Sometimes I wonder if you remember me. I wonder if you remember the girl in the Panic! At the Disco t-shirt that you met at that party one Thursday night. God, the 12 months since then probably feel like years to you, but to me, it feels like yesterday.
I’ve always wanted to tell you what I was doing at that party in the first place, as if that would make you pity me. As though that would undo what you did.
I had just broken up with my fiance that same Thursday. We were together for two years. My cousin told me I should get up and get back out there instead of laying around eating Ben and Jerry’s, so of course, I went with her to a party. Your party.
I was heartbroken, so I had a couple drinks. Not enough to incapacitate me, but enough that when I lost my cousin amongst the crowds at this party, your offer to drive me home didn’t strike any warning bells in my head. I just thought you were a gentleman who didn’t want this poor, sobbing drunk girl to get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.
Sometimes, I still wonder that. If maybe you had started out with only good intentions, but then, well, you know what they say about the roads to hell. I won’t go into the details. Hell, I’m not even sure I remember the details: all I remember is your hand on my thigh as you pulled the car over to the side of the road. I think after that, I was so focused on thinking about anything else, that I didn’t really come back to reality until after you had shoved me out the passenger door of your car and onto the curb. The next thing I remember was some very kind strangers from the house the curb belonged to holding back my hair while I vomited the contents of my stomach into their gutter. They took me to the hospital when they noticed all the blood soaking my green leggings in the space between my legs. It was the gentleman from that house who called my dad.
I was more than willing after all of this to forget it. I had a rape kit done at the hospital that night, but frankly, I was still wrestling with the thought that this was all my fault. That it was true what they all said: the drunk girl is always wrong. Dude, I couldn’t even remember your name.
The next day, much to the chagrin of my father, I went to class. I was fine. Okay, so I was plus 17 stitches in my hoo-ha, but all in all, fine.
Then, I saw a boy about three rows down from me in my biology class. He looked familiar, vaguely. He turned his head, and I realized he was you. I wanted to vomit, but instead, I just kept my head down and took probably the most detailed lecture notes I’ve ever taken in my life. Even then, once I had a face to put with the trauma, the self-imposed guilt I felt kept me from doing anything about it.
Through the next few months, I learned your name. I also started stress-eating a lot. Which made me gain some weight. I chocked the fact that my period hadn’t come since September up to the fact that I was not sleeping, nor was I exactly in the most stress-free state. Plus, you know, I was doing all of that extracurricular eating.
It wasn’t until my grandmother pulled me aside at our Thanksgiving dinner and forced a pregnancy test into my hand that I finally allowed myself to think that maybe all these cravings and all these period-less months weren’t just the product of some undue stress. The strip turned pink. I have never been less excited to eat Thanksgiving dinner in my life.
If I ever spoke to you again, I’d tell you that I got an abortion. I’d tell you about the hours I spent waiting for the pregnancy to terminate, crying on the bathroom floor. I’d tell you about how I moved out because I couldn’t stand the way my mother looked at me when she knew I was hiding something from her.
I’d probably tell you about how I moved on and was mostly fine until March, when my roommate looked at me in the middle of Costco and told me that I’d be six months along by then. I think she saw the diaper section. Who knows. I’d tell you about how, after that, I dropped off the face of the earth. I stopped going to my classes. I ghosted all of my extracurriculars. I watched every season of How I Met Your Mother. I didn’t shower for a month straight. I tried to overdose on Prozac. Twice. I’d tell you about how I went to the police station and tried to press charges but the officers told me it had been too long to really look into a rape that happened after a college party. Besides, they said, you were a senior. Best not to ruin your life at that point. Shortly after that, I failed my first ever class.
I wasn’t able to pull my life back together until I called my mom in the middle of a Tuesday morning to tell her goodbye. I didn’t want to end my life until my mother knew I loved her. She was on a camping trip and she made my stepdad drive 820 miles to my front door in under 9 hours. I realized for the first time in eight months that I was not unlovable. I moved back home. My mom made me go to counselling and I finally realized that none of this was really my fault. That I am not a victim, I am a survivor.
If I ever spoke to you again, I wouldn’t tell you all of this to guilt you. Not really. I wouldn’t tell you all of this so you would know that you ruined my life. I would tell you all of this so that you would understand how difficult it is for me and how sincerely I mean it when I say that I forgive you.
I will forever feel weird walking by the fraternities on the edge of campus. That won’t change. I will forever wonder if I should tell my loved ones about what happened to me. That probably won’t ever go away. I don’t know how long it will be before I can encounter mid-September without silently noting the anniversary of the night you took a part of me that wasn’t yours. But, despite all of this, I am choosing to forgive you. Because I am not a broken thing, not anymore. I am a woman who crawled out from the ruins of her own life and built something stronger from the wreckage.
I am not your victim.
I am a survivor.
And I want you to know that.