(This is something I wrote regarding my rape two years after it happened, so in 2013. This was written during a time when I largely did not associate with or speak with my rapist anymore, which evidently was a time I was more able to acknowledge in the privacy of my own computer that he had abused me. Even this awareness would fade into repression by the following year. I thought this piece was pretty enlightening to my conflicted relationship with my experience, as it shows I clearly realize some things were wrong, yet I underplay the extent of the offense.)

Every so often, memories of my time as [rapist]’s fuck buddy come flying back…

And usually they help me take, yet another, small step towards closure. Usually they paint a clearer image for me to accept that I was used and abused. Sometimes it takes someone else’s side of a story, too. But sometimes, they’re just random memories that I guess I repressed. Or maybe I forgot, which is typical for me, but when it comes to reflecting on my “relationship” with [rapist], I’m not in my typical mind.

The reason why I’m thinking about this now, is because of a completely random moment. It was when he had me thinking I might be pregnant, but he still wouldn’t let me tell anyone that we were having this affair. There were a plethora of reasons why I really needed to talk to someone who wasn’t him about what was happening. For one, I lost my virginity, and that’s a big deal. Also, it was with someone I really trusted who was my best friend at the time, who was dating the nicest girl who I’ve known in my entire life. And there was one other thing… oh yeah, I thought I was pregnant. And I was freaking out. And he was freaking out, or at least pretending to. I’ll never know. But there was really no reason why I should think I wasn’t pregnant. For one, more times than not, the sex at least started without a condom. And that would be the only method of birth control when we did use one. And I was late. In the past sometimes I’d be a couple days or at most a week late, but once I hit the two week mark, I knew I wouldn’t be getting my period. And for as long as I’d had my period (which in reality was less than two years), I’d only ever missed a month twice. So yeah, I was late. The kind of late where I knew I wasn’t getting it that month. And I couldn’t talk to anyone because my trusted best friend who stole my virginity while dating a friend of mine couldn’t let the fact that we were continuing to fuck, by the way, (unprotected most of the time, of course, because “since you’re already pregnant, we don’t need a condom,” and he “prefers bareback,” which I needed to urbandictionary, since I didn’t understand what riding a horse without a saddle had anything to do with anything.)

So, what I remembered is I went on omegle — that stupid anonymous chat where you get paired with a stranger who, if you’re lucky, is not masturbating. No, I went on omegle, and I told somebody what was going on. And they were the only person for a month other than [rapist] and me who knew that [rapist] and I biblically knew each other. And I’ll never know if they actually believed me or if they thought they were just humoring some asshole, or if it was coincidentally my neighbor who may have been peeping through my window and knew I was serious(ly fucked), but they sure were helpful. Just to have an ear to listen to and tell me, yeah, what you’re feeling is scary and that sucks, was really amazing.

It was just a funny memory.

I remember right before I broke up with [ex] which he was coaching me through (so less than a week before [rapist] and I began our little tryst), [rapist] and I were on omegle video together, and we were having a legitimately good time, and then he started putting the camera at my boobs, which made me uncomfortable but also flattered me because he noticed them, and to be fair, I wasn’t hiding them. Shortly after he showed me a text message that said something along the lines of, “I like to give blowjobs with condoms so I can lick up all the lube,” to which he laughed and claimed he didn’t understand why people told him stuff like that. I then asked who sent it to him, because he had blocked the name, but I could see the number. He said he wouldn’t tell me. Then in a moment which, from an observer’s perspective I imagine would look like an awkward silence where two American teens forget they are with people in real life and immerse themselves in their phones, I punched the number in my phone to realize it was a friend of ours named [redacted], while he changed [redacted]’s contact name to an older girl’s name. It was really clever. I never called him out on it.

I wonder how many memories I have left to remember. I wonder if I even know what really went down at all.