I realize now what happened. It wasn't consensual. I was far too drunk and far too afraid to say no and I was taken advantage of. In the moment, I didn't realize that what happened to me was wrong. For months I convinced myself that what those boys did to me was my fault. I was drunk and willingly left with them. I didn't tell them no when they started to take my clothes off and do things to me.

But it's the fear i feel every time I see them on my campus that made me realize. It's the way I closed myself off to intimacy with people who really cared and who I cared about that made me realize. It's the way I drank myself to the point of blacking out nearly every weekend for the next month or so that made me realize. It's the way sex felt drastically different when my partner actually cared for me and wanted my consent that made me realize.

I was raped.

Twice in one night.

Once by someone I didn't know and once by someone I trusted.

Even now, over a year later, I still cry myself to sleep some nights as I picture those moments. I still flinch when men approach me or comment on my appearance, even in the least harmful of ways. My self worth has been shaken and some days doesn't seem to exist. My body and my being must mean nothing if two men felt entitled enough to take me without my permission.

I wish I could erase this past, but there's nothing I can do. So I'll continue to sit on the bus with my rapist, affected for life by a night he most likely forgot.