To the guy that sexually assaulted me,
If you think that this is easy, writing this and picturing your face, then you’re wrong. Every time I picture your face, I get a knot in my stomach, feel my heart pounding in my chest, and I want to run. I’m writing this not for you, but as a favor to myself so I can hopefully get over that Monday night in October and move on through life, though six months later, it hasn’t been easy. There are some things I’d like to say to you and read carefully, because these are the last words you will ever hear out of the girl’s life you tore apart.
When I met you, over a Facebook chat a few days prior, I thought you were cute, nice smile, goes to my college, and your eyes seemed like they could bear into my soul. I thought you were safe. I thought wow, he doesn’t look like he could hurt me and I needed a little fun. The more I got to know you, the more this observation got proven. When we finally met to smoke in my room with my two best friends, I doubted anything bad would happen. Just normal people doing normal college things. Looking back, I was pretty flirtatious and ballsy. While we smoked the “special type of weed” you had, you turning your back so we had to put blind faith in you, my friends became dizzy and I felt out of my body—not like a normal high.
After my friends left and we sat on my bed, I was clear about one thing: I didn’t want to hook up at all. I kept saying it as we kissed and as we fell on my bed cuddling. I had no control. That night when I kept getting up to check my phone, I was terrified but also thought I could handle it on my own. I thought I wasn’t going to get hurt, but I sent a text to my friend anyway, god forbid something would happen.
I don’t remember much after sending those texts, just flashes in my memory of my protests and your hands on me. When you left my room to go to class all I could see was you putting on your pants and walking out—without a second look back.
That afternoon, I realized the severity of what happened, and I was terrified. The events that followed you know and now here I am, six months later, still unsure of how you got away with something so horrific. I realize now that you took something from me that night and you knew exactly what you were doing.
Six months later and I can still feel you next to me when I sleep, I can still hear the trippy music you played and your eyes looking into my soul. I still get scared walking in public, afraid that I’ll see you and nothing will stop you from hurting me-because nothing did before.
But, lets be clear on something. You did not break me. You didn’t tear me to pieces and you didn’t make me beg for forgiveness when I finally realized how bad I was hurt. You didn't prove anything by doing what you did.
What you did do is take my rights away. You took away my freedom to do what I wished due to fear, you took away my life due to the fact that going anywhere on campus was a gamble and terrifying. You took away my spark, my fire, and you damaged my fragile pride. You are part of the reason why girls can’t walk home at night without being afraid. You are part of the reason why my little sister will go to college being afraid that the same thing will happen to her. You are part of the reason why girls can't walk alone at night without fear in their hearts and pepper spray in their bags. You represent every person who’s ever violated an individual, and you are no different from those serving time in prision for the same crime.
I’d like to thank you though. Thank you for proving to me how strong I am. Thank you for showing me who were my true friends and who were just temporary. Thank you for showing me that I am stronger than you. Thank you for taking away everything so I could gain that and more back. I promise to continue to prove you wrong.
The Girl Who Won
