***TRIGGER WARNING***

Freshman year. First semester. Single, 18, first time on my own. My parents had always told me I was naïve because I grew up in a small northwestern Connecticut town but that was something we had in common. The University paid you to be someone I could trust, someone I could confide in and you ruined that trust — but not before I fell for you. I have had trust issues for as long as I could remember but you so quickly tore down those walls and ‘protected me’ from anything bad that could have happened to me, or so I thought. Spending nights together, some intimate and some not, just nights of comfort; a feeling I hadn’t felt in quite some time. However, we hit that point where you completely betrayed my trust.

After a night of you having 6 beers and me taking whiskey shots and playing beer pong we met up. I had an emotional night dealing with my ex and went to you for comfort and peace of mind that I was better than being upset over some dumb guy. You and I were not dating but you were still my lover and friend. I went to you for guidance, you being a senior and me being a freshman with not that many relationships on hand. When I got to your door you held me and I crawled into your bed and said I didn’t want to kiss, I just needed to be held. You held me until you started kissing me, and yes, I did kiss you back — but then you decided you wanted more. You kissed my neck and my back, me asking you to stop and you saying ‘only a few more’, ‘please? It’ll only be quick’. You rolled me over onto my stomach and tried to force your way in but alas, I was on my period and there was a wad of cotton in the way — but that didn’t stop you. You continued to press until you gave up and decided my mouth was the next option. You flipped me over again and forced your way in: once until I pushed you off and the second time, after your knees were on my shoulders, you saw the tears and fear in my eyes and you stopped and began to cry. You picked me up and held me and said “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry” because you finally heard the whimpers I had been crying out saying ‘please stop, please stop’. You laid me down and I went numb — I couldn’t process what had just happened so I shut down.

No tears, no crying, just silence.

Silence until you kissed my neck once more and asked if I could finish you off and I finally got up, got dressed, and left. You fell right asleep after that, peacefully. I, on the other hand, stayed up most of the night crying on the phone with a co-worker 650 miles away and trying to put together what had just happened in my head until it clicked and the word came to mind: Rape. I sent you a few texts saying that I couldn’t do ‘this’ anymore, and what you did was so terrible and I couldn’t believe you could hurt me that way.

8 a.m. the next morning…

I get a frantic phone call from you asking what was wrong and what had happened and that you wanted to talk. I got dressed and walked down the flight of stairs to your door and knocked. You opened the door and let me in. We began to discuss what had transpired and why I was so upset but I didn’t use the word rape then. Because I wanted to dance around that subject so badly because I still didn’t want to believe that someone I trusted could do this to me, that someone I trusted could betray me so savagely.

It wasn’t until you took me out to breakfast and we were driving back after picking up my birth control that I used that four letter word: rape. You panicked and began to say how you had family that was raped in front of you as a child so you could never rape anyone. You let me drive your car because it’s the only thing that could calm me down. I took you to my safe space because I still didn’t want to believe you were capable of hurting me so badly.

You were the good guy, the calm guy, the athletic guy. And you spent the next month convincing me you could never hurt me or anyone like that. You took me to therapy because my anxiety was so bad I couldn’t breathe and I was having night terrors. The thing I didn’t want to accept was that you were the cause for all of that and by continuing to see you romantically and sexually I was constantly putting myself back into that night and everything that came with it. These were a number of issues that accumulated that I didn’t sign up for. It wasn’t until I found out I wasn’t pregnant that I went forward with stopping our relationship. I no longer had ties to you and I was beginning to see someone else. The problem here is I still didn’t accept that these issues all stemmed from one incident until I was sitting with my new boyfriend talking about why I have all these problems and why I am the way I am that I started piecing it all together and ended up crying myself to sleep in my clothes in his room.

What you did to me was and is forever unforgivable. I ran into you at a party where you essentially cornered me and started rapping about how girls who lie about rape should be taken out back and killed, that you still had messages between us. Yes, Nick, you did have messages — you did because I cared for you and we were romantic. You did because I didn’t come to terms with what happened until weeks after we stopped seeing each other. Until after you told your family I was ‘the One’ without ever asking me to be your girlfriend, because I too still have those messages.

What you did was manipulative, selfish, and self-motivated. You took the moment where I was most vulnerable and took it for yourself even through my cries to you. I spent and still spend most of my nights with night terrors about you or my days seeing people who look like you and having to find a bathroom to calm myself down. It is not a way to live.

I will get stronger, I will fight this, and I will get better. I vow to work until date rape is recognized as a real thing and not something a woman or man owes their partner because they’re horny.

What you did to me was rape, and I hope that haunts you until the day you die.