Screw It. Today Sucks. A Year Ago, I Was Assaulted.

Yeah, my trigger is green beer and pots of gold.

You know, I was going to write a longass post about how you were me and my boyfriend’s friend since high school and last year, on St. Patrick’s Day, when he and I were on a relationship break, you decided to repeatedly grope me and shove your tongue down my throat while I protested and fought so hard that I had bruised arms for weeks. Now I know that I was “lucky” for not being raped and merely being sexually assaulted. As you let me know.

I was also going to mention how our other friend was passed out on the street and I was absolutely shitfaced (you encouraged me to drink away my heartbreak and told me you’d make sure I got home safe, and I did because I trusted you since you were my friend for seven years) and you were pretty sober, of course. I was physically incapacitated, but still had enough wits about me to say no and even record myself saying no on my phone’s voice memo app while you were begging me to make out because something in me sensed danger, even though I didn’t want to believe it (right before things escalated and you decided fuck it, I’ll just force her). I felt that I couldn’t leave because my other friend was a crumpled heap on the floor and it was a two-person job to move him, and you used him to keep me around.

I was going to mention the end of the night, when you sent off my friend in a Lyft while I was hunched over some bushes dry heaving, and when I turned around he was being driven away and it was just you and I next to a freeway ramp in Hollywood at 3am. I was going to mention how I felt ice in my heart and sheer, unadulterated terror, knowing your home was a couple blocks away and the streets were somehow completely deserted on St Patrick’s Day of all days. I remember you trying to flirt, stepping closer to me, giving the illusion of romance and choice because you knew I had no choice. I remember me leading you away from the freeway ramp so you couldn’t throw me over it when I said no, because I’d rather you bash my head against the concrete than say yes.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t trick you. Even swaying, drunk, and vulnerable, I did my best to protect myself. We were alone and I played coy; I continued to say “no” but employed a flirty demeanor because you literally could have murdered me if you wanted to. I would use your perverse desire for me to manipulate you into not raping me. By flirting back, I would keep you at bay; I’d pretend to be a tease instead of a victim. I pretended to play on my phone while recording sound and throwing you cutesy looks while I wanted to grab a rock and smash it over your head, and later when I listened to the recording my stomach turned at my unnaturally highpitched flirtatious baby voice that was secretly begging “please don’t hurt me anymore. Oh god, oh god, how do I get out of this without being raped?”. The only way to get away was to give you the illusion that I wanted to stay. Otherwise if I protested you could’ve easily grabbed my phone and smashed it; after all, you had just sexually assaulted me. No, now that I knew what you were capable of I needed to be smart. But of course you’d say later that I wanted all of it from the beginning even though I said no repeatedly.

I ordered a Lyft and you were confused, thinking we’d get into it together. I stepped inside and loudly proclaimed that I’d be going home alone and the driver sped off. I felt such a wave of relief that I smiled and sighed, a cue the driver took to mean that I wanted to fuck him (of course). He flirted with me, showing me a picture on his phone of him and Jimmy Fallon, as if I was supposed to blow him for that. He made me promise to friend him on FaceBook and I could’ve gouged his eyes out from rage (how dare he put my safety at risk when I just escaped such a dangerous situation) and I smiled and promised and got the fuck home and didn’t write a bad review because I’d given him my real address.

I woke up the next morning, everything fresh in my mind, and I sat on my couch, swinging from numb to repulsed to furious to heartbroken. My roommate was gone for spring break so I sat on it for hours and I dissected the night, listening to the recordings over and over, analyzing every selfie, piecing the parts I didn’t remember together. I looked at the time and eight hours had passed. I don’t remember when the next time I ate was.

I was going to mention how I told people around me about it and how loved ones sprang to victim blaming or downgrading it to “well be happy he didn’t rape you!”. “I’m thrilled” I’d reply dryly, looking away and changing the subject. They eventually came around after a few weeks, sure, but their knee-jerk reaction was scolding me for trusting someone that had been my friend for one third of my entire life.

“Why did you get so drunk?”

“Why didn’t you leave earlier?”

