It wasn’t my fault

Last May, i’d just finished my junior year of high school and went to a few graduation parties thrown by my senior friends. My best friend’s boyfriend was a senior and he and his family rented out a huge house and let me and her spend the night, which I was super excited about and it made me feel safe because I didn’t have to worry about going home drunk or high or anything. His parents were there but let everyone do anything they wanted which made me feel safe as well. It was pretty much a typical high school party, everyone was drunk and smoking and being stupid but having fun.
I was very intoxicated and was more worried about avoiding a guy I knew from school who I had previously dated than anyone I didn’t know. For most of the night, I stayed close to my friend and we had fun together, but eventually she went to be with her boyfriend so I was alone. Earlier in the night, I met identical twin boys named Dre* and Drew* and from what I can remember, I was definitely flirting with them because I was drunk but I had mostly been asking them stupid questions about them being twins and gathered that they were freshmen in college. I’d only talked to them for a few minutes and went back to my friend and didn’t think much about them.

My friend left me on a couch falling asleep on the top floor of the house, which wasn’t very far from the bedroom she was in with her boyfriend, and Dre got on the couch with me. She knew i’d been flirting with him earlier and thought he could keep me company so she wasn’t worried, and I wasn’t either because I felt fine with him and was drunk and focused on sleep. He was one of the few people allowed to stay over so I figured he just needed a place to sleep.

I fell asleep under a small blanket a few feet away from him, and woke up with him under the blanket very close to me, with him putting his hand down my shorts. I didn’t know what to do because obviously I wasn’t thinking clearly from being drunk, but mostly I was just uncomfortable and also didn’t want to make a scene or embarrass him. So, I pretended to still be asleep and moved away from him a little bit, thinking that he’d leave me alone. This didn’t help and he only moved closer to me and unbuttoned my pants. I continued to pretend to be asleep even when he asked me if I was awake because I thought that if he knew I was asleep, he would leave me alone and not doing anything to me. However, I was wrong and I don’t think I need to describe in detail what happened, but he raped me as I pretended to be asleep and continued to try to slightly move away from him in hopes that he would stop. I didn’t know him but had assumed that he was a decent person and would leave me alone if I was sleeping.

I wish that I had stopped him the second i’d noticed that he was touching me so that it wouldn’t have happened. I’ve told anyone exactly what happened, or even told him that I knew because I was embarrassed and didn’t even know if it was considered rape or if it was my fault because I didn’t stop him. Afterwards, he went to sleep and I remember a few people coming upstairs and looking on the couch we were on for their phone, and I remember being mortified because my shorts were halfway off and they thought I was asleep and felt uncomfortable looking on the couch because they thought we were a couple who had just hooked up. After they left, I was even more humiliated because of what they thought and I got up and slept on the floor outside of my friend’s room the rest of the night. In the morning, Dre woke up acting like nothing had happened and tried to get me to go back on the couch with him but I pretended I was busy and went and woke my friend up and told her we needed to leave. I told her the partial truth, which was that I woke up and he was touching me and unbuttoning my pants and that I slept on the floor. What I didn’t tell her was that I didn’t get up until after he’d already raped me, and she still thinks he didn’t do more than touch me, which she was still upset by.

I’ve never really thought this was a story worth telling, and have questioned whether it was even rape because I let it happen, but looking back, I realize there’s nothing else it can be described as when he not only touched me, but had sex with me while he thought I was asleep. I don’t know how it has really affected me, but I think about it all the time and want to tell someone so that it’s not stuck inside me, but never know how. I few months ago, I tested positive for an STI, which may not have been from him, but it brought back the experience fresh in my mind. I started having really severe anxiety attacks, and it took me weeks to realize that they started right after I realized I had an STI, and whether or not it was caused by Dre, it made me realize how him raping me really did have an impact on me. I’ve mostly tried to distance myself from it and often feel like it wasn’t me that it happened to, but this forced me to face what happened and really think about it. I was raped and it wasn’t my fault. I don’t know if there’s anyone out there to listen or respond, but I finally had to share this.

— Ruby, age 18