When I was six years old my parents finally let me go play in the park behind my house all by myself. This was a milestone, no less important to me than my first kiss, or getting my license. This was a taste of freedom. This was baggy shorts and a stained shirt and blond pigtails finally escaping the watchful eyes of adults.

I knew what it was, responsibility; you knew what it was, an excuse.

I remember you telling me if my parents found out then I would get in trouble, that I wasn’t supposed to be kissing boys. I remember wanting to swing; I remember you swallowing my screams, my plea, my confusion. We can call it this: a mistake, boys being boys, experimentation.

Or we can call it this: how you sexually abused me in the park behind my house.

Because that’s what you did. I can say it now boldly, without flinching. I'll let everyone know what crime you committed. You were ten years old and someone I looked up to and you should have known better. I deal with this trauma the way I deal with most things, by swallowing it down until I can spit sarcasm back out around it. But I can’t eat this, I can’t ignore it. The memory always comes back; I want to say it hurts less, I want to say it never happened, I want to believe that you didn’t know what you were doing, but maybe that would make it worse.

For a long time I made this my fault, and it turned me into a ghost, just alive enough that people thought I was there. I was an illusion, the entirety of my fangs bared attitude just smoke and mirrors. I would bury myself in the bed sheets and hope to disappear. You made my life winter. You made me afraid of touch, like even if I let it happen the hands would go right through me. I used to be a flower, and then you took me and made me just the thorns.

I think of you and then I fiddle with the idea of forgiveness, fiddle with the idea of revenge because I am now constantly wearing this pain like my favorite dress. Sometimes, I think of you, and then I think of your girlfriend, and I wonder if she thinks you’re a good kisser. Sometimes, I think of you and I wonder if you remember how I cried, how I ran when you let me go. Sometimes, this anger in my chest gets so hot that I think maybe I’ll burn anyone when they try to touch me. I use this hurt to act as a bomb. I use it to hide. It's always easier to ignore a problem than deal with it.

This is hard for me, forgiveness is always difficult, whether deserved or not, but this isn’t even really about you. I used to think forgiveness would mean that I lost, like when you wave a white flag in a battle. Well I’m older, and I’m tired, and I know what should be done.

You’re in college now; I’ve got one more year of high school. You’re not ten and I’m not six. I don’t care how you’re doing, or if you’re passing your classes, but I hope the people who are around you are safe, are happy. I see your parents house when I drive by in the old neighborhood, and I hope they love each other still.

Healing is not linear; that’s just not how the human mind works. This week maybe I’ll feel good, next week maybe I’ll drive into a field and curse what happened until my throat is raw, but I’m trying, consciously, I’m waking up and I’m working through it, not just steeping it in my tea and sewing it in my skin so I can be sad and angry. I still tense when men hug me, when they simply pat my shoulder, but I can look at it like this: at least I’m letting them touch me, not snarling and pushing away like I did in the darker months. I’ve been making progress, checking off lists, and maybe I still bite around all the other not so great things happening in my life, but I talk about this; I call it out for what it is. You shut me up for 10 years and now I'm just making up for lost time.

I’m done swallowing what you did to me. Forgiveness is hard, but I’m doing it because it’s my time to move on and be finished. I deserve that.