This piece requires a content for describing sexual assault.
warning
That’s why this essay isn’t about Will Dodge. It isn’t about the 60 or so minutes that changed me permanently. It’s about what came afterwards. Not immediately
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afterwards, but at that point down the road where you think you should have gotten over it, but it still gets to you almost every day. It’s about my own healing that I’m more confident is possible every day, it’s about my future as a whole, complete person. One who can live with this pain because there’s no point in pretending that it’s possible to go back to a time when it wasn’t there.
The
Worry
Stone
●●● 5 years ago, I classified Will Dodge as one of my best friends. We spoke everyday through our mutual membership of our high school’s ski team. He also called and texted me incessantly and would become very agitated if I didn’t respond. I was always a little scared of him. I was never sure what he was capable of, so I usually went along with the things he wanted to do, even if they made me uncomfortable. He was very jealous of my
By Liv Velarde
other
friendships,
even
though we were never in any semblance
of
a
romantic
relationship. I had always felt a lot of guilt about that Fiona Apple once gave a quote
situation because I felt it must
in an interview that has always
have been my actions that led
stuck with me. When asked
him to believe he had more importance in my life than he
whether she writes songs about
actually did, therefore justifying
the rape that she endured at 12
his possessive behavior.
years old, she stated, “It’s a boring pain. It’s such a fuckin’ old pain that, you know, there’s nothing poetic about it.” That’s how I feel dredging this up. This trauma is a worry stone in my pocket that I’ve
By my count, Will sexually assaulted me 3 times, each escalating in severity until I decided never speak to him again. I could not count the times he sexually harassed
gone over and over again with my thumb, so many times
me if pressed. There were an avalanche of red flags in our
that the depression could be an ancient inkwell used to
friendship that I had always been taught to get over. These
write on papyrus with a reed pen. The pain feels equally
sorts of behaviors were “cute” and “trivial,” the only way
as ancient, even though I had lived most of my life before
that men knew how to communicate their strong feelings.
it happened. It’s something that I’ve screamed about so
Will was just one of many boys in my life who felt entitled
much, written about so much, blamed myself for so much,
to my time and body.
that there’s nothing poetic about it. To be quite frank, there never was. It was a boring pain before the blaming
I don’t want to get graphic, so I’ll explain what happened
and the screaming and the tears. It’s a pain that’s been
in the simplest way I can: on the night of my senior prom,
woven into my life in a million different ways because
Will forcefully penetrated my mouth.
there’s not a woman I know who doesn’t feel it too.
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