By an Anonymous Contributor
Ten months ago I met you. My friends had taken me to go smoke with them in the parking lot of your apartments. Everyone greeted you and then you pulled a pipe out of your pocket. I remember I was the first one to take a hit and you lit it for me since I was still a beginner. Moments later I was sitting down on the sidewalk of the parking lot because I could not keep my balance. You kept staring at me with a grin. You walked up to me as me and my friends were about to leave and told me you were a “plug” and I added you on snapchat. Five months passed and the only relationship we had was that I was a frequent customer.
On July first I got a message from you. I thought this was odd because we never talked unless I was going to buy from you.
You told me “ Aye so I know we don’t know each other that well but you’ve been looking really pretty and I was wondering if I could take you out sometime?”
I replied with “Thank you. If I do agree to hang out with you can I bring some friends along?”
You said “ I was really hoping it could just be me and you. Ever since I met you there’s just something special about you.
Looking back on that day I got that message I wish I would’ve just blocked him then and there. I told my friend about it and she agreed that it was weird since he was in high school and I was in middle school. A part of me was flattered that this older guy was giving me attention. Boys my age would give me attention but would compliment me on things like my butt and made me feel like an object.
You called me beautiful and acknowledged my personality… or so I thought you did. The next day I lied to my mother that I was going to my friend’s house and you picked me up at the corner store near my apartments. When you pulled up to the store you got out of the car and opened the door for me like the nice guy I thought you were. You told me I looked “stunning” and then we began to talk about random things. I learned that you were already out of high school. I knew it was wrong for me to be riding in your car at that moment.
I thought to myself “maybe if I indicate to him that I am still in middle school he will rethink this whole “date”. I told him how I got suspended from my middle school because I got caught with weed . He simply laughed and said “I remember I used to get in lots of trouble at that school too”. He didn’t care that I was in 8th grade. We went to a parking lot and smoked a blunt. He began to try to kiss me and touch me in inappropriate places. I told him to stop because I felt weird that he was 19. He stopped and told me there was “no pressure” and took me out to eat. When we would stop at red lights he would look over and admire me, I guess. He drove me to my favorite fast food place and bought me everything I wanted. Then he drove me around while I drank my shake. In all honesty it made me feel special.
He asked me “why won’t you let me get close to you?” I told him “you just want to use me like everyone else, I know how boys think”. He replied with “You only feel that way because you mess around with the wrong type of boys. It’s because you’ve been messing with little boys and not “a man”. He told me that he had already played those games back in the day and he was over playing games. In a weird way it made sense to me at the time. I believe maybe I had been “played” so many times because I needed someone older and more mature. I let him hold my hand as we cruised around. He played music and dedicated songs to me.
For once I felt secure and loved by a man. Then we went back to the same parking lot and smoked another blunt. Next thing I know I was in the backseat making out with this man because I thought he liked me. Then he wanted me to give him oral and I kept saying no but he kept tugging at my arm making me touch his penis. I finally said “stop forcing me” and he got very bothered that I said that. He put his penis back in his pants and it was silent for a while. I asked “are you mad at me?”.
He looked at me calmly and said “ of course not baby” and proceeded to kiss me. He took me home and I was so happy that I spent the day with him and he asked me to be his girlfriend. I wish I saw the signs and how wrong the whole situation was that day, but I was blind to what I had gotten myself into. The next day he picked me up for another “date”. I thought we were going to go smoke, eat, cruise, and makeout like the day before. Instead we ended up at his house. Him and three men began measuring pounds of marijuana in the living room. I felt awkward and invited my friend over.
She pulled me aside and said that she felt a weird vibe but I was just in a haze that I ignored her. He took us upstairs and put on a movie. He told me to lay on the bed while my friend sat in a lounge chair. He laid next to me and began to touch me. He told me it would be better if my friend left so we could make out. I noticed she was uncomfortable so I told her she could leave. She told me to be careful and to call her if anything. I assured her that I had my phone charged and nothing bad was going to happen. Once she left we began making out and touching. Then he began to try to pull down my pants. I told him I did not want to have sex. I struggled as he pulled my pants down and I tried to pull them up.
He managed to pull them off and throw them across the room. He grabbed my phone and put it in a drawer away from my reach. I was scared. He told me to relax and began to give me oral. I tried to calm myself and thought “maybe this is all he wanted to do, just stay still”. He took off his pants quickly and pulled my thighs towards him. I scotted back, I tried to put my legs in between us, I told him “no!”, I told him “I’m not ready”, “stop!”. He just smiled with that same grin from the night I first met him. He pinned my hands to the bed and proceeded to rape me. My whole body shut down, I stopped fighting and closed my eyes. I screamed in pain. I suppose he noticed I was not enjoying it and said “i’ll stop if you want me too”. I couldn’t talk, I just nodded.
