Stuff & Things

Two D&D characters of mine! Norbert the friendly Dragonborn, his charisma is garbage but he did manage to befriend the literal Devil this one time. And a Kenku Bard. He plays the Autoharp, wears a sparkly white glove, is the king of pop (covers only tho because Kenkus can only mimic sounds)

To my former best friend of 10 years/ sexual assailant,

As I read the letter of "apology" you were forced to pen to me, I realize you have learned nothing from this experience.

You have apologized for my feelings, you have apologized for “miscommunication". You have apologized, not for committing the horrible acts you did, but for getting caught. And I find you completely repulsive for this.

At what point during our 10+ years of being friends did you stop seeing me as a human being and start seeing me as an amalgamation of body parts that you were owed simply because you stuck around long enough? At what point did your supposed "sexual frustration" trump my desires as an individual?

Apparently, the night of January 1st 2015. That was the night when you assaulted me in my own home.  

It was a small party and we had all had a lot to drink. Except you, you were stone cold sober, you drove home that night. I could barely walk or string together cohesive thoughts when you decided it was your moment. Your moment to calculatedly get me alone, where no one could stop you or question your actions. Your moment to finally reap the rewards of gracing me with your friendship for 10 long years. In that moment, you, in your own words "gave in to peer pressure". Whether or not everyone in your little boys club of friends had told you you should date me, it was never license for you to take advantage of me the way you did. 

I have some truth for you. I never owed you sex because you chose to be my friend. You did, however, owe me the decency to not assault me when I was so drunk I could not consent.

The one night I took a break from being your conscience, your voice of reason ... you do this? 

The one night I take a vacation from being your ever vigilant Jiminy Cricket ... you did THIS. 

I'll never accept your bullshit apology. Because you still haven't apologized. You've accepted consequences but you still don't understand what you did. You've gone through all of the processes and looked judges and lawyers and police officers in the eye and said "yes, okay. Yes I understand." But you can't understand, because you haven't had to look me in the eye. And now you're off the hook, you'll never have to face me. You can go on with your life and pretend that nothing happened. This entire ordeal has been a small bout of inconvenience in your otherwise pristine life. You can move on now.

But I can't. 

I've felt countless emotions: rage, sadness, guilt. Rage, that you could have done this to me. Sadness, at the loss of one of my best friends. Guilt, that I didn't do enough (despite my abilities at the time) to stop you, that maybe it was my fault for not making it clear enough to you that you didn't have the right to my space in that way.

I've been asked too many invasive questions: "what were you wearing?", "how much did you drink?", "why were you that drunk?", "if you were that drunk, how do you even remember what happened?", "why didn't you fight him?", "why didn't you do something?"

How many questions have you been forced to answer? How many questions did you have the luxury to choose never to answer?

Your written apology will never be good enough because you still haven't apologized for what you did. You still haven't apologized for your actions. 

Let me tell you what is truly heartbreaking. You do everything you can to be a good friend to someone for 10 years and in the end they still see you as an object they are entitled to use in whichever way they please. You do everything right, you go to the police, you press charges. You get told you're brave and to be proud of yourself because you did the right thing. You reported a crime, you are not just another statistic in the "sexual assaults that go unreported" category. You get told you will receive some justice because the person who took so much away from you has settled and will write you a letter and accept a lesser charge as part of a peace bond. You are spared going to court to have a defense attorney rip apart every fiber of your character.

You do ALL of this and hold yourself together.

You receive that letter of apology ... it's not even one page long, and all it translates to is "I'm not sorry I did it, I'm sorry you got upset". And everyone looks at you now and says "time to move on, there's your justice", as if that shitty apology should have miraculously healed all your wounds. Everyone collectively looks at you as if your story is over and they can stop worrying about you now because the book has been closed, an apology was given, justice has been done, and it’s your job to move on because everything is fine now, right?

But it's not and it won't be for a damn long time.

And that’s what's fucking heartbreaking.

But you'll never know pain like that because you'll never have to look me in the eye again.

To My Garbage, Sub-Human, Compulsive Liar Ex- Boyfriend,

I will not thank you in this letter. I am stronger because of what you put me through, but that was my doing, not yours. I’ll never let you take credit for what I’ve salvaged of the mess you left in your wake.

I am by no means over it, and I may never be. By “it”, do not confuse me for meaning “you”. I am over you specifically. I am, however, not over what you did to me, all of the the emotional torture you subjected me to and the countless lies you told me in order to save your own face.

So let’s start with the lies. When you left you said you were dealing with a “mental health issue”. As it would turn out, your only “mental health issue” was you being a lying, unfaithful, sack of crap (which I would find out much, much, much, later, due to the compliance of your enabling friends). I stayed concerned far longer than I should have. You never deserved my concern. You were a coward who never could take responsibility for your own disgusting actions.

I treated you like gold when we were together. I put you on a pedestal and that was my mistake because you really did fall into feeling like you were better than me quite comfortably. You were hostile and defensive whenever I asked about your past, like you were hiding some deep dark tortured secret. Or perhaps all of the grandiose tales you had told me about all of your accomplishments were never true and you feared I would eventually come to piece together your haphazard web of lies on my own.

I should have seen my future in the way you spoke to your ex on the phone.

But you were a good liar and I felt special, even if only for a while. I wasn’t, and she won’t be either … eventually.

You’ll get bored of her eventually. Or maybe you won’t, that is the luxury of dating someone who is obsessed with you, isn’t it? They’ll worship you forever. Maybe she’ll never make the mistake of questioning you. Maybe she’ll never start to see you as a technical equivalent. Maybe her constructively criticizing your work won’t emasculate you so much that you need to resort to cheating on her with someone significantly younger than her in order to sufficiently stroke your deflating ego. All I’d ever wanted was to be my best self with you at my side, but you were too self-absorbed to ever notice. You always did think I was asking you to do it all for me.

I don’t know what you told everyone in your life when things ended, but I can only assume it was another falsehood. A falsehood constructed so everyone could allow themselves to believe I was the unhinged, mess I’m sure you hoped to paint me as.

And for a while, it was touch and go. I was a bit of a mess.

I’ve rebuilt now. Not completely, but close. I no longer have night terrors about your betrayal, so I’ve got that going for me. And believe me, that is a win. I have someone who loves me in a way you were unable to. Someone who treats me with more respect and affection than someone like you will ever be capable of, in your small, self-absorbed life. 

I’m not writing this to assure you I’m doing okay now, though. I don’t want you to ever feel okay about what you did to the girl who loved you so unconditionally you were able to completely blindside her with your infidelity. I don’t want you to ever rest easy with the way you devastated me. I’m writing this for myself. I’m writing this because I’ll probably never know your truth. I’ll never know what was real and what wasn’t in the time I spent with you. I’ll never have the closure I would like or deserve.  

So I’ll have to settle for this. This letter is my truth and at the very least, I can own that.

Fuck you, I hate you, you are and always will be absolute trash, Y.