It’s been four years
CW: Sexual assault. If you require support after reading this, please reach out to one of the phone numbers listed here.
It’s been one day.
I head to work, hungover and reeling from the weekend.
I relay the events of that night:
the anxiety,
the drinks,
the party,
the club,
the cab ride—
but there are parts I don’t remember.
Then a part where I wake up to him in my bed, not knowing how he got there.
He and I don’t speak about it. The elephant in the room does the talking for us.
He leaves, and tears follow. There is truth sitting in front of me, too big to swallow. There is reassurance from friends that “he didn’t mean anything by it”. There is me, dusting myself off to drink champagne at brunch.
My boss doesn’t dust this off. She shuts the office door, declaring sexual assault.
There’s no way.
My best friend wouldn’t.
Would he?
It’s been one week.
I’ve realized that my best friend would.
That he did.
And it terrifies me.
My week has been full
of hospital visits,
of flights home,
of crisis counseling,
of being asked,
“So what are you going to do?”
My family begs, “Stay here, get better,
don’t go to school”
but I refuse to throw in the towel.
He’s already taken my body from me—
I can’t let him take my campus too.
And besides, when the worst day of my life
has already happened to me,
what else is left to lose?
It’s been one month.
And the answer is, a lot.
While my peers are writing essays
I am proving myself to lawyers.
While friends make our university town home
I sleep on their couches, too scared to be alone.
While others win scholarships,
I drop down to part-time studies,
and lose mine because of it.
If the first month has taught me anything,
It’s that rape culture is alive and well,
and my case is no exception.
My story spreads like wildfire
making me the punchline of every rape joke
and the target of every girl groups’ gossip.
It’s been six months.
I may have won the investigation,
But I lost myself in the process.
I don’t eat or sleep much these days.
I don’t feel like myself much these days.
I don’t want to carry on much these days.
Therapy will eventually dig me out
of the shell I’ve made a home out of.
But today, it feels like he wins.
It’s been one year,
and I still feel miserable.
I am dating again.
Not for myself, just to feel something, really—
but when my date pushes me against the elevator,
scrapes my face gruffly with his stubble,
pries my mouth open with his tongue
and chokes me without asking,
the only thing I feel is anger.
I fought a man once, and I am tired of fighting.
So I wait for it to be over, and let him cross my boundaries.
It’s been two years.
I am living on a friend’s couch,
running from trauma in the name of adventure—
But no matter the miles between me and what happened to my body,
I always remember.
What I don’t know is that ten days later,
I will dive in the ocean, bask in the sun,
and for the first time in years,
I will feel truly, genuinely happy.
Mere weeks after that,
I will start a new chapter, in a new city,
where no one knows anything about me,
and it will be just the liberation I need.
It’s been three years.
I’m told the day doesn’t warrant recognition.
That it’s time to
forgive,
let go,
move on.
I give myself a sick day.
I know my body well enough by now
to know what she actually needs.
Sleep.
Fresh air.
Time to grieve.
This year, I have a partner.
He tells me that no matter where I am, he’s with me in spirit.
He tells me he’ll marry me one day, if I allow him to earn it.
For the first time in years, I feel like
my body means something to someone
and I let him a little more in.
It’s been four years now.
Each passing trip around the sun brings aching anticipation
of a day that’s never become easy.
I know by now that
the trauma may never fully leave me—
But today,
I set boundaries, and have my consent respected.
I advocate for change, that impacts the next generation.
I love with my whole heart, and it feels better than I imagined.
It has taken four years,
but I have built a big, beautiful life
around my assault,
and rendered it
so much smaller
in the process.
