I didn’t say “no”

I was 15. I had been dating a boy named Ryan for about three months, he was older than me (18) and I trusted him. I was his first kiss and he told me he loved me. He was taking me home from school one day and kept asking for me to give him head in the car. I gave him multiple excuses “I don’t have time”, “I’m tired”, “I don’t want people to see”. He kept asking. About a block away from my house I said okay. About 20 seconds in I realized that I absolutely did not want to be doing that. I tried to get up and tell him. I couldn’t. He held my head down. I started to cry and he didn’t stop. What was probably 10 minutes felt like an enterniry to me. I froze up and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t believe what was happening. When he finished I ran out of the car and all the way home crying while he drove next to me asking what happened. When I got home I threw up.

He tried to explain to me that I didn’t say no. He thought my excuses were jokes. He “didn’t know he did anything wrong”. He said it wasn’t my fault as much as it was his. He said I’d given him head before so he just expected him to be okay with it. He said That I was making too big a deal of it.

I broke up with him. He wouldn’t leave me alone. He said he was sorry but that I should get over it. He said it wasn’t that serious.

I was confused and hurt. How could someone who loved me hurt me like that. I started having panick attacks in sexual situations. I still do. I started having nightmares of him sexually assaulting me over and over. I still do.

He still tries to be friends with me. My little sister still loves him and asks me to invite him over. How would I possibly explain that to her? How do I possibly explain that to men anything but no means yes and if you’ve consented once they never need it again?

— Survivor, age 16