Knowledge is Power

Summer of 2015 my cousin brought his best friend to our family’s 4th of July celebration. His friend had always been flirty with me, but I had a boyfriend before this summer and he had a girlfriend. After he found out I was single on 4th of July, he started messaging me through social media and asking for my phone number. I said no because he had a girlfriend, to which he responded by breaking up with his girlfriend of two years just to get my phone number.

I gave him my number eventually and we started hanging out. We hung out 4-5 days a week for 2 weeks. Each time we hung out, he got a little more physically and sexually aggressive, but I just brushed it off. I decided to end things with him because I was feeling out of control in the relationship and it didn’t feel healthy. He agreed to just being friends and we were on good terms.

It was the beginning of my sophomore year of college when I transferred to a new school where I only knew my ex-boyfriend and a friend from high school. I was pretty lonely and still trying to get settled in after my first week of classes and my cousin’s friend asked me to get lunch with him when he was driving through my town to get to his school. We got lunch and instead of dropping me back off at my dorm, he parked and asked me to show him my dorm.

We started watching a movie so innocently (not touching at all) and he pulled me down to lay on the futon. He is in the army training to be an officer and as well as being stronger than me, he knows defense things that I don’t. He was holding me down in a way that I could not move any of my limbs as I repeatedly said “No” and “Stop” and struggled to get out of his grip. He took off all of my clothes against my will and started to touch me inappropriately. I kept trying to fight him until he looked me in the eyes as he unbuckled his belt. I stopped fighting and gave up. All I can remember from then until he stopped was looking into his eyes while I cried and thinking “This is my rape story. This is the part where I get raped.”

He stopped before he got his pants off and I will probably never know what stopped him, but he looked me in the eyes and said, “I wouldn’t have sex with you anyway, you’re still in love with your ex.” After that, he took my phone and responded to my friend’s text asking if I was still coming to study, because I was late to meet her, and he said “sorry I was busy raping *perpetrator’s name*” He then dropped me off at the place I was supposed to meet my friend and went on to his school.

I didn’t register what had happened until the next night as I lie awake scared and broken. He kept texting me as if nothing happened and snapchatting me. I ignored him until eventually he told me I have to be his friend and I can’t just ignore him. That’s when I brought up the previous weekend and he apologized profusely as if that made it all better.

It would be useless for me to press charges as I showered immediately after, threw away the futon it happened on as well as all of the clothing I was wearing, and cleaned the entire room top to bottom multiple times. On top of all of those reasons, his father is a criminal defense attorney that has gotten multiple people out of rape and sexual assault charges before.

— Addie, age 19