This describes the man who raped me perfectly. I say man but he was 16 when he raped me. We were at a party and he suggested we should go upstairs. I said no twice and suggested we stay downstairs. He batted his eyelashes and insisted things would be fine and that he would stop if things went too fast. I was young and naive and I fell for it. In my mind I had no reason not to believe him.

He had to hear from other people what he did to me. He said he didn’t remember it. He looked sincerely ashamed and apologized, and yet he harassed me for months afterward, asking when we were going to “hang out” again. He later confronted me at a party and asked me why I was saying that he raped me. (I wasn’t saying this, everyone else was).

It was then that I realized he would never truly understand. Explaining it seemed pointless at that point.