My youngest hasn’t been sleeping well for a month now. Like clockwork, he’s up around 4 AM and there I am deciding what to do– ignore, rock, bring him in to bed– and I lay there and think. Sometimes it’s Amazon, sometimes it’s the news or E!, it’s usually always garbage, and sometimes I try to search old names on Facebook.
Two nights ago I forgot how to even spell his name. I used to check on his page all of time– waiting to see a notification like “Divorced” or “Fired” or some other unfortunate [deserved] life event. But I hadn’t searched for his page in well over a year. Not until the recent trials and news made me look back at my own past. Question if I should be publicly stating his name along with this story. Question if I should be calling the cops on him still or if too much time has passed.
It was my freshman year at college. I was keeping my high school relationship alive long distance which involved driving from LaCrosse to Sauk City every single weekend just to see my one-year-younger boyfriend who didn’t have a car. I was head over heels obsessed with this guy since we met. My back door neighbor and just something about him. A part of me loved our ironic partnership- the blond cheerleader making straight A’s and the punk guy in skinny jeans who plays Magic and Dungeon and Dragons. The majority of me just loved him and how he made me feel.
Halloween came and I was hitting up a few parties before planning to end the evening at his friend’s house where we usually all crashed. He would play D&D with his buddies and I wouldn’t be there to interrupt, and in turn I would get all my “mainstream” socializing out of the way to end up hanging out when we were both finished. It wasn’t the first time I’d spent the night here– in fact it was becoming routine.
I was buzzed. I was wearing literal underwear as a costume. A bra and cheeky underwear and maybe wings or something. I remember I was wearing red- maybe I was a devil? My buzzed-freshman-college-self danced provocatively throughout the apartment. When my boyfriend finally calmed me with drunk-food and Netflix on the pull-out couch I happily obliged and proceeded to fall into a tipsy slumber after snacking.
They continued to play Halo on their XBox while I dozed in between my boyfriend and his older friend– who I never really liked or understood. He was always the leader of their games that calls the shots and eighteen-year-old me always called him high-school-bully-names in my head: “Loser.” “Dweeb.” “Geek.”. He took the games too seriously and was often rude and demeaning when he was the grown adult hanging out with high-schoolers.
I’m a light sleeper. I was laying on my stomach and felt a hand graze the back of my thigh. I hazily assumed it was my boyfriend, of course. Until the clammy, stubby hand started very slowly inching higher and higher.
Suddenly, I was wide awake- trying to use my stare at my boyfriend like flashing headlights, except he was playing his game and none the wiser. I was frozen and paralyzed with fear. It makes no sense why… I should have blurted out, “What in the hell are you doing?” And I’d have 3-4 people within earshot to come to my immediate support. But I was silent and stiff as board.
When his hand reached to my underwear I pretended to wake up slowly and roll over to go and use the restroom. I was terrified of letting on that I was aware of what just happened. I locked myself in the bathroom and cried. I called my boyfriend in and told him what just happened.
He called in another friend (who’s apartment it was) and we told him. This man was my hero that night- he instructed his accused friend to leave immediately and that he’d call him at a later date. I can vividly recall the back and forth of the conversation where my attacker pretended to be confused and suggested we all clear the air and our friend clarifying that if he didn’t leave it would be much worse for him.
Then we discussed a plan. I immediately announced that I was aware that I could call the cops and report him. His friends- my boyfriend included- begged me not to. They told me how it would ruin his life, his marriage, his job, etc. We agreed on a solution that my attacker would never be allowed into the apartment again when I was present and that my visiting would always take priority to his.
It seemed like a fair compromise at the time. I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s life or marriage, and I wanted to still be “nice”.
The play of events that followed were ultimately his group of friends accepting my attacker back into their usual routine after a month or two and asking me “wasn’t it time I moved on”, questioning the legitimacy of the offense or seriousness of it all. I lost a lot of respect for my boyfriend and eventually stopped going there altogether. We broke up several months later because I just didn’t love him anymore.
Now I think about it now and then, but mostly hope that I was the only one. In fact, it’s usually so far out of my mind that I can’t even recall his name. Until I hear the word “sexual assault” and remember, “Oh, yeah.” What’s weirder is that I feel like his offenses weren’t that big of a deal- in reality it was an unwelcome touch. But it’s how I felt. The stomach lurch and drop. The insane fear and deer-in-headlights stare. It’s the reality of what would have happened if I’d have stayed paralyzed with fear. I felt like I let down my duty of reporting him in case he someday gets braver and tries something worse with someone more vulnerable. I worry about his wife, too. She should have been told. But that’s how my #metoo story goes.
