Jacey Lee, "You"

You’re sixteen years and seventeen days old

Panic at the Disco is your favorite band and black is the only color allowed to wrap your newly donned curves while simultaneously hiding your newly noticed flaws

Your best friend is actually your biggest bully but you learned to keep enemies close a long time ago

You drown yourself in pages of other people’s stories because you’re tired of enduring your own

You’re learning photography and creative writing and you’re a somewhat decent volleyball player

You’re kind of pretty but you don’t think you’re pretty and nobody has ever told you you’re pretty so you’re probably not pretty

You’re desperate for the love that you constantly see around you but you’ve never been introduced

You’ve been kissed once by some boy who was way too old for you and of course by your best friend that one time when you got drunk and made out on a dare, but that definitely doesn’t count because you’re totally and definitely not gay

Like at all

And it was totally funny

And you definitely don’t like girls because you can’t like girls AND boys

Right?

Anyway

You’re texting this amazing 20 year old guy that slid into your DM’s who, according to Facebook, has a long term girlfriend, but apparently they are like, totally over, so you shouldn’t feel bad about it

He’s never actually spoken to you in person, but now it’s midnight and he wants you to come over

So what do you do?

You make a decoy body under the covers, climb out the window, switch the car in neutral and sneak your little ass down the driveway, that’s what you do

Once you get there, he makes you climb into his pickup parked in a shed so that “nobody will disturb you”

You sit silently in his passenger seat because you kinda know he wants to “do stuff” but you literally don’t know how to “do stuff” and he’s older and cooler and way more mature and you’re a stupid young fat ugly baby and you’re spiraling and convincing yourself he changed his mind about you and maybe he doesn’t like you at all?

Maybe nobody will ever like you

And then

He says “so what do you wanna do?”

And you panic 

Because part of you knows what he wants to do

And you’ve never done that

And he knows you’ve never done that because you told him you’ve never done that and now you’re thinking maybe I will never get another chance to do that?

So you say what he wants to hear in your tiny little 16 years and 17 days old voice

“Um, I don’t know, want to mess around?”

And he gives you a cocky little side smile like you’ve impressed him

You think “okay, this is good, maybe he does like me? Maybe this is how you get boys to like you.”

So you get in the backseat and start doing lots of things you’ve never done before and at first it’s okay, it’s exciting even

You’re finally kissing a boy! For more than five seconds! A boy that WANTS to kiss YOU!

And then it turns into more

And you start to have second thoughts

You can tell where this is probably going

And you try to slow down

You say no, not that

No, not that either

He stops

Then you feel like you’re saying no too much

And eventually he starts trying again

You say no again

He starts trying again

You say no again

But he doesn’t stop this time

He keeps going

And keeps going

And now you know what’s going to happen

And you’re scared

And you already said no but then you let him keep trying so you’re basically saying yes, right?

Do you become a slut or a tease? Those are your choices

And then

It happens

And it takes you a moment to realize what’s happening because his dick is the size of a salt shaker

But it’s happening

It happened

And you said no

But then again you kind of didn’t

Because when he finally did it

You just let him

You froze

You stopped moving

You barely muster the courage to ask if he will at least put on a condom

He ignores you

You say please

He puts one on

He finishes

You’re still frozen

He gets off you

Picks up your underwear from the floor of his truck

Throws them at you

Shuts the door of the truck

Leaves you to unfreeze and get dressed

You get out of the truck

He gives you a side hug goodbye and says “thanks for coming over”

You don’t remember what you said

You hug him back

You walk away

You drive the 11.6 miles home

You sneak the car back into the garage

You climb back through your window

Lay in your bed

And spend the next 9 years convincing yourself you weren’t “really raped” because technically, you let him

It was your idea

You asked for a condom

You joked about his salt shaker penis to your best friend the next day and told her all about your “first time”

You lived your lie

You still live it

You still freeze when men touch you without warning

You still haven’t explained why you cringe when he grazes your inner thighs

You still see him when you close your eyes

I was sixteen years and seventeen days old

And I was raped