Graphic by olivia stern
content notice: sexual harassment and suicidal ideations.
His behavior was at its worst when he was drunk. I never particularly liked him much when he was sober either, but my friends did. I was an insecure college freshman starting her very first semester and very first week away from home during a global pandemic, trying to grasp onto some sense of normalcy. I wanted — needed, really — all of the friends I could get. So I dealt with it. I dealt with him.
He never assaulted me or even tried. Still, the way he always put his arms around my shoulders and my waist made my skin crawl. His touch felt like a brand. I knew he thought he was entitled to me. He’d scream at me when I shoved him away. He’d yell at me if I didn’t hold his hand. He’d get angry that I was friends with other guys. He’d say I wanted him and I was lying to myself, trying to lead him on. He’d make comments about my body and my appearance. Then he’d talk shit on me if I wasn’t around. Apparently he didn’t understand why he liked me, because his type was “more athletic-looking girls” (I ran a 5k every day, by the way). But then he’d cry about how much I hated him whenever I got upset with his behavior. I was supposedly a bitch for telling him no. Once it led to a screaming match between us in a dormitory hallway that no RA overheard.
I tried, I’ll give myself that. I tried talking to him multiple times. He always made the same false promises. Always.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”
But it did.
“I don’t wanna drink anymore,” he said. “This won’t happen again, I promise.”
But it did.
“I’m going to stop drinking,” he said.
But he didn’t.
It took me two months to gain the courage to leave and all of two seconds to lose almost every friend I had. My worst nightmares bled into reality. They supported him even though they watched me walk away in tears after every broken promise. They sat with me in my dorm as I cried, only to ignore me later in favor of his company. They told me it was my fault, that I was asking for it. They chose his side even though before they agreed with me that his behavior was wrong.
I guess free alcohol was better than having a real friend.
I doubt they regretted their choice as much as they liked to pretend it was one they didn’t make. Sometimes I saw them in public, and they’d try to talk to me like we were old friends and they didn’t leave me to die by my own hand. I tried to hide my disgust when I saw them. I spent the rest of that fall semester fighting the urge to take my own life. But I tried to move on.
New friends came and went in the months since then. Some knew the story, others didn’t. I found it easier not to explain it anymore. I used to be more willing to talk about it, but I could only handle the pitying apologies and the awkward silence thereafter for so long.
And so the anger lingered there, boiling my blood. The tears threatened to choke me. Sheer terror of what he could do to me in retaliation consumed my every thought. But what else could I do? There’s only so many words to say, so many people to confide in. I did everything I could to escape it. What else could I do?
So I wrote. I tried, at least. I begged my own thoughts to stop eating me alive. I barely made it a page before I gave in to the pain. I cried myself to sleep. I woke the next day with tear-tired eyes and did it all again. Eventually my fingers turned numb and then my eyes did too. Maybe it was for the best. I’d rather feel nothing at all.
I stayed home that spring semester with COVID and all. Cases were getting worse anyway; it was for the best. It might not have been the truth when I told my parents, but it wasn’t a lie either. I didn’t want to get sick or risk bringing it home. But I also wanted to hide. So I stayed home and I tried to ignore the pain. I went back to my old high school retail job. I focused on my classes.
I thought I was fine. I spent a spring and a summer trying to forget, so I had to be fine. But the moment I saw him walking down the street the first week of the next fall semester, I almost puked in a public trash can.
It’d been over a year at this point and I still found myself reeling. Not as much as I used to, though. I could get by some days just fine, but then those memories threatened to pull me under again. I wanted it to end. I felt pathetic because he never assaulted me. Why was I so upset? Why was my reaction so visceral so long after it happened, over a boy who never touched me in a way that actually mattered? Over friends I barely knew?
So I wrote. I wrote eight pages, then twelve. I threw them out and started over. I clenched my jaw and slammed my laptop shut before throwing myself onto my bed to force myself into a fitful night’s sleep. I wrote another seven pages the next day. I threw those out too.
I thought writing was the fix for it all. Maybe if I wrote it all down, it’d fade away like it never happened. It worked for other people — maybe it would for me. But the pain lingered. Writing can be cathartic, sure, but it doesn’t help when you aren’t ready to let go of the pain. Remembering just rubbed salt in the wound that already refused to heal.
I learned I couldn’t force myself to move on before I was ready. I couldn’t force myself to try and shake off pain that stuck to me like glue. I had to give myself patience and kindness to make progress in the first place. I couldn’t be angry at myself for my own feelings if I wanted to move forward. It was then, after that realization, that I actually began to heal.
I saw him at a basement concert a few months ago. He looked the same as he did the year before and I didn’t flinch. He couldn’t even look me in the eye, but I didn’t flinch. I didn’t feel that nausea seep in. I didn’t feel that absolute fear consume me like it once did. I told my friend he was there, but the tears didn’t threaten to drown me. The tears weren’t even there at all.
I laughed, actually. His presence fled my mind not long after. I laughed with my friends well into the night. Not about him, though. He didn’t matter. He doesn’t matter. That night I let another boy hold my attention after he approached me. I hadn’t done that in over a year, with my fear of harassment — or something worse — happening again. He didn’t lead anywhere exciting, but letting it happen was a step forward. It was proof that I could best this. I could come out the other side stitched back together; not the same as I once was, but not torn apart either. I was healing. A few days later, I turned my laptop on and opened a fresh document.
So I wrote. I wrote this piece, in fact, and I began to smile. I still don’t forgive any of them, not by a long shot, but I let myself breathe. I kept writing, and it felt better than it did before. I let myself relax and find peace. I forgive myself, and that matters more than anything he ever said to me.