Neighbor

When I was 15, a man and his daughters moved across the street from me. I became friends with the girls over a month or so and it got to the point where we were so close we’d just enter each other’s houses like they were our own. One day after school I walked into their house but they were not there, only their dad was. He said their mom picked them up from school because they were divorced. He told me to stay for a drink and I said yes because I have always been taught to listen to my elders. He then walked up behind me while I was sitting on the couch and began rubbing my chest, I knew where it was headed. All I remember basically is being dizzy from adrenaline. He sodomized me, got dressed, and told me to go home like nothing happened. Before I left, he told me I better not tell anyone because nobody would believe me. For the next month I avoided my friends but eventually they confronted me and asked what was wrong. I told them, an d like he said they would they didn’t believe me. They stopped talking to me and I suffered harassment from them until the end of high school. I still haven’t told anybody else and I will never understand why they weren’t there when I needed them. They still live across the street from me and have to see his worthless face everyday.

— Sam, age 18