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It is Thursday August 22, 2019. Wow, what a fucking intro.
Three days ago I had a mental breakdown triggered by my roommates’ friendly banter. It was a hysteria cocktail: a dash of unprecedented anger mixed with two ounces of hyped-up violent shaken with hypothetical scenarios of what they would do during a home invasion. Why they would need a gun. They screamed with the passions of a lion’s roar, and hissed with disgust at the other’s opinion. “If someone, a stranger, walked onto my property with the intent to steal or potential hurt me, I am killing them. I refuse to let my last moments be in terror; I refuse to die in fear. What if they rape me? What if they kill me? I don’t know these people--”
The next day, someone tried to break in. I was home alone.
Uncanny. Two strangers I did not know were trying to barge into the front door of the house one foot away from my open bedroom window. Strange. I had no urge to grab a knife; to protect myself; to fight. In fact, I thought they needed help. Actually, the woman was crouching. I thought she was leaving something.
I would’ve opened the door if I didn’t come around the corner and made eye contact with the woman staring into my living room. I would’ve opened the door if she didn’t immediately grab her backpack and run towards the street with the man who was jiggling the doorknob. I would’ve opened the door to the two black, one male wearing a red baseball cap and a striped blue shirt, and one female, the female was crouching, she was wearing a pink tank top, light denim jeans, and her afro was pushed back with a white headband just to ask what was wrong. I would’ve opened the door, and who knows what would’ve happened to me?
I was alone. And after I watched them run away I went back to my bedroom, laid down, and texted my roommates to inform them of the confounding irony I now faced.
The day prior I was up until 2 am at a park with an ex-boyfriend balling my eyes out sobbing with snot dripping down my face because I thought I was going to die when I was raped. And as he talked about himself—as if he was some god-like figure advising me on the hardships of my life—I could not stop thinking about the oppressed yet unrelenting fear I still had about my worth, my life…me. The third time and last time I was raped (fuck that’s hard to write) I thought I would die. Here I was, thinking I’d drive up to Boulder for an apology and maybe dinner if I was lucky and nothing more. But it was more. As soon as I was about to leave, he threatened to commit suicide because he was so miserable with his life in a new state with no friends (no wonder fucking ass) that he couldn’t go on. I meant something to him.
So I stayed.
And as he slammed his bedroom door behind me I was forced to lay in his bed. I uncomfortably laid on the edge staring at his door waiting for his roommates to come home and knock. I laid there, fully clothed, watching his favorite show until he received a message. His current girlfriend, a gal from New Orleans. He paused the show, confessed he had cheated on me during our two-month one-sided fiasco, and stated that he was going to break up with this other girl. I was numb. Regardless of what our relationship had been, was, and could’ve been, I felt as though I had fallen for the same narrative so many boys had told me before. I hated myself; how naïve I was to trust someone again? Yet the empathetic piece of shit in me stayed because I didn’t want to lose someone who—despite treating me like shit—forced me into believing he meant something to me.
See the cat? See the cradle?
I said no when he touched and sighed that he wanted to cuddle me, I said no to him taking off his pants to “sleep more comfortably”, I said no to him putting his arm around me to bring me closer, I said no to his offer of breakfast in the morning, I said no to his half-hearted apologies, and no to when he asked me if I was okay with everything he just told me: my no could not withstand a 6’4”, 230lb man. My no could not hold the belt around my waist, the button that was cinched behind the belt, and the zipper that broke. No never meant convince me, no never meant try me. No wasn’t sexual, kinky, or challenging. No was no. But, no led me soaking in blood and shaking in his bed too scared to move for fear no would kill me.
I don’t want to add more here because I refuse to trivialize no further. No—I will not add more here.
Turns out, strangers breaking into your home aren’t the only people that can violate you. Your roommates, closest friends, family, and (perhaps most of all for me) imagination can too. What if I did open that door? After that moment, only my roommates, the cops, and my family could promise an answer. By far the most resounding answer was rape—it was being sexually assaulted, abused, and killed. They didn’t just want the living room TV?
These strangers, one man wearing a red baseball cap and striped blue shirt slamming? His 5’10” 5’11” body on our door jiggling the knob, and one woman who was crouching waiting? Wearing a pink tank top, light denim jeans, and her afro was pushed back with a white headband, did not break in. But now, my experience, my trauma, my anxiety, my fears, my truth has been manipulated to form another narrative. And yet, no one has apologized.
People have told me learn from it. Get a gun, always have a plan, don’t put yourself in those situations, be careful, don’t go alone, don’t be alone, be aware of your surroundings, carry mace, call 911. I still am unsure of what situation I put myself in to need to learn from it, but I am nevertheless writhing with a feeling of guilt yet an undisputable sense of rage.
Perhaps I am learning from it. Now, every time I shut my eyes I am forced back into moments that did happen. I am forced to relive every pulse. Every stain. Every heartbeat. Every movement. Every thought. Everything. And I still wonder: what if I would have just opened the door?
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