And you know, I never talked about it.
Everyone knew we were together, well, not exactly. You had loved me and I had loved you, but we never had a term for it, for reasons unknown and untold to me.
Since the moment we began talking, all you would talk about was sex.
And the first time you tried to kiss me, I felt my shoulders burn like there was a fire starting from inside out, licking my muscles and screaming, 'Run! Go!'. So I told you my mom was in the parking lot of the high school which we met and that I had to leave.
We spent endless nights, beginning to end, high school bedroom to your college dorm being the background of Skype calls.
And the other woman, I always was. The one who didn't put out, that is.
And I should have followed my gut in that hallway that first day.
But I didn't, and I played along on and on, wanting to be loved, wanting substance.
But all you wanted was my virginity and damn it if you didn't take it.
Not by force. No, force wasn't yet. By begging and pleading, I said no until my face turned blue but then I said yes and God knows why I did.
But it was not rape. Not to me. Coercion yes, wrong yes.
But you had not done to me what you had done to those other girls.
No, you defiled me in other ways.
Hands pressed on the back of my skull, pushing pushing pushing while I was trying something new, making me scared, making me cry, my breath impossible to catch. Ruining an act of foreplay that even all these years later I still hold some fear towards.
What was that act then? Even when you told me you wanted a rape scene with no safe word I thought it was okay, I just wanted to be loved and I would have done anything for you to love me.
Except that. I never did that.
But now all these years later I see. I was sexually assaulted. I was defiled. My body, a temple, robbed by someone who I trusted. I placed my faith in a wildfire and ended up burned in the end.
And it took me many years to realize what happened to me had happened.
And it was not love. It was not okay. It was wrong. It was sexual assault. And I never told anyone, because I had loved you. I, sixteen years old, was too afraid to lose you that I accepted losing myself. I accepted being hurt. I accepted what was wrong and was assault because two, almost three years ago, I thought love was okay if it was violent and invasive and made me feel uncomfortable and defiled.
And two, almost three years from then, I know it is not.
