It started with a need for a place to sleep.
The Saturday after Halloween, I returned to Bloomington from attending my grandpa’s funeral in Cleveland. There was a going-away party that night for a few friends, and I felt like taking a break from the stress of the previous week.
Two or three beers, that’s all I drank. A little after midnight, I went home. Two episodes of “Family Guy” later, the time had changed due to Daylight Savings and I turned off my lights.
Around 3 a.m., I awoke to a phone call from a friend; he and another friend needed a place to sleep and they knew my house had plenty of room. My roommates were gone for the weekend, but their boyfriends slept in their beds. I tiptoed downstairs — careful not to wake them — to let in the others.
I can’t remember why, but the two guys followed me back upstairs. Only one bed was open, and the guy who called made a beeline for it, leaving the other in the hallway with me.
“Let me sleep in your bed,” the guy said. “I can’t sleep on anymore couches, and it’s huge.”
My queen-sized bed looked welcoming from my room, and at 3 a.m. I was in no mood to argue. With a bed so big, we wouldn’t touch all night.
It started with a need for a place to sleep, and it quickly led to snuggling, to catching each other up on our lives. It led to kissing. It led to the words, “No, I like someone else.”
“Yeah, but we’re friends,” he said. “You don’t do this with your friends?”
I turned away, inching as close to the edge of the bed as possible. I had made out with the guy before — a drunken mistake from the summer that I regretted since. I am not a heavy drinker, I do not have random hook-ups and I was ashamed of that previous action.
He moved closer. He held down my arm. His other hand moved along my body, despite repeatedly telling him to stop.
“You should take it as a compliment that I ignored you,” he said when it was over.
He did not rape me that night, but it was close.
It was innocent in its start, and it ended in sexual assault.
***
I puked before going to work at Jimmy John’s the next morning. At the restaurant, I holed up in the bathroom for 20 minutes, expecting to puke again. I told my co-workers I probably drank too much, since I hadn’t in a while.
My body shook the entire shift. I felt lightheaded, nauseous, dirty.
I knew what had happened, but I didn’t accept it. I had made another mistake. I had messed up again.
It wasn’t till a week later that I told someone what happened.
I had been seeing a guy since September, but we were not officially dating. A week later, we were studying in a classroom in the School of Journalism. He sat at the professor’s desk, and I sat on the floor.
“Hey, can I tell you something?” I said, my eyes to the carpet. “Something happened last weekend.”
I did not tell him the details; I only told him the gist of the situation. He sat there, unmoving, unable to say anything. And I left.
I told a few of my other friends, girls who I trusted and knew I could count on for advice. Again, they were mute.
Telling them this painful story and facing their silence gave me a feeling of complete aloneness that I had never felt before. I could not make people feel my vulnerability; I could not make them understand the complete loss of control.
Most of them had never known anyone who had been assaulted before; they didn’t know what to say or how to act.
And when I had no one else to turn to, I couldn’t bring myself out of the depression I quickly spiraled into.
The Tuesday before Thanksgiving break, I had a lot of work to do. I was in charge of a big project and had to put all of the information I had researched into the computers.
I told myself I needed the alone time in the journalism school, that if I could make it till the drive home, I would be fine.
On the way to the journalism building, I stopped to get a Polar Pop. My phone rang in my jeans pocket, and I fumbled to answer it.
“Have you seen your car?” my roommate asked.
“No, is something wrong?” I said, pausing in the middle of the sidewalk.
“The window’s shattered.”
A storm had ripped through Bloomington the night before, but it would not have caused the perfect breaking of the glass that left my entire driver’s side window in pieces. I couldn’t make it.
The next day, when I was supposed to drive home, I lay in bed, unable to convince myself to take a shower or move at all. I had told my mom the day before about the break-in, and someone was coming to fix the window. But that couldn’t convince me going home was the best idea. Instead, I planned on sleeping through Thanksgiving break and refusing to talk to anyone.
Up until that point, I had not told my mom anything about what happened. She knew I was depressed, but she didn’t know why. She drove up to get me, and on the way home, I broke down and told her.
It was the first time that someone asked my why I didn’t do something.
I know what I should have done. There were three other guys in the house; they would have come running if I screamed. There were two couches downstairs; I could have just gone to sleep on one. I could have stood up and told him to leave. I could have done anything.
But the truth is, I was scared. I was horrified that telling him no wasn’t making him stop. How could he not listen? Didn’t they teach us that “no” was enough?
I went into shock, and I let it happen.
***
After Christmas break, I began seeing a sexual assault counselor. Talking about what happened helped, but it mostly made me realize that it wasn’t my fault and that I needed to find my own ways to calm myself down and take control of my life.
I have always had issues with control — I’ve gotten upset if plans fall through and never liked to do things spur of the moment. But after the assault, those issues escalated, and any time I felt a lack of control, whether it was losing my credit card or having too much on my plate, I couldn’t function. I knew there were simply answers — cancel my credit card, do my homework instead of covering a show. But I couldn’t see past the loss of control that I felt.
And control wasn’t the only thing I lost. I lost my security, the trust I had in my friends. I lost my respect, my outgoingness to meet new people. I lost my dignity. I lost my ability to see the good in unpredictable situations.
I lost myself.
So, I got rid of the excess stress in my life. I moved into a single apartment, stopped hanging out with the friends who were bad influences, only drank once every couple weeks and took on less work.
I’m not going to say that made me instantly better, but it did give me room to think and deal with what had become a downward spiral.
By March, I was feeling better about myself. I had a routine; I was taking care of my body and handling my workload.
I was ready to confront my friend.
The Thursday before spring break, I emailed him asking to talk. And the next day, he said he would call. That night I was eating dinner with my best friend from home when my phone vibrated on the table. I knew it was him, and I stepped outside.
The conversation wasn’t one I wanted to have on the sidewalk in front of a pizza place, but I stood with my back against the brick wall and told him what I had been thinking about for the last four months.
“I’m not mad, anymore,” I said. “I just wanted you to know how I feel.”
He told me he was sorry, that he remembered me saying no, but was too drunk to think I meant it. He said he hoped we could still be friends someday, that he regretted ever hurting me.
And I know he meant it.
Hearing the apology doesn’t mean that he’ll ever understand what I went through, but I had faced my final fear. I stood up to him.
There is so much more that I could say, so many people I’ve yet to tell. But even though it happened in my not-so-distant past, it’s a chapter I’m ready to forget and move on from. I’m more than a victim. It’s not pity that I want — it’s a chapter I’m ready to forget and move on from. I’m more than a victim. It’s not pity that I want — it’s happiness.