Ashley’s Story: The Classmate and Neighbor

His name is B, and he ruined everything the day I moved to my new apartment with my parents when I was in the 7th grade. I was a sheltered kid, so human interaction from boys was a foreign concept to me. He was so nice. He made me laugh and he showed so much interest in me. I found out he was in the 10th grade and it didn’t bother me. In fact I thought I was cooler. Like maybe people would talk to me if I was cool enough to date someone older. The first day I hung out with him one on one he asked me out and I said yes eagerly. On that occasion he forced me to kiss him (which was my first kiss). I didn’t want to kiss him. But he held me there and if I freaked out, then I wasn’t cool. Everyone else does it after all. So I let him, and that should have been my first red flag. But I was young and dumb. A week passes and he breaks up with me because he said I was too young and didn’t know how to do what he wanted since I’d never had sex before. Though I took it a little personal and hard, I moved on and was fine. But this is when he became weird.

He would come by my house everyday to scope the place out to see if my folks were home. If the weren’t he would assault the house bell until I came to the door or faked it well enough that I wasn’t home. He would say things like complements to try and get me to come out. Sometimes it worked, other times it was weird. I had a vibe like he wasnt done being interested in me. Meanwhile i had moved on. I didnt want him anymore but i felt rude blowing him off like he was nothing, so I kept hanging out every so often. Then he would call my phone constantly. He would try and have conversations with me and my friend about how big his penis was.

Then from there it escalated to me being stalked by him. He was everywhere I was all the time. Even away from my neighborhood. He would make passing kissy faces at me in the halls at school. Eventually I told my guidance counselor and you know what she Did? CALLED HIM INTO HER OFFICE WITH ME THERE AND MADE HIM APOLOGIZE FOR FOLLOWING ME AS IF THAT WAS EVEN A THING! Needless to say this made my situation much much worse.

Fast forward and I’m struggling expressing myself with my folks. It’s been about 8 months of dealing with B and they always treated him nice. My mom would even correct me and tell me to be nice to him. I kept saying he was weird but to them I was being mean or rude. I got into it with my folks and my dad tried choking me unconscious. I went to school and told my counselor and she called CPS. Word got around and B approached me on the bus and asked me if I wanted to come over. I turned him down, and he was visibly upset by this. I had plans to hang out with someone else, and this other person knew B was not ok. Which is why he was upset by me telling him no. So instead B stalked us (as usual). That day, I told my friend, I was not going home and that I planned to run away. He tried talking me out of it but ultimately he couldn’t. I went to a friend’s apartment (in my complex) and stayed the night. My folks were looking for me with everyone else, including B. He was the first to offer help because they went to his door first. He’s basically my next door neighbor so I guess it made sense to check with him since we had the same friends basically. He joined the search and knew where I was immediately (but was afraid of the individual I was staying with) but did not come to the apartment. Instead he left a series of threatening messages on my phone and my friends phone. The next day I turned myself in at school and when my mom came to the school she was pissed. Not happy to see me, just pissed that I did it at all (Being a parent now, I can say she was scared but showed it in a poor way). I was grounded on the spot and we didn’t talk about why I ran away in the first place.

Fast forward a week and I’m still grounded, but today I was itching to be with my friends. Part of my punishment was no going outside, so the only way I could be with friends was lying and saying I stayed after school, then being inside by the time the after school bus drove past our complex. So I lied this day. November 11th 2008. I got on the normal bus after telling my folks different. While I was on the bus B approached me. He said he was sorry for being so angry, and that he was just really worried about me. He told me he felt bad about what I was going through (more than anyone else was saying to me) and said he was there to talk. He then told me that I didn’t have to accept it, but he had a belated bday gift for me he just hadn’t found the chance to give it to me. He joked and said now it could be a sorry for being an asshole gift instead. I let my guard down in this moment. I told myself he was ok now, enough time has passed, he’s the only one who cares right now about what I’m going through.

