I met you over a year ago for what would be the first and last time I ever saw you. You were a great looking guy, seemed kind, mature. You brought drinks, told me you were 21, and were graduating that spring. You seemed like any other great person.

The first mistake I made was not watching you while you made my drink. At the time, I had never really had much experience with alcohol, so I let you do your thing, but nothing occurred to me that you could've possibly done something to it. "Always watch your drink," my mom always told me, for when I went to clubs, parties, anywhere. This is the one time I didn't.

We played a few drinking games from apps on your phone and by the time I got through half of mine, I felt extremely fuzzy. Now, I know I'm small and a lightweight, but I know for sure half a drink doesn't do much to me, as far as my eyesight, my speech, and my thinking. This is the one time it did.

You started becoming flirty, and although you were attractive, I had no intention of trying to sleep with you. When I felt nauseous and dizzy, I lied on my stomach on my bed. I could start to hear your clothes come off. "Do you have a condom?" I remembered you ask. "There's a used one in the trash. But, I don't really want to have sex with you anyway" were my exact words. Usually, when I tell guys I don't want to have sex with them, they back off and apologize. This is the first of many times one didn't.

I felt you take off my leggings and my sweater. I was still awake but drowsy and I couldn't bring myself to say anything. I hardly knew you. If I screamed, you could've done anything to me. I figured it was safest to not say anything in case you'd try to hurt me. I'd rather a psychological scar than a physical one. Most people say I talk loud, always on the verge of screaming. Screaming was my way of talking. This is the one time it wasn't.

I shed tears from my eyes as you raped me, and just drifted off. When I woke up, I could feel you wiping down my back, and putting your clothes back on. I asked you how my clothes got off; you said I did it. When you left, you gave me a fake name, a hug, and never saw me again. But, it wasn't the last you'd hear from me.

It took me four days to get the courage to go to the Women's Center and tell them what had happened. By this point, I had your full name, address, and birthday from your driver's license that my friend gave to me when he catfished you. You were actually 28, lived on the beach, and hadn't been to this school in years.

The police went to your door and talked to you about what happened. They said you denied everything. I figured you would've since you consistently kept messaging me, saying you didn't rape me and how "falsely reporting" one was a crime. You tried to turn it on me, but I just didn't respond to you. You were already convinced you weren't a rapist, and I knew me trying to tell you, you were wasn't going to do any justice.

I wanted to press charges. I really did. But, unfortunately, we live in a world where rape cases take months, and with the lack of solid DNA evidence I had, which was nonexistent, I knew it would be a waste of money, time, and energy. I stopped returning the detective's calls, I stopped talking to my victim advocate, I tried to ignore the whole thing ever happened. But, that wasn't realistic either.

I stopped sleeping at night, and the only way I could manage to sleep was to wander campus until 3 a.m., as if that was a safe outlet. I confided in alcohol, boys who saw me for one thing, and other unhealthy coping methods that I knew wouldn't work, but I knew it would numb the pain temporarily and that was better than not numbing it at all. When that didn't seem to work, I had one option left: to deal with it.

Because of you, I've now talked to other girls who have been put in the same situation and helped them cope and make decisions about what to do. I helped them deal with it, weigh their options, and supported everything they chose to do. With that being said, I helped put seven rapists in jail, because of you.

Because of you, I've learned to deal with it day by day. There are days where it's all I can think about, and there are days I forget it ever happened. The days I forget I named "Paradise Days," and thankfully, I have a lot more of those than I used to.

Because of you, I've struggled with sexual relationships but now, they're getting easier to experience and talk about. I'm starting to be more vocal, in the sense of if I don't like something, I actually say it. If a boy keeps going, I just give them a good punch or kick to the stomach. As violent as it seems, it works every time.

It's now been almost a year and a half since it happened, and luckily, I've moved far past it. That's not to say I'm completely over it, but I can talk about it without crying. I can explain to boys what they're getting into when they want to have some kind of relationship with me without being ashamed. I can freely express my opinons about rapists and sexual assault from first-hand experience. When I saw the Brock Turner case happened, I got extremely angry and hurt that this keeps happening on college campuses. But, at least Turner got more jail time than you did.

I have a lot of my hate in my heart for you. People have told me "hate" is a strong word, but so are my feelings about what happened. I hope the news story on First Coast News scared you into never doing this again to someone else. If you've already done it again, I hope that girl puts you in jail. If I ever get the chance to meet her, I'll give her more thanks than I could ever give to anyone. I honestly hope this eats at you for the rest of your life. I sincerely hope there is not a day that goes by that you don't think about me.

But, lucky for me, I go through every day without thinking about you.