We're Okay, Right?
I lied to you I said we were okay and even jokingly said that to make up for it all you needed to do was make me a hot chocolate. I continued to say hey to you in the hallway, even danced with you in clubs.
Actually, I have never been ok. It was partly my fault for letting you think I was - I didn’t give myself the respect that I deserved. I even made up excuses for you because I didn’t want to think you could really be so cruel. I belittled it to family and told them you didn’t mean it: you were drunk, you made a mistake anyone can make a mistake, right?
Only now do I realise that it doesn’t matter; regardless of the alcohol and the mistake, it happened and I have not been okay since. In the first couple of weeks I completely fell apart. I didn’t think I’d be able to stop crying. I had to remind myself every day why I was still worth anything and most of the time I struggled to truly convince myself. For the remainder of the next month I became numb but at the time I thought that meant I was okay. Then, after a few weeks, the dreams and flashbacks hit me and suddenly the tears wouldn’t stop. Yet again, I felt completely out of control of my own body.
It’s possible that some people would have reacted differently but for me what you did was simply wrong. You shouldn’t go into someone’s room when they are asleep, you shouldn’t force them into things they aren’t comfortable with. You shouldn’t do things to them that they don’t want you to do. No means no and you couldn’t understand that.
I think most people would break. Most people would have gone home. I didn’t. I stayed, I faced you and I made myself deal with it. But that doesn’t mean it’s been easy. I should never have had to deal with it and I hate the fact that because of one evening, one that you probably don’t even remember, I’m still hurting.
Seeing you at the start of term made all these feelings return and all the tears come. The thing that hurts the most is to know that you don’t care and you never cared. You haven’t had nightmares. You haven’t felt guilt. You probably think you did nothing wrong.
But you did a lot wrong and your immaturity means we could never have any sort of trust again. I hope one day you grow up and realise that actually you can hurt other people with your drunken mistakes. Until you are aware of the hurt you can cause people this will probably happen again and I just hope the next girl has more strength than I did.
I didn’t have enough strength to report you. I couldn’t do that to you or face the questions. I couldn’t face getting you kicked out of halls or uni and having to deal with all the drama that would entail. Still, this incident made me so much stronger. And whilst you continue to act as you do, please never ever act as though we are friends.
So no - we’re not ok.
