MJ’s story: I didn’t know it was rape until 2 years after it happened

I had a huge crush on this boy. I’d tried for a long time to get his attention, to get him to like me and talk to me. We had been out on a few dates but I could tell that really, he wasn’t that into me. Until one day, early morning, he asked me to go to his house.
I was excited, I took the opportunity straight away. On the way there, I realised that there was an implication, I was going to his house, he would probably expect me to have sex with him. I realised that I looked desperate, that I looked easy. This was a boy who didn’t really like me, but I’d dropped everything to go round his house. I was at his beck and call.
When I got to his house, there was a line of coke racked up on a DVD case by his bed. He told me he’d been up all night doing drugs. He was on a comedown. I realised he wanted someone to fuck to get him through the comedown. That’s all I was. A warm body.
I wanted to go home right then and there. I didn’t even know what I had seen in him, why I’d been so obsessed with getting him to like me. I wanted to go home.
We sat down on his bed. He was in a horrible mood. He started kissing me and I didn’t tell him to stop but I didn’t like it either. I cringed. I felt horrible. I wanted to go home but I couldn’t.
He started taking my clothes off and I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified of what he would do or say if I said no. I didn’t say no but I didn’t say yes. I lay there as he had sex with me. I felt empty, lifeless, terrified. I looked up at the ceiling. I wasn’t a person to him, I was a doll, a sex toy. I meant nothing to him. He had sex with me as I stared at the ceiling and tried not to cry. I could smell his sweat. The salty smell of his skin. He didn’t look at me once. When he was finished, he still didn’t look at me. He didn’t use a condom. He didn’t ask if that was okay. He didn’t ask if I wanted to have sex, if I was okay whilst he was having sex with me.
I felt disgusting. I felt used.
I put my clothes back on and I sat on his bed next to him feeling numb. He fell asleep for 2 hours and I sat there and cried quietly. Too scared to wake him up. Too scared to just leave. Just scared.

For weeks and months afterwards I just felt numb. I felt weird and awkward and dirty. I never spoke to him again. He never spoke to me again.
I didn’t think it was rape because I hadn’t said no. But as time went on the experience never left me. I always felt sick and dizzy whenever i thought about it. It haunted me every day.
2 years after the event, I met the love of my life and the man who ended up becoming the father of my beautiful daughter. When I told him about the event, he said it was sexual assault. I came to realise that it was and tried to come to terms with it.

I’m still trying.