I felt so much guilt after. I had hooked up with him before, so it felt wrong saying that he had sexually assaulted me. I understood rape to be when a random person jumps out of the bushes. With this in mind, I suppressed the tears that wouldn’t stop after he left. I ignored how my face was still stinging from the slaps he dealt, how I could still feel his hands tightening around my throat, how he entered me without a condom after I had said no multiple times. I convinced myself that he was just trying to be kinky.
I felt it was my fault for not punching him or screaming. I felt I could’ve done more to stop it. I didn’t want to be a victim, so instead I decided I would get him to fall in love with me. I felt that if he was my boyfriend then it somehow would erase what had happened.
So I accepted his late night texts and phone calls. Every time I hung out with him I felt a throbbing emptiness in my heart. I wanted him to open up to me, to apologize for what he did, or to at least acknowledge it. I wanted some kind of justification for what happened, whether it was through him apologizing or him falling in love with me. I just wanted to feel valuable.
Then, nearly 3 months after the incident, I was sick of it. I was planning on using his name to get into a party, and then I realized how messed up all of this was. This boy had slapped me, tried to choke me and forced me to have unprotected sex, and yet all I wanted was his approval, thinking that it would somehow take away my guilt.
Instead, I forgave myself. I blocked his number. I told my friends. I cried. And I became a stronger person. I love myself enough to not need his drunken texts at 3 AM. I love myself despite what he did, and I will never again feel guilty for what happened.