Ben has been texting Charlie non-stop asking to talk with him, and he finally tracks him down outside the art exhibition in Lambert Art School. Ben wants to apologise for the way he was treating Charlie when they were in a "relationship" (HEAVY quotation marks there), claiming he is a messed up person and his parents wouldn't accept him being gay and he knows he treated Charlie like shit, but he still liked him and thought he was a good thing in his life.

Charlie's reply is what really hit me way harder than I was expecting to.

"Do you remember the first time you kissed me? You didn't even ask. You didn't pause to wonder whether it was what I wanted, and I went along with it because I had a crush, and I didn't know any better. I didn't realise that you had all the control. When I eventually did realise, I thought, 'this must be what I deserve'. Someone taking whatever he wants from me whenever he wants. Treating me like I'm nothing for the rest of the time. And now whenever anything good happens in my life, there's a little voice in the back of my head telling me I'm worthless and that I don't deserve it. And now you want me to forgive you so you can feel better about yourself? I'm glad you realise what you did was wrong, but you don't get to ambush me into forgiving you. 'Sorry' doesn't make up for everything you did to me. I really hope you become a better person so you don't hurt anyone else. But I don't want to be there to see it happen. I don't want to see you ever again."

I just want to say thank you to Alice Oseman for writing this scene, because it gave me words for something that happened to me when I was a teenager.

I was sexually taken advantage of by a person who I had a burning crush for and who basically used me as a tool for his own pleasure. Someone who knew exactly how I felt about him and who could pull my strings to do exactly what he wanted. He could have asked me anything and I would have said yes because I felt I didn't have anything else. He didn't technically do anything against my will and sometimes I even initiated things, but he certainly didn't seem to have any qualms about going through with them despite him being perfectly aware of just how messed up the power balance between us was. And after I managed to end things with him, almost immediately after that there was someone who I thought I was starting to form a connection with and who eventually confessed he just wanted something physical with me.

I felt exactly the way that Charlie did in that moment. That I am just something that people can take their pleasure from and to hell with my feelings. Not even a human being, just some tool to be used and discarded.

It's been ten years and I have had one relationship since it happened. One. And I am definitely not aromantic since I have definitely had intense crushes on people, nor am I entirely asexual since there's definitely been times I've wanted to do stuff – though I am pretty sure I do exist somewhere on the asexual spectrum since it's definitely not as strong or frequent as I understand allos experience. That is how much those experiences fucked me up, and (as messed up as that is) I still consider myself "lucky" since technically nothing happened against my will or anything. I just didn't realise that I had a true choice back then, or that I shouldn't even have been responsible for making that choice. There is still that little voice in my head telling me that I don't deserve a happy relationship. (Though I have also since realised that there is a lot more to happiness that romance, but that's a topic for entirely another post.)