“Why didn’t you try harder to fight him off?”

“Why were you so flirty?”

“Why did you go out with just two guys?”

No matter how many times I explained my reasoning, it all came down to me being an idiot for trusting him in the first place. The big mistake was that I was “stupid enough” to have drinks with people that had been my friends since before Obama was president. Sure.

I was lucky enough to have a strong network of women around me, my sorority sisters, and without them I would’ve gone batshit crazy because of course, fellow college-aged women were the only people around me who understood how fucked up this was. I told my ex (who I eventually reconciled with) and he and I cut off all ties with you and he would go on to dry my tears when I sobbed about it and hold my hair back when I puked after just one beer because it reminded me of that goddamn green beer. Somehow, in a disturbing but necessary way, we mourned the loss of your friendship together. We missed the man we thought we knew. He was dead to us and we buried him and we cried despite ourselves, each embarrassed in front of the other, unable to articulate why we were sad over you. I told my other friend who had been there that night passed out on the floor, and I braced myself for losing him too. He blew me away just by listening to me. How sad is that? I didn’t think he would. I wonder how much he remembers. I wonder how much he witnessed. I don’t blame him. I dragged my ass to therapy for months so I could stop blaming myself. I blame you.

Because we were friends so long (or rather, because we spent so much time together while you accrued more intel on your target, me) I know exactly how miserable you are with your unrewarding life. Good. Stay that way.

I don’t hope that you die, by the way. I hope that you keep living your meaningless, pathetic, sack-of-shit life until the moment you take your last worthless breath. You are trash. No, most trash served a purpose once. You are worse.

I cannot trust men. I know a lot of people say that, but I literally cannot trust men. I want to sometimes. I really want to. But I just can’t. How can I trust people that I’ve known a fraction of the time that I knew you when you betrayed me like that? When we had seven years of happy memories and one traumatizing one? I know not all men are like you, but how am I supposed to trust anyone when you passed every test for years on end and revealed your true self on just one night? How? How do I know that the memories I make with male friends now won’t haunt me after the day they decide I’m their prey? I pretend to trust and tell myself that I do, but deep down I don’t. When a male friend asks me to lunch I either organize a group of three or more people or don’t go. If a male friend asks me to go out for drinks I say “yeah sure, maybe another week, this one is crazy” and never go. When a guy wants to lend an ear to relationship troubles, I gush about how much I love my boyfriend and change the subject. Clearly the only thing that stopped you for years was that I was dating your bro. Suddenly I wasn’t, and that’s when you pounced. I’ll wear any armor I can. I think I’m traumatized. I think I’m wiser. I don’t know. The only thing I know is that I’m different now, for better or worse, so I’ve got to pretend it’s good. I will not let it be bad.

I’ve always been careful. I was the friend who made everyone eat carbs before we partied. I was the “oh hell no you don’t” friend who dragged a drunk friend out of a guy’s arms who was taking her home. I literally got an A in a semester-long self defense class that I took in college because I knew that at a height of five feet tall I was an easy target. I watched anyone who made my drinks like a hawk (if I wasn’t making them myself) and I always let people know where I was going. I was careful. I let my guard down once, because of trust. Once. I was the friend who was never afraid to tell a man no. I’m still that friend, but now I’m also the one that grips the steering wheel a little harder when she has to drive through Hollywood and who had to calm herself down to slow her heart rate when she opened her FaceBook app and saw this:

This is a shitty day. This day will keep happening over and over. I’ll see people wearing green, I’ll have friends ask me to get drunk and celebrate, I’ll be bombarded with “Happy St. Patrick’s Day!” no matter where I look, from the outside world to television to the internet to fucking PetCo (you can enter the code “shamrock” today for a 20% discount and a light panic attack). I don’t collapse into a crying mess when I see this stuff; I usually get a sinking feeling in my gut or slightly shaky hands but I usually am able to move on to another thought. That doesn’t mean I’m over it or that there aren’t times when I do cry or avoid certain things because of it. I’m dealing with it. I can’t control this day, but I sure as hell won’t let it control me.

Huh. I guess I did write a longass piece.