Brock,

I hope you’re reading this, cooped up in your happy little suburban home 2 hours away from where I’m writing this, awaiting your retrial and hoping that you can erase everything that had happened before. But let’s be honest here, you should take what you got, sex offender label and all, and crawl back into the gutter.

I have no idea how you managed to slither back into the headlines, but now that’s why I’m here, writing this letter to you. Just to give you a few things to think about. This time, your parents can’t come to your defense. I’m over here, you’re over there and your mommy can’t shield you while you read the words I am taking the time to write to you.

I know you must get mountains and mountains of hate mail, but I really think you should read my letter.

Now we’re a little over a year out from the day you got sentenced. I’m older now, I’m in college now. I’ve seen the frat parties. It’s a reason I don’t like alcohol.

One night, I found myself at one of these parties with some girls on my dorm room floor. Honestly, I didn’t want to be there. I was being talked up by a freshman on the football team. A tall blonde guy, trying to wrap his arm around me and get me a drink. But I refused, and ultimately, I went back to my dorm.

Walking back, my mind began to wander. Suddenly, I remembered your case, and I remembered the circumstances. Then I realized, that guy back there was you. The man with “so much potential” and “a bright future ahead of them.” You are the kind of guy that I’d hate running into at parties. One that thinks he’s better than everyone, that girls are a thing to pick up at parties. Someone that seemed completely indestructible when it came to a sexual assault trial.

I think about the victim of your actions; how she is learning to be comfortable in the skin that she has because someone had come in and tainted it. She is learning to trust people in her life no matter who they are to her. It takes so much longer than what you served to deal with that amount of trauma.

I’ve known plenty of people who have been affected by sexual violence. That is a pain that will never ever go away. It will haunt them long after their assailant is gone until the day the give themselves to their grave. I would go on but I honestly don’t think you care.

And for what you did, I was one among the millions of people that were praying that you’d be rotting in jail. Sadly, we don’t always get what we want.

Now before I wrap this up, I really want to you to think about why you think that you deserve a retrial. Because I don’t think you do, the rest of us don’t think that you do. You barely served the time you should have. The prosecution asked for 6 years and you barely served 6 months.

I have a better idea, those “20 minutes of action”? You should get 20 years.

That label as a sex offender should follow you, you shouldn’t be allowed to hide from your mistakes, you should realize what you done. Because the girl you violated will feel those effects until the day she dies. Even if you do get the registration reversed that label will follow you.

Please, do us all a favor and crawl back under the gutter from which you came.

Yours truly,

Adeline