It has been 3 years since you assaulted me. This will probably come as a shock to you—I know you don’t think of yourself as a perpetrator. Honestly, I don’t think of myself as a victim or a survivor just yet, so I guess we have that in common.
I don’t think of myself as a victim because I still blame myself for what happened. I blame myself for getting drunk, I blame myself for going to your house, I blame myself for nodding when you asked me if I wanted to have sex because I couldn’t see straight and I didn’t know how to say no to you. I blame myself for lying when you asked me if it was my first time. The truth is that I’d only had sex with one other guy before you and it didn’t really work.
The truth is The truth is
The truth is I don’t know what the truth is anymore. I’ve replayed that night so many times in my head it’s started to feel like a movie—something terrible and sad that happened to someone else as I watched, emotionless, from above. I doubt myself constantly. For months it was too painful for me to even think about what happened, so I shoved the memories way way way down where now I’m not even sure I can reach them anymore.
That being said, there’s one detail that remains crystal clear in my memory before everything gets foggy: I arrived at your house, drunker than I’d been in a long time. As we walked up the stairs to your bedroom, I couldn’t keep my balance and almost fell. You grabbed my waist to steady me. I looked you right in the eyes and told you I was really, really drunk. Do you remember what happened next?
You said you’d “better catch up” and offered me a beer.
The first person I told was my roommate, who said she came back to our dorm at 1am that night to see me in bed hunched over a trash can, crying. She claims we had a full conversation. I don’t even remember her coming home. I don’t even remember how I got home.
The first meal I ate after you assaulted me was spaghetti, thrown up exactly 20 minutes after it was consumed. My body was having a physical reaction not just to alcohol but also to the shame that burned like acid in my stomach. My body had betrayed me the night before: my throat that swallowed the vodka, my feet that carried me to your house, my legs that refused to move as I lay motionless in your bed watching the room spin.
I don’t think of myself as a survivor because honestly, I don’t feel like I’ve survived anything yet. I still feel broken. I still feel anxious. I still feel ashamed. I still can’t tell my family and most of my friends. I still can’t see you without spiraling into a deep depression.
Two days after it happened, I told my friends. My biggest regret is that when they all expressed concern and dismay at the fact that you, a sober senior, had sex with me, a blacked-out freshman, I responded by turning the whole story into a joke. I made myself the punchline before you had a chance to. I laughed off the most painful night of my life because I didn’t want to make anyone worried, didn’t want to ruin your reputation, didn’t want to be at odds with a well-liked upperclassman in the community I had just joined.
Even after you graduated, you were still infuriatingly present in my life. Every time I saw you, you’d try to hug me and then immediately bring up my trauma like it was a funny little memory we shared. I could never figure out if you just liked humiliating me, wanted to make me feel guilty, or if you genuinely thought a blacked-out teenager puking after you fucked her was a hilarious joke.
In the spring of 2019, when you were almost a year into post-grad life, you and I attended the same party at a mutual friend’s house. Do you remember that night? Because I’ll never forget it.
You were clearly wasted, carrying around an entire handle that you sipped from all night. You immediately came over to me and started touching me. Your hand on my lower back, tucking my hair behind my ears, standing too close, playing with my glasses. You made me feel like that dopey freshman again even though I was a year older and supposedly a year wiser and you were in my space and I couldn’t breathe and I HATED that you still had the power to make me feel helpless and small with just one look.
The whole night, my friend kept shepherding me away from you and you kept following, always hovering a few inches away, suffocating me. I was grateful for the protection my friend offered, but at the same time I wondered why he didn’t pull you aside and tell you to stop. Why do I always have to be the one who leaves?
Later that night, when your eyes were glassy and I was tired of avoiding you, you leaned over to me with a smile on your face and asked, “how much do you even remember from that night?”
Is this all a joke to you? Do you really want to know the answer to that question? Even if the truth is ugly?
“Not much,” I responded.
Fuck you.
My face went red. You fell silent and started scrolling through your phone. After hours of being all over me, suddenly you were acting like I wasn’t even in the room. All the rage drained out of my body, leaving only a steady hum of anxiety pulsing in my ears. I think I tried to apologize, to tell you it was all ok even though it was anything but and I had nothing to be sorry for. Even then, I still felt like I had to please you. Keep you happy. Keep you from hating me.
It’s been 3 years since you assaulted me. For the first time, I’m in a healthy, committed relationship with someone who loves me. When I told him about what you did, he was the first person in my life to call me a survivor. I shrunk away from that label—the last thing I wanted was to be defined by that night, the way I was for most of my freshman year. And honestly, I don’t know if I’ll ever think of you as a perpetrator. I don’t think you’re a bad person. I don’t even think what you did was illegal. But now I know that even good people can cause terrible harm to others.
That’s what you did. You caused me harm. You probably don’t even know this, but I almost failed my first semester at Tufts because I couldn’t sleep, or eat, or concentrate because of the panic attacks and flashbacks that wouldn’t go away for months after we had sex.
I’m writing this because I think it’s time that you know. Because I need you to know. Because I don’t know if I can heal and move on without some acknowledgement from you that you regret what you did—that what happened wasn’t ok. I don’t need or want a long-winded response. I’m not going around telling people you’re a rapist. I’m not trying to ruin your life or your reputation. I just can’t keep carrying this around all bottled up inside of me. It’s too heavy. I need to let it go.