Before coming to college, I had never so much as tasted alcohol. I had never let any boy go farther with me than making out. I believed that my body was special, something I wanted to share only with someone who I trusted.
I was a first-semester freshman. You were a senior. We were at a party. I was sitting alone off to the side of the venue and I was nervous. I had never been to a party as large and grandiose as the one we were at. You came up to me and asked if you could get me a drink. Thinking nothing of it, I accepted your kind gesture. How nice, to have someone to sit with in an area where I felt so out of place.
The drinks you kept handing me tasted of plain red bull or cranberry juice. There couldnât have been a lot of vodka in a drink that tasted so good., right? Wrong of course. Two drinks in, I was feeling tipsy. You politely grabbed me three more drinks, putting one after the other in my hand.
This is where youâll begin to think âstupid girl. I was only getting you drinks. You seemed to like them. What happened next wasnât my fault, you should have minded your liquor.â But I was alone. I was scared. I was extremely intoxicated at this point. My world started tumbling and my memory was fuzzy. You offered to take a walk with me to make me feel better, which I said yes to. Dumb dumb dumb. I should have stayed right where we were, in a heavily populated area where your disgusting hands couldnât have touched me without wandering eyes.
The next thing I could remember after we went for a âwalkâ was your hands and mouth all over me. Touching and kissing (if you can even call your foul mouth slobbering all over me kissing) every piece of my body I had kept hidden until now. Yet there you were, poking and prodding every inch of my once precious body.
I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. I told you âI need to goâ âwe shouldnât be doing this.â Your compassionate response? âLet me put it in>â
âLetâs go behind that shed and let me put it in.â My world turned red. You had already taken away so much from me, yet you wanted more? I quickly said âno,â frightened out of my mind, thinking you were going to take the last bit of dignity I had left.
You said âyesâ âeverything is fine, itâs no big deal.â But it was. It was a huge deal. And nothing was fine. Nothing would be fine for a very long time.
Thatâs when I said âNoâ louder. I said it a few times in a row to be exact. I told you I needed to go find my friend as I extracted myself away from your disgusting body. And you pushed me off, realizing what the situation we were in looked like.
I ran as far away from you as I could, trying to hide my shame. I felt dirty. I didnât know who I was anymore. I wanted to run all the way home to my childhood room. I wanted to shower, scrub off any piece of my skin that you touched. I wanted to put on pajamas that covered every inch of my body and then build a wall of blankets around myself so no one could break in. I wanted to watch Disney movies and pretend I wasnât just violated in almost every way a woman could be.
My innocence was gone, taken by you, a boy who didnât deserve it. I would never get that moment back. I was supposed to share myself with someone I loved, someone who I trusted and made me feel happy. Not you. Not someone I knew for 10 minutes. Not someone who probably doesnât even remember my name.
And thatâs the worst part. I see you around campus every now and then. Sometimes I run into you at parties and beg my friends to leave. And they remind me âhe probably doesnât even remember it happening. Youâre freaking out over nothing.â But I remember everything. It wasnât nothing.
My mind canât comprehend it. I told a few people what happened after, and they always told me âthatâs just how he isâ âheâs creepy like that.â Youâre like that? And people just accept you for it? Youâre greedy and make girls feel uncomfortable to even be in the same room as you, but itâs okay because youâre just âlike that?â
My biggest regret is not telling someone. Maybe I could have prevented it happening to other girls. Instead, I wallowed in silence and self-pity. Did you know how much you could have scared me when you did what you did? Me, a girl who shares everything with everyone. Shamed into silence by you.
I still shake as I write these words. Reliving the fuzzy, barley-there memories of that night is haunting. It has taken me over three years to be able to sit down and put my feelings of that night into words. And you might not even remember, but I do, and I will remember for the rest of my life.