Anonymous Story: It was so long ago, and I’m still not over it.

At first he just said that he wouldn’t be my friend anymore. He would ask, and I would say no, and he would say that he wouldn’t stay unless I did. I was so young, and he was older than me and cooler than me, and I thought that I had to do anything he said. Eventually, I was too scared and too sick and too ashamed for that to work. Then, he threatened to tell my parents. And in my adolescent, naive mind, I couldn’t let that happen. I was so terrified, constantly, and I said yes because I couldn’t stand the idea of anyone else knowing how shameful I was.

We always went to my brother’s bedroom – not mine. I don’t know why, but that’s always where he took me. Even looking at my brother’s door made me nauseous until I finally left home.

In second grade I broke my arm because of him, and that was the end of our “friendship,” but I my window looked into his for more then 10 years after that. Every time he aged out of the school I was in, I heaved a sigh of relief, and every time I aged into the school he was at, I was overcome with fear. I walked around the halls of my high school like I was afraid he’d turn around a corner and I’d be right back in my brother’s bedroom with him.

It wasn’t even until years later that I realized what happened wasn’t normal. I still haven’t managed to convince myself that I’m not the pathetic, filthy creature that he treated me as.

Once he finally left town, I thought I’d be safe, but now he’s going to be a doctor, and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand that he gets to ruin me and then become a doctor and have a normal life.