#ex stud

Inspired by the Unsent project:

TW: mention of SA and coercion, SA, physical restraint, violence, mention of rape in conversational context, homophobia, physical abuse, emotional abuse, bullying

Old friend,

I remember being 11 and I remember your first day in school as the new girl when you introduced yourself and everyone found out you were the oldest in the grade, opposite of me, I was the youngest. You called me cute, you were surprised, that felt nice, I wasn't used to "cute."

I remember my 13th birthday party that you missed and I remember scooping and throwing away my sister's cat's shit just so you could meet me in my neighborhood parking lot by the trashcans for a quicky. I was a bit young, no? You would let me know you arrived at the last minute every time and you were always hitting your Elf Bar when I got there, a relic.

You were 16 and a half. You were old enough to know.

I remember we were in art class and you usually didn't speak to me in school, but you let me talk to you there. I'm an artist, and you needed my help, and I liked feeling needed by you. In every other class, you only needed 'him.'

Our parallels were so funny. He was the tallest in the entire school and I wasn't too far behind. He and I had similar personalities and we were friends before. Me being a stud at the time, I was hoping you would take a liking to me if I was more like ‘him.’ I could tell you liked him and I could tell that you liked what I could do for you.

Sometimes I get really high and I think about how even though you let me touch you and you touched me when you felt like it no matter how I felt, you never had lunch with me a single time. I sat alone almost every day.

My boldest memory of you is not when I went to your house for the first time and that knife was in your wall by the time I left, when you hit me because that boy tried to kiss me, when you outed me to the entire school, or when you gave 'him' a hand job in the middle of art class when we were still together and got sent to the dean's office.

My boldest memory of you comes from Health class in the cafeteria when they were renovating the basketball hoops so we couldn't use the gym as usual. We were having our Sex Ed unit, our class was on thin ice, but you still did it.

The topic of lesbian sex safety comes up and you immediately say to the class that I must know a lot about it. You knew what the girls would say to me and the boys would threaten to do to me, because of how I dressed, but you said it anyway.

I brushed you off and I paid you no mind, but you demanded my attention whether it was to embarrass me or not. Nothing in that curriculum would compare to what you were up to with me on Saturdays, so I guess there wasn't much to discuss. The topic quickly changed back to straight sex.

I thought nothing of 'him' unless you said something. You decided to, because you wanted my attention. You start asking the teacher questions about sex. With a penis and with a man. I didn’t have that. The questions progressively got more and more specific and explicit and farther and farther away from what I was capable of. And you made eye contact with him the whole time until the teacher threatened you with a demerit for your behavior. And I felt invisible, because you were looking at him. But, it truly was all for me.

It didn't end there that day, our teacher had to grab papers off the printer, so she left the room, and you choked me in Health class and you did it in front of everyone. You degraded me in front of everybody and it didn’t feel good or sexy, it felt disgusting. For two minutes, I stood in fear, and you stood with your hand wrapped tightly around my neck, telling me every way that I don’t compare to him. The teacher left and you set me up. She left for a second and your first thought was to hurt me.

Now what really makes that memory bold is not that you choked me or that you were clearly cheating and I just took it all like a good bitch. It’s the fact that before I left the room to clean myself up in the bathroom, you called me a dyke. And I told you that if there was ever a word that had been used to hurt me, it was that.

Some might say that should be the least of my worries. Especially since after school on that day you sent ‘him’ to me to ask for a threesome. My own girlfriend asking me as a stud for a threesome with the boy she’s cheating on me with and sending him to do it, nice. I say no. He says “I didn’t want to anyway. —— told me to ask.” That wasn’t true.

That night you spam called me and you apologized over text over and over. I didn’t respond to you.

The next day at school, you acted normal about everything. I guess I did too, I knew no better.

He comes up to me for the first time that morning and he slams my head into the doorframe of our English Classroom. I don’t make a sound. Everyone nearby stared at me waiting for me to do something. And I don’t know if you were behind it or not because you weren’t with me, and he was with me, so you weren’t with ‘him,’ so I don’t know where the fuck you were or what you had to do with that.

I got fed up. I walked up to him at his seat. He slammed my head into the doorframe, didn’t say a word, and sat down in his seat as if I was nothing. I was on my period, and I was not having it. So, I socked him in the face, he got up, and then I beat him until I felt it was enough.

Other than 3 days in ISS with him in the same room as me, the worse parts were that you spoke against me as a witness when you weren’t there and that you didn’t speak to me or see me for a week, and when you finally decided to show up to my house unannounced again, you’d come up to my garage this time, in front of the cameras, and punch me in the stomach and spit at my feet.

My mom never saw the footage. But you wanted her to. I don’t know what you wanted out of that.

On the next day of school, he pinned me to my locker during a bathroom break. I didn’t expect to see him and I don’t know how he found me. He held my arms down as I tried to move. I couldn’t, he was 6’3 and I was 5’10. I was too weak and he held me against the locker, pulled me closer to him by the button on my jeans, and he grabbed my right breast so hard that it was bruised the next day. He said that if I didn’t stay away from——— that he’d rape me. Then he just left me. I stayed silent, and I did not finish school that day. I got in trouble for skipping.

You wanted ‘him’ so badly. And I wanted you more.

Old friend, I still don’t know what you wanted with me when you already had him. I wish I had never met you, but you taught me so much. I remember loving you, and I know that you needed it, but why me?

Please don’t reach out,