I stared at my computer screen for minutes not knowing how to start this. I’ve spent so long denying to myself and to my friends that this is something that needs to be spoken about, and even now it feels wrong to me. I’m not sure if I’ll even submit this, if it's just for me to finally say (or write), if I’ll delete these words immediately after I finish them and watch the cursor swallow each typed letter that made my stomach sick as I pressed down the key.
I think it was September. I know it was early in my freshman year, but I’ve spent so many minutes trying to forget that now it’s hard for me to remember. And I can hear three voices in my head, one saying that I don’t remember that well because it’s insignificant and the other saying that I don’t remember that well because of the alcohol and the third saying it’s because I’ve blocked it from my memory.
It was a weekend night and I’d spent the last week or so thinking non-stop about a boy I kissed in the basement of lax house. I romanticized everything he said to me, how it was so sweet of him never to do anything with a girl if she’s had something to drink and how nice it was to talk to a boy on the Tisch roof late at night. But I was naïve and shy and awkward and when he told my friend he didn’t want a girlfriend, that he didn’t want me because I was too much like his ex and I was too quiet and not the kind of girl you just hook up with I felt determined to prove to myself that he was wrong about me.
So that night I hung out with some of the girls I had become friends with and we were drinking in their shared room with no idea of where we would go, because at that point most nights we pregamed and ended up having no party to go to. We started talking about sex and our experiences and when it was my turn I was embarrassed when all I’d done was kissed a boy. In my mind, the longer I was inexperienced the harder it was going to be for me to finally lose my virginity. So with my friends’ encouragement I talked a big talk about finally finding someone to have sex with me. And when my friend found a dorm party with some football players I nervously took pulls from a bottle of pink whitney, which I still can’t think about without feeling sick.
When we got to the room I still felt badly about myself and I thought that the best way to feel better was to get drunk, so I kept taking pulls from my friend’s water bottle full of vodka. My face was flushed and my legs felt all tingly and I zig-zagged as I walked, finding myself tipping over even while standing still. He was in the room and I barely noticed him because I had my eye on someone else. The next thing I knew we were all in an uber going to an off-campus party in an airbnb. It was crowded and dark and we walked into the kitchen and two boys offered us jungle juice that they were mixing on the counter top. The first thing I learned was never to accept a drink offered to you at a party, especially not the punch. But I drank it all and we were dancing and I was laughing and they had never seen me so outgoing and giggly and fun. We were in line to play pong and I was paired with him, and I was drunk and had no inhibitions and was chatting with him. I don’t remember how long it was after that but one of my friends whispered in my ear that he thought I was cute and he wanted to hook up with me. I was nervous so I drank their cups because they didn’t like the taste but I was too drunk to care. The next thing I remember is being up against the wall making out with him, which embarrasses me now knowing people could see me. He asked me if I wanted to leave and at that point I could barely move my legs and my head was spinning. I remember the uber driver telling him that if I threw up he would have to pay and he said it was fine. I was sleepy so I leaned on him and I don’t remember if he touched me or kissed me but I started to feel sick so I put my head on his lap and asked if we were almost home. Somehow we got to Hill and I remember tripping on the concrete steps outside and him grabbing my arm as I threw up clear liquid in the bushes. If he hadn’t pulled me by my arm up the stairwell that smelled like weed and was lit with yellow light I wouldn’t have made it, I would have laid down on the ground outside and gone to sleep. But somehow I was in his room and he was kissing me and touching me and I was kissing and touching him back and he told me how little I was and that I had a fat ass and he picked me up and put me on the bed. I didn’t tell him to stop and then my clothes were off and I didn’t tell him to stop. He moved my head downward by pulling my hair and told me to suck his dick so I did. Is asking if he has a condom giving consent? I remember it hurting and clenching my entire body but my brain was numb and my body was numb so I didn’t say anything, because I’ve lived my whole life sucking it up. But it hurt and I was waiting for it to be over and I don’t believe in god but I was praying that he’d stop and get out of me and the pain would stop and all he said was that I had a tight pussy. I fell asleep and I remember his door opening and the light coming in and him talking to people and I tried to hide my face so no one saw me but I couldn’t move so I turned back against the wall and fell asleep. He woke me up and told me he had practice the next morning so I tried to put my clothes on and he told me he’d walk me back to my dorm. I fell down the stairs leaving and he pulled me by the wrist until we got to the Carm doors and he asked if I would be okay and I said I would be and curled up on a chair in the common room. I guess it was nice of him to make sure I got back okay. A boy I did pre-orientation with found me and asked if I was okay and found a girl that I went to elementary school with who I hadn’t spoken to in years, and she carried me upstairs to my room while I cried and said over and over again that I didn’t want my roommate to be mad if I woke her up or know that I had been drinking because I already felt ashamed. I woke up the next morning and sat in the shower for 30 minutes, waiting for the pain down there to go away because if it did I could forget about it. I threw out the underwear I had been wearing and I went to breakfast and my friends eagerly asked me if I’d lost my virginity, and one told me that he asked for my snapchat and he requested to follow me on instagram. That’s how I learned his name and what he looked like but I refused to look at him or think about him. I just wanted to forget but I saw him in the dining hall every day and each time I felt sick. But I still won’t say the word rape or even sexual assault because I didn’t ever say no to him and I started the night wanting to have sex with someone and I don’t want to minimize the experiences of others who did say no and knew they didn’t want sex. I didn’t want anyone to know how ashamed I felt and how terrified I was of the looks on my parent’s and my sisters’ faces if they ever found out.
A year later, a new friend of mine told me that he dated one of her friends that past March. Almost 5 months after it happened. And he told her he had never had sex or even kissed a girl. And instead of crying or feeling angry or disgusted I felt happy because to me that meant he knew what he did was wrong so he lied about it, and it meant that I wasn’t being dramatic. But I still won’t say the words rape or sexual assault.