So I followed him to his apartment door. I had intentions on waiting outside. He invited me in and when I said no, he pulled me in and said not to be silly, it’s cold outside and he’d only be a minute. He closed the door and went into his room. While I was turned he walked up on me and turned me around trying to make out with me. I pushed him away and we wrestled to the floor. I closed my mouth and curled my lips in, so he pinched my nose, forcing me to open my mouth to breath. Once I did he proceeded to take his tongue and lick my mouth laughing, commenting on how feisty I was. I continued to fight and began feeling his hard on growing. I knew I was in danger and started to panic. I was begging him to let me leave and in a moment of luck I had an opening to bite him, so I did. He quickly got up, and laughed it off, saying he could never let me go, because when I ran away, he was afraid he would never get this opportunity. So he definitely could not let me leave now. He told me to stay put as he walked back into his room. I was still on the floor and glanced at the door. Without even thinking I jumped up and ran to the door. The nob turns and I here him say “Hey, hey, hey!!!” I knew he was coming but time was on my side. I pulled the door to open and it opened 2 inches… I didn’t see the chain lock. My only window to escape had come and gone and I was wrestling him on the floor once more. He was reaching in my pants and down my shirt (or up if I’m being technical). I blanked out and stared at the clock on his DVD player. It was 4 when I came into his apartment. It was 5:23 when I looked back at the clock. He forced me up on my feet and lead me to his room, where I had to drop my pants. I was crying for him to stop and he was becoming more upset that I wasn’t complying. He pushed my body into his bed and just as I was about to fight him again I felt something cold on the back of my head… to this day I have no idea if it was a real gun, or an air soft or a Bee bee gun, or fake. But I was not taking chances at that point and complied. He raped me, for what felt like hours. In the same position. I swear I tried to sleep just to not be there in that moment.

Randomly he stopped, he was not finished but something caught his attention. It was the garage to his apartment. His dad had gotten home from work. He quickly got dressed gathered my things and pushed me out of his apartment naked to avoid getting in trouble. I put my pants on in the apartment hallway and walked back to my place in tears. I was late, so I got yelled at and accused of lying about my wareabouts, but could not bring myself to say what had happened. I don’t know if I was afraid of them taking it further, not believing me, grounding me further for being with a boy (they were harsh parents). So I lived with it all these years (I’m really only 25 but I feel like this has made me live a lifetime of pain).

Fast forward again, I recently found out he lives in my state again, and in my area. Because people don’t know, I have friends that still talk and hang out with him on a regular basis. I’ve distanced myself from people because of this. Now I can’t tell if I saw him, would I kill him like how I’ve fantasized for years, or would I panic and run, like I know myself to be familiar to? I write my story late tonight because Facebook triggered me by showing him as a suggested friend (the one I blocked was deleted and he’s since made a new one I didn’t find out about until tonight). My heart sank, looking at all my friends in pictures with him. Seeing him smile. Why does he get to smile, when I literally live in fear of every man around me. Trusting no one, and liking no one. I hate sex because of him. He took my virginity that day. My fiance is so confused why I “just don’t like sex like that” when really, sexual interactions give me flashbacks of him. I told my fiance half of the story. To this day, he thinks I made it out that door… Like the chain was never there. And that haunts me more than anything. Will he love me knowing I was weak enough to be taken advantage of? We are both heavily into martial arts, but what if he knew I’m not as capable as he thinks I am.
My fiance puts me on a pedestal for how strong I am, and how great I am at what I do. But would that change if he knew that years of training couldn’t save me from being raped at possible gun point. I can hear him now “of course I love you, blab blah blah” but I mean, what would he think of me now. I feel like I live a lie as to how strong I am. In reality, I hate going out by myself, and he just thinks I have anxiety in large crowds (which is only partly true) when really, I’m afraid of seeing him. When I smell B’s cologne in public, I panic. Why does he get happiness when I get fear. No amount of medication has or will work for me. I smoke weed to cope with thoughts of wanting to die. It helps I’ll admit, but I still suffer from the tribulations of PTSD. I don’t think I’ll ever be ok. But he is, and that’s enough to male me want to die. I have no hope with him in this world. I don’t make friends for fear of that “small world” theory, where he knows people I just met. I have isolated myself from everyone but my fiance and my sister who also experienced assault from B. While he has friends, a successful career, and happiness. Things I feel as though I’ll never have, and it started with him.