Deja Vu

When it happened, I didn’t want to believe it. I tried to convince myself it just had to be a nightmare. It couldn’t possibly be happening. Not again. Not by him.

He was my best friend. When I was raped the first time around, roughly four years ago, he was there for me. He was the one who stayed up with me those late nights when I was crying, let me sleep in his dorm room when I couldn’t handle being in my own, and convinced me everything was going to be alright. He said he’d be there for me, that he’d protect me. And for four years, he did. He was always there for me. And he did look out for me.

See, the first time destroyed me, at least for a while. The guy was an old boyfriend. We’d dated freshman year of high school, and we stayed friends. Then freshman year of college he wanted to give us a second chance. He seemed perfect. He sent flowers to cheer me up when I was stressed out from exams, and then drove up one weekend to visit. My roommate was gone for the weekend, so my friend and her boyfriend were going to stay in my dorm room with us, to keep anything from happening. I was waiting for marriage, and we were planning on drinking, so I didn’t want to make a drunken mistake. It seemed like we had all of our bases covered.

But then he decided to drink an entire fifth of whiskey on his own. He was gone. We were all ready to go to sleep, and then he decided to kick my friend and her boyfriend out of the room. He was a big guy; he was a linebacker in high school and you could tell. My friend’s boyfriend- not so much. So he didn’t see much of a choice, and they left me. I never expected that to happen. He was usually such a sweet guy, and he said he was fine with the no-sex, room-sharing situation. Apparently not.

He raped me for hours. Not even exaggerating. It was never full penetration- he started with fingering, then forced himself down on me, forced me to do things to him… he tried to actually have sex with me, but finally gave up. I was screaming and crying the whole time, but he just kept saying, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to do it anyway.” Though I do remember for a while I just froze. It was like my body gave up; I couldn’t fight anymore, I couldn’t even move. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I’ve taken classes that have explained the psychology behind trauma, and now I know it’s actually a pretty normal response.

He doesn’t remember anything. Because of that, he tried to convince me to take him back. I didn’t, but I also never reported him. I was too afraid to tell my parents. I still haven’t, and probably never will tell them. It would destroy them, and I don’t want to do that to them.

I went crazy for a while after that. I was so lost. He took pretty much every first from me- he took my first kiss freshman year of high school, and now freshman year of college he was the first guy I ever made out with, the first one I’d done anything sexual with. And even though I said it wasn’t full penetration, it was close enough that I felt I couldn’t call myself a virgin anymore. I literally broke my purity ring. I became so desperate to cancel the memories out that I kept trying to hook up with every guy. I was convinced that if I had one good sexual experience, I would be able to forget and move on. I didn’t want to picture that night anymore.

Four years later and I was finally doing better. I’d finally let myself trust guys again; I’d even lost my virginity for real this time, when it was my own choice. I thought I was finally going to be ok. Then this happens.

I was having a fight with one of my closest friends/roommate, and he came over to cheer me up. We’d drank alone together plenty of times before- even his girlfriend was ok with it b/c we were all friends and she knew I would never try anything with him. Neither of us imagined that he would try anything either.

Everything was perfect. We were drinking wine and watching stand up comedy on YouTube. But I hadn’t really eaten that day and the wine hit me a little too hard. It also got super late, so I started falling asleep on the couch. He asked if I wanted help getting into bed, and I said sure. So he walked me to my room and I crawled in bed. He asked if he could stay a while and I just shrugged. So he crawled into bed with me. He knew my back was hurting, so he asked if I wanted a massage and I let him give me a back rub. Everything still seemed perfectly friendly. After he rubbed my shoulders and upper back a little, I rolled facing away from him and passed out. I figured he would let himself out in a few after he realized I was ok and wasn’t going to choke in my sleep or something.

But I didn’t wake up to him leaving. Instead I woke up to his fingers inside of me. I was so out of it- still half asleep, still drunk- that I thought I was dreaming at first. It had to just be a nightmare. It couldn’t be real. He wouldn’t do this. Especially not when I’m sleeping. I just closed my eyes and tried to get myself to wake up. But before I could process anything he had moved his hand and was purposely waking me up so I could lock the door behind him. He acted like everything was fine. I let him out, locked the door, then went back to bed. I kept trying to convince myself all morning that it couldn’t have happened, but then I said something to my friend, and she told me to ask him. So I sent him a message, and he admitted it.

I just don’t understand how he could do this to me after watching me going through everything before. He knew this would destroy me all over again. He promised he would never do anything to hurt me. But he did. It wasn’t a nightmare, as much as I wish it was.