To preface this article, April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and this letter is one that I wrote more than a year ago and was not sure I would ever share. But with the strength I have built today, and as I continue to meet survivors on a daily basis, I feel I am strong enough to share my story.

To my attacker-

I’m truly not even sure where to start. For so long I’ve wished I had the courage to walk up to you and say everything I’m about to say, and to hope that you might understand what exactly you did that night. Not only did you take my innocence, you took my self-esteem, my sense of security, my confidence and more importantly my happiness. Before that night, that awful night, I had no idea someone could be so cruel or have so little regard for the lives of others and their feelings. The truth is, for you it was never about sex, it was about power. You desired to be a “man” and to control me and show me how “strong” you are. Well let me just say, you are the farthest thing from strong and you are no such thing as a man; you are a coward.

When you came into my life, you seemed so sweet and kind, like you genuinely cared about me and wanted a place in my life. How could you be such an actor? You made me feel special and taken care of; I felt "cool" that an older guy would so much as glance in my direction, let alone want to take me out and be with me. I felt for the first time that I had found someone who I could root for and who would always root for me. I wanted to be yours and you to be mine so I let you string me along into your spell of lies.

I should have known the first time you put me down that you were a danger I was far too naïve to understand. But then again, I was so young, how would I have known what you were capable of? I didn’t know; and that’s the saddest part of the entire story is that I trusted you and now you have no idea how much it takes for any man to gain my trust.

I can remember that night like it was yesterday, writing about it now my hands still shake. I didn’t really know what happened until it was too late. You turned that corner, it was really dark, you said you were going to show me what I could have with you. I couldn’t feel much, I just knew I needed to escape, but escaping wasn’t an option. When you finally took me home, you drove without a word. I had to walk into my house and pretend that my life hadn’t just changed forever, look at my family and pretend I wasn’t broken inside. I hope it was worth it for you.

Five painful months went by without a word. Not to you, from you, or to anyone else about what had happened that night. And then I was in school one day; I saw a boy and I swore he was you. I fell apart, crying and running down the hall as fast as I could so that I didn’t have to see you. I made it to the foreign language hall where I ran into my trusted teacher's classroom. She asked me to breathe and tell her what was wrong, so right there I told her everything and made her promise not to tell a soul. When I was questioned by my principal, I made it my plan that I would deny it away, deny that anything had ever happened, because maybe then I wouldn’t have to deal with it. That was when they confronted me about what they knew. I tried denying it but the look on my face said everything they needed to know.

For a long time, I refused to use the word “rape”, it made me feel defeated and like I had let you win. But the truth is, that’s exactly what you did to me. Not only did you rape me, but you also took my innocence and all of my dignity along with it. Since that night there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about what I could have done differently. I wonder if I dressed too provocatively, or if I was too forward, or if I did something to signal that’s what I wanted.

And you know what I have finally come up with? No. I did NOTHING wrong, this was not about me, this was all about you. Because the truth of the matter is, rape has nothing to do with sex; rape is about power. Rape has everything to do with belittling someone else to build yourself up. Did you feel like more of a man? I bet. But real men don’t do that; they don’t hurt for the sake of making themselves better. So my message to you and anyone else reading this is, I am more than what happened to me and I am so much stronger for it, so don’t think for one second that you have won or that you have somehow taken control of my life. You may have for a little while there, but I am not a victim anymore; I am a survivor.

You didn’t break me.

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