My #Metoo Story

I know that many people have shared their stories and mine isn’t as horrible as some, but I’m putting it out here just to get it off my chest because I think about this a lot.

It started in sixth grade when I was walking home. That day was different from any other. I had walked my friend home and waited for her to change before walking her back to school (she lived blocks away it wasn’t a big deal). After dropping her back off at school, I began walking home. It wasn’t even a full mile so walking back was about fifteen minutes for me.

I remember these boys all on bikes and they were riding the same direction as me but across the street. One of them came to my side, then another. The rest branched off, I assume they went home. One of the boys was light-skinned and the other was a redhead. I never learned the name of the redhead, but the black boy’s name is Mat (I’m not going to give his name here).

I had never seen these kids before.

While I was walking, Mat was going on about my body like an absolute creep and he brings up my purple hair as a new conversation starter. I shrug it off as I’m getting increasingly more uncomfortable with the situation and he gets mad at me for not responding to him, so he gets aggressive. He then goes off on me all while the redhead is telling him to shut up and assuring me that his friend was just an idiot. I kept walking, saying as little as possible to the boys.

As I continued walking, the redhead went home, leaving me alone with Mat. I got to my house but he was still there, so I passed it, opting for my friend’s house instead. As I knocked on the door, he continuously asked “did you forget your keys?” and “locked out?” but he eventually left. After I was sure he couldn't see me, I sneaked back home and waited for him to stop riding around the street.

The next day I walked home from school a little weary, but the football team was still at the high school, so if I ran into Mat again, they’d be my safety net. He was there again and he began to harass me again but one of the footballers called him over, giving me enough time to run home.

In school, whenever he saw me in the halls, he’d yell out for me. I tried not to let him know my name and he became the reason why I stopped wearing my student ID on a lanyard. His friends would tease me over it whenever he was near. It was tortuous in school. I began memorizing where his classes were to avoid him in the passing time between classes.

The day after, I was walking home and the boy was there again. When he looked at me, something triggered inside me and I ran. I had never been properly “in shape,” so even I was surprised when I ducked into an alley behind the shops on one of the busiest roads in town. I ran for what may have five minutes while he chased after me on his bike. I weaved through stores and ran into the first one I saw while he was still behind the strip of stores. The woman working in the dress shop happened to understand my fear and offered to watch for him until he left, letting me leave when the coast looked clear — but it wasn’t. Mat had been waiting behind the stores and the moment I began crossing the street he began to harass me again until he grew bored and trailed off.

The following day, I began walking home again but this time I walked to the town’s border and began to cut across to my house simply to avoid Mat, though I didn’t know that side of the town and quickly got lost. In my desperation to get home, I began crying and it took me over an hour to get home in what should have been a fifteen-minute walk. Not only had this stranger affected my daily routine, but he also damaged my confidence and made me scared to walk home. My school’s counselor was able to figure out who he was and he hadn’t bothered me after school since then, but whenever he saw me in the halls, he’d yell at me for getting him in trouble and threaten to hit me.

There feels to be no proper way to finish this story other than to remind people to teach their kids—especially boys — not to be absolute creeps to people in public.