It took an entire year and a half to accept what happened to me. And since it took this long I felt like I wasn’t a true victim, I was “the lucky one” who escaped scott free from the post traumatic stress, but in reality I escaped for only a year and a half.
It was first week freshman year at Tufts, when I still thought college girls were supposed to wear four inch platform heels to parties. It was maybe the second or third night out at Tufts and my roommate and I went out with some boys in our dorm that seemed like cool guys to be friends with. On our way home from our night out I remember walking across the Fletcher parking lot to those god-forsaken steps up to the quad between Miller and Houston.
Ankle gave out, agh ankle gave out again—these heels really were a mistake I swear I’m not that drunk. Suddenly one of the boys was “kindly” letting me latch onto his arm so as not to let me fall.
“Oh that’s nice,” I think as he helps walk me up all the way to my room while my roommate goes to hook up with the other kid in his room. ... And then, “oh he wants to hook up,” as he walks into my room and pushes me onto the bed. Without a doubt any attention from a guy at that age was gold to an insecure girl like me, so of course I go with it. The hook up goes on like any other until the boxers come off.
“No, I don’t want to have sex.” “Come onnn.” “Seriously, no.” “I’ll use a condom thought it will be ok.”
The exact conversation at this point isn’t in my repertoire besides the countless amount of no’s that escaped my lips slowly getting softer and softer each time feeling less and less important as he persisted on. I felt no way out and let it happen.
“Oh, it’s over? Thank god,” I remember thinking as he is exiting me. And then, “Uh oh,” he said kind of giggling. The condom broke. At that moment I couldn’t take it and walked out of the room saying I’d be right back not to worry…as if he had any real worries in the world at this moment.
I couldn’t think straight so I called my mom. I remember crying on the steps to her recalling the story as I hear it echo back to me in that barren corridor cringing every time I hear the echo making it doubly real.
“Emmy,” long pause, “do you think you were just raped?” That took me aback. Me? Raped? Privileged white girl? Not possible!
“What? No mom, I let it happen he didn’t do anything wrong.” To this day I do not know why I stuck up for him, but for some reason I had convinced myself in that moment and for the following year and a half that what happened was my fault. That I said yes and I moaned because I liked it. In reality, I never said yes and I moaned because I didn’t know what else to do.
Following the phone conversation I slept in the common area, because I couldn’t stand to be near him that night. The following month he again and again tried to get me to hook up with him. Second semester rolls around and he invites me to his formal…can’t you give up kid? I think what I did next was to make what happened the first time less real, I say yes and go with him to his formal.
Leading up to formal was horrible, I don’t want to go, but all I can do is joke with my friends about it. During formal he takes me to an upstairs room and pressures me to hook up, even on my period. Again, I do this just to make what happened the first time less real. Part of the way through hooking up, someone random walks into the room and I remember taking that moment to stand up, adjust my dress and high tail it out of there without a second thought and without saying a word to the boy.
Countless weeks after that, the formal was just a thing that occasionally we would laugh at because my relationship with the boy was so bizarre.
A full year and a half later I remember driving with three of my best girl friends and we were on the topic of sex. A wave of relief, horror, but most importantly, acceptance washed over me. He had raped me. He was not in my number, it was not my fault, I had survived, and I did not deserve it. Just because I wasn’t a girl who was always worried I would run into him or a girl that had to go through counseling to get over how traumatic it was, does not mean I was not a girl who got raped. Everyone’s story is different, but everyone’s story is valid. Everyone’s feelings are real, and everyone deserves to feel safe.