I grabbed my phone and put on my pants and ran to his bathroom. I could hear laughing from the other room. I sat on the toilet while the blood coming out of me dripped into the toilet bowl. I finally came out and he told me “don’t worry I’ll take you to CVS and buy a plan B” with a smile. I called my friend while he went inside to get the pill. With tears in my eyes I told her what happened and hung up shortly after because he was coming back. He dropped me off and gave me a kiss as I got out of the car. I took the pill and walked to my apartment. I went to my bathroom and cried as I peed. Then my sister banged on the door and demanded to know where I had been. My cousin had seen me get out of this man’s car and told my sister. I lied that it was my friend’s cousin that gave me a ride home. I got in trouble and was not let out the whole summer. I wanted to tell my family but I would have to admit that I smoke weed, and I feel like they would have blamed me because “something bad is bound to happen to bad kids”.
Although there were many other factors as to why I didn’t/haven’t told my family the main reason is because a part of me still doesn’t feel like my “story” is valid. My mother was assaulted when she was young but that was because she couldn’t defend herself. I felt like at 13 I was physically strong enough to defend myself. I wasn’t a 6 year old, I didn’t have a gun to my head, I was aware, and I was sober enough to fight back… yet it still happened. I thought “how dare you compare your story to others. You let the man touch you and kiss you, that means sex is in the deal if you let him do that”. Nineteen days after that happened I turned 14. I started cutting myself, taking hot showers, and stress eating. When I was finally let, out some boys in the neighborhood started telling me that everyone knows that me and this man had sex. Looking back on it the sad part is that I was shamed, not the 19 year old man. I texted him about it in anger and he ignored me. I became suicidal. I opened up to my friends about it and most were very supportive. Although I did have one “friend” that told me “someone can’t take your virginity without you letting them so you let them, we all make mistakes, well you were doing bad things so maybe it was your karma, you were starting to smoke weed and do bad things what did you expect was gonna happen to you, you put yourself in that situation,
I know how you are you probably had sex with him and then people started finding out and you made up this story, own up to your mistakes”. I believed them. The beginning of freshman year he texted me that we should hang out and he picked me up at my apartment again and took me to the same indoor parking lot and we smoked. We had sex in the back seat multiple times then he would drive me to school. I felt dumb, disgusting, and confused as to why I was going back and now “consensually” having sex with this man. I found an article written by a strong survivor and it said “We’re taught that rapists are monsters. Maybe this is why I didn’t expect to feel human feelings for my rapist. In some ways, those feelings were a form of denial. When I scrubbed away my memories of the assault, what remained was the attraction I’d felt toward him before.I constantly thought to myself: What if I could relive the first night? If I went back in time and consented, it would have been a great story instead of a tragedy. Every time I said yes, I was trying to consent retroactively. For me, sleeping with him was the ultimate denial that he ever raped me.Every single person experiences rape differently. Some of us hate our rapists, and some of us can’t. Sometimes people sleep with their rapists. Sometimes we date them. Sometimes we even marry them.We seek healing in myriad ways. We don’t always find it, but we always, always deserve it. We deserve it even when we try to heal by hurting ourselves, no matter what kind of hurt it is. Self-harm can be in the form of cuts on your thighs or orgasms on your rapist’s futon.Y ou could carve the letters Y-E-S into their back a billion times, but it won’t make you forget that you once didn’t get a chance to say yes. Apologize to your body. Maybe that’s where healing begins.”
I try to apologize to myself for willingly entering such a confusing and harmful situation. Maybe one day I’ll stop apologizing and begin healing again”. I felt that. By having sex with him I tried to pretend that the first time never happened, but it did. It’s been about 10 months since it happened and I am turning 15 this year. I am still working on not blaming myself, on forgiving and loving my body, on trying to figure out who I am but it’s a hard journey. My innocence was robbed by a man 6 years older than me. I felt anger and disgust towards myself. I cut my wrist and thighs praying that the pain would stop. I wanted to die. I became promiscuous and did sexual acts for every guy I liked because I thought that was all I was good for. I hated myself. I now realize it was not a 13 year olds duty to be fighting off a grown man’s hands off her body. It was not that 13 year old girl’s fault. I accept my flaws and all and I’m working on loving myself again. Thank you to whoever read this whole thing you have no idea how much it means to me. And to the now 20 year old man that raped me, I hope karma gets you good for what you did to me ten months ago.