Marcus High School's Online Newspaper

The Marquee

Marcus High School's Online Newspaper

The Marquee

Marcus High School's Online Newspaper

The Marquee

It’s not my fault

Its+not+my+fault

I’ll never forget the way you grabbed me. The way you held me in that tree house at midnight, and whispered “please” in my ear countless times. I’ll never forget the way you quickly forced yourself on me, knowing I’d put up a fight. I’ll never forget the way the swing set looked through my tears as I tried to focus on anything else besides your face. I’ll never forget the way that you took me back to your car afterwards, all of my fight gone and all of my dignity stripped away. I’ll never forget the way you sat in the driver’s seat, silent as if I had just done something horrible to you, and not the other way around. I’ll never forget that night.

For a few days afterwards, everything made me nervous. I would jump at every raised voice or loud noise. I felt alone and scared, like I needed to hide my impurity.

There was no one I felt I could go to, until one day while with a friend, I decided to speak up. I told him what happened to me, skipping the details I wanted to forget. I thought I finally had a person to trust. Although he knew my attacker, he didn’t know him well, so I didn’t think it would have much of an impact on his reaction. I told my friend everything I could and waited to see what he would say about my attacker.

“Oh, that sounds a lot like something he would do,” he said.

Those words hit me like a truck, yet my friend didn’t realize the impact of his comment. His words implied that I was naive and should have known better. It came off as though it was ok I was raped. I felt so ashamed as though I should have known that it would have happened. That I should have known after the first words I ever spoke to my attacker, that he would later strip me of my self-esteem late one night.

Later, another close friend of mine implied that I was at fault. This was a friend that I had countless times gone to for help. This was a friend I thought I could trust and that I thought would be there for me. As I was on the verge of tears after telling him my experience and the aftermath I’ve had to deal with, out came those words that still make me angry.

“You know how he is.”

Apparently I didn’t. I didn’t know that this guy I thought was a friend would turn into my attacker. That a time where I just wanted to get a bite to eat, he was looking for something more. I started getting angry after that. Why should I know someone is a rapist? Why was it ok that he was like that, but not okay that I didn’t know? Why do we live in a world where some people see rape as a crime, and some people don’t?

This happened with three of my friends who knew the attacker. They weren’t shocked. They kept implying that I shared some of the blame. Before now, I only told about six people, and three of them blamed me for it. Since my attacker is still friends with many of mine, his name stills pops up in a few conversations. And when I tell friends not to mention him, they always ask “Why?” which prompts me to act like we had an argument, rather than the truth. Hearing his name always causes my stomach to churn, especially when it’s my sister or brother that say his name, no matter how many times I ask them to never bring him up.

But it doesn’t make sense to me as to why his name is still in my friends conversations. If this was another crime, such as one where I’d end up in the hospital, then most of my friends would not mention him. So I don’t understand why rape is any different. To some, it appears to be a big deal when I ask them to sever contact with him — but it’s not a big deal for him to have raped me. I could never be ok with saying that one of my friends is rapist, and I hope no one else could either. But for many of my friends, they ignore that part about him, which is the only part about him that I see.

I’ve been asked what I would’ve done differently about the experience and the answer isn’t as simple as I hoped. I would definitely not tell the friends who reacted poorly, and I would have tried talking it out more with people, rather than keeping it inside for so long as so many others do. But for the rest, I don’t know if there’s anything I would be able to change. As demeaning as this experience has been, I have grown and learned so much to help myself and others in the future. And no matter the intensity of it, sexual assault and rape are never something to be neglected, so if you know someone struggling, find them help and be there for them.

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About the Contributor
Cara Crocker, Copy Editor
Hi! My name is Cara Crocker and I'm the Copy Editor on staff. I am a senior and I've been on staff for three years. I love writing and I'm so excited to see what we do this year. I love coffee and my hedgehog Edgar. I hope this year is the best yet!

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