembers whether, as Kate had suggested, it began as a career maneuver. What she knows is that she feels content in Chad’s arms, an unfamiliar emotion. Their relationship is not only sexual: he is her mentor, teaching her things she believes would otherwise have taken years to discover. Professional dependence and personal intimacy therefore develop together, complicating any simple division between ambition and affection.

Reworking the Past

Tully describes Chad’s bed as a port and his arms as a life ring. In their closeness, she can forget that she does not believe in love; the metaphor presents intimacy as refuge, while also suggesting how much security she is seeking. She credits the relationship with changing the way the memory of her first sexual experience occupies her. The rape in the woods near Snohomish does not vanish or cease to matter: Tully understands it as a scar on her soul. Yet, over time, the scar changes in her perception from something bright and burning to a thin silver line that is only sometimes visible. The affair thus marks not a simple cure, but a gradual easing of trauma’s daily force.