We sat next to each other in class. We became friends immediately. But that’s typical your Freshman year of college. One day, these speakers came in to talk about sexual assault on campus. You had your headphones in and were watching a movie. I tapped on your arm and said it was important and you should pay attention. You told me you didn’t need to because it would never effect you. Would you still say that now? I hope it was a good movie. I hope it was so good that you couldn’t have possibly taken a second to learn about consent. I sometimes wonder if anything would have been different with your movie off and your attention on the speakers. Would I still have been raped? These are the the questions that I desperately try to push out of my brain because the answer truly doesn’t matter. What’s done is done and I pay the consequences of your actions. How was your fucking movie? Is it like the sad movie that replays in my brain every day? That movie that’s in black and white? You know the one where you assault me and it takes me months to really find out what you did to my incapacitated body? And I’ll still never truly know. That’s what you can live with because I don’t think I even want to know how far it went. I already saw the bruises on my inner thighs and arms. Did you know that in the ER they re-enacted how I may have gotten those bruises? That image doesn’t leave my head. I’m not sure where I’m going with this. Is it a poem? A letter? Or just somewhere in my notes to vent? Will anyone hear me? I feel like Hobo Johnson when I sit down and try to write about my pain, hurt, disgust, anger, and regret. Again, will anyone hear me? Regret that I ever became your friend. But how was a Freshman girl from a small town in the middle of nowhere suppose to know how to figure of who stranger danger is versus your friend. Because maybe there were some red flags that I missed, but maybe it’s really because I’m nothing like you. I don’t see people and think about the horrible things I can do to them. How could you hurt me like that when you knew how kind my soul was. I’m sure that just made it easier in your mind. Every part of me… the essence of me… made you do something disgusting to me. That’s still not my fault. It’s not my fault that I lost weight and became “more attractive”. It’s not my fault that I am a proud pansexual woman and that became a sick fantasy for you. It’s not my fault that I let you in and you chose to hurt me. It’s not my fault that you became obsessed and possessive. I just wish I never became your friend. When I said to you, “We can’t be friends anymore, I think you raped me”, did you think I’d get over it? Did you think it would all go away? I wish I could get over it and it could all go away. Every second of every day I wish that. If you haven’t figured it out yet, we will never be friends again. I may see you again one day… in a courtroom, but that is it. I hate you. I don’t hate myself anymore. I am healing. I am learning. I am growing. It’s like I never knew who I was until now. And I love who I am. But boy do I hate you. You took away my schooling during my Senior year. I was too afraid to go to my own damn classes because you needed to get off or something I guess. Those are years of my life that I’ll never get back. I could sit there and tell you my story step by step, but that will all come out in court. I’m also tired of repeating it. It’s written down in a journal already. But that’s THE story, not my story. My story started when I was born, but there was a new chapter that began the day I woke up and started to realize what had happened to me. I stood up and I fought like hell. I still fight like hell. I will have my day in court. I will make sure you need to think about this more. Title 9 wanted to protect the school. Not me or you. But I want to protect myself and every other woman you come or may come into contact with. To do that I need to keep talking and keep sharing my story… and THE story. I was 21. I was allowed to drink at that tailgate. You were not allowed to take advantage of my incapacitated body at your fraternity. {~Fraternity~} at {~University~}. Shame on you for taking advantage of your “best friend” in such a disgusting way. Shame on you for taking advantage of our friendship. Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you.