It’s the end of a typical mid-week business day. You’re sitting at a stop light, and you take the opportunity to scroll through your music options. Your thoughts wander through what you might do for dinner, that email you can’t forget to send, oh, hey! You like that song. It takes a minute for you to realize the increasingly loud hollers coming from the next car over are directed at you.

Days since the last time you were sexually harassed: still at zero.

But whatever, this behavior is so overplayed, it’s not even worth your time to acknowledge it. That is, until the screams get so loud that others are starting to stare. They’re staring at you, like it’s your fault an otherwise pleasantly uneventful traffic stop is being interrupted. So you have that debate with yourself; you know the one. Do you give in, again, or do you stand your ground and refuse to partake in a perverted social contract? It’s been a long day, and you’re exhausted. You convince yourself these boys aren’t worth the headache, that you’ll be stronger the next time. You give in. Again. You turn to the three men in their late teens, and the glee on their faces hits you squarely in the gut. A magnesium strip of rage burns through your veins, leaving an afterimage of shame scorched onto your soul. You glare briefly as you roll up your windows, then stare pointedly ahead and count heartbeats until the light turns green.

You hear screeching tires as the cars behind you also start to pull away. You have a sinking feeling as you look up into the rear view mirror, because you already know what you’re going to see. Where before there was a single-driver black pickup, the view is now taken up by the white sedan with the same three smirking boys. They’re on your tail in seconds, and they’re not letting up. All that work on your heart rate becomes moot and your fight or flight response kicks in. You breathe deeply and take comfort in the presence of others on the road. Your drive home is filled with stop lights, so there’s a good chance they’ll get bored or spooked off, eventually. Breathe in, breathe out. This isn’t unfamiliar territory. You allow yourself a small, sad smile as you tell yourself you could go pro at this, if you really wanted to. You’ve spent practically your whole life learning how to de-escalate unwanted attention.

Still, you’re cautious. You don’t know these men’s intentions. You take a different route than you normally do, just in case they’re paying attention. Your false bravado takes a sharp blow when you turn off of the major roads, and they follow you into your neighborhood. It takes another as you choose a side street only used by locals, and another as you turn again, making a complete circle. They’re definitely following you, and they’re definitely enjoying their game. You fight down panic. Your ears are ringing, and tears start pouring down your face. How will this end? You allow yourself to be terrified for one precious moment before slamming the doors shut on all emotion completely.

You never plan to enter survival mode; it is forced upon you.

A stillness settles over you. It’s not peace, exactly, but your actions are no longer reactionary. They’re deliberate. You calmly consider your options, weighing out the potential consequences of each. You have an idea; such a simple, obvious thing. You surge through the intersection as the light’s turning red, your dance partners following seamlessly behind you. You pull over and look up into the mirror expectantly; sure enough, their leers stare back at you. Then, you watch their faces turn from eager expectation, to confusion, to panic. Their tires screech louder than before in their haste to be as far away from you as possible.

Your limbs turn to water as relief floods you. Your hands are shaking as you call a friend to recount the experience. They are impressed with how you handled yourself and reflect on the nature of harassment and power. You reflect on the size of your balls relative to those of sad, tiny little men. What else is there to do?

You tell people. You tell other women, and you especially tell other men. You tell them about the terror subsumed by anger, how it came out of nowhere, how a single 20 minutes took more out of you than an entire day at the office. You put them in your shoes. You try to help them understand. And then maybe, just maybe, this story doesn’t have to end parked behind a cop car in front of the New Orleans courthouse.