Imogen’s Story: I Bet He Still Doesn’t Realize What He Did

We were in love. You were my second boyfriend and I was around 18 or 19 when it happened. When we got together I felt so lucky to have you, a kind boy, with a sense of naïveity about you. We’re in your room, as we were most weekends. I was lying on my stomach playing on my phone. You came up behind me and removed the clothing from my lower body – I didn’t ask you to do that, why would you do that?

It didn’t stop there. Next came the oral sex, for the pure purpose of making me wet, not my pleasure. Following that, you were then inside of me. You knew how I was normally during sex – loud, expressive and fun. On that day I was completely silent. Why didn’t you stop? I’m never silent. You must have known something was wrong, surely?

I felt like I was trapped, I just waited for it to end. I couldn’t even speak. I just hid my face in the pillow. After you had finished I grabbed the tissues to stop the mess getting onto the bed. He looked at me and said: “you didn’t want that, did you?” – he looked concerned. I may not remember the date it happened or whether it rained on that particular day.. But fucking hell, I’ll never forget those words.

I regret what I said in response to that. I loved him, I didn’t want to upset him. I laugh now, I should have been upset.. Me! He’s the rapist. Who cares if you upset him? Anyway, I made up some bullshit excuse for my odd behaviour and went to the bathroom.

I was in there for a long time. I didn’t realise I had been raped, I felt upset but I didn’t know why, because I too, was naïve. We broke up eventually, even so, it took me months after that to realise that he raped me. SH.. You raped me – and I’ll never forget that.

I didn’t tell another soul until recently. I’m 21, going on 22 now. And last week I admitted to my boyfriend that I was raped and it still affects me. He held me close. I told him that I didn’t want him to think I was broken, that’s why I was so scared to tell him. He told me “It’s okay to be broken”.

I just want to let this go. I can’t let this hold me down any longer, so yes, I was raped. I survived. And I refuse to let this define me.