Finding Him
Beginning the search for the man who sexually assaulted me.
It was the Spring in 2006.
I was out of town visiting a group of friends. Crashing on their couch. We all went out for happy hour. A couple hours later the crowd had dwindled to just two of us. Him and me. He was my friend. I was not romantically interested in him (by any definition of romance). He was just a platonic male friend.
I was drunk.
My last clear memory was using the bathroom at the bar. The rest of the night is just a flash here and there. A flash of us walking back to the flat, I was stumbling. A flash of a bench at the edge of a field. His arm was around my waist, supporting my stumbling. I recall being impressed with him thinking to myself, “What a good guy he is, walking his wasted 18-year-old friend home! I’m glad I have such nice friends.”
The next memory is of him on top of me in a bed.
I’m struggling against him. My arm and one of my hands are being held down by him. I’m trying to wiggle away, saying, “No. Stop.”
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When I wake up the next morning I’m confused. I was supposed to sleep on the couch, but I was in his bed. I was naked from the waist down. My shirt had been pushed up above my bra, scrunched up like an inner tube under my armpits.
There wasn’t a blanket on the bed. I felt really cold. I realized the bed was wet. I had peed in his bed.
As I swung my legs to move off the bed I noticed my hips, thighs and body were sore. Then I saw my panties on the floor. Next to my panties was a used condom wrapper. In a trashcan by the bedside table was a used condom.
I needed to vomit. I did vomit once I got to the bathroom.
I don’t remember seeing anyone that morning as I hastily grabbed my stuff and fled from the apartment. The last thing I did before leaving was put his sheets in the washing machine.
I never reported this incident.
For years now I’ve debated what to do with this story. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings last week had such a profound effect on me, that I feel silence is no longer the right strategy. Her story could just as easily be my story. I don’t want to wait until he’s being sworn into higher office before I open my mouth.
I don’t know where he is now. I made two preliminary probes into my past to locate him.
This is the start of my journey to find him and confront him.
