Longtime readers of this blog will know that in 2009, while visiting a friend in Virginia, I got lost trying to navigate public transport alone for the very first time in my life. I met a man on the bus who saw I was upset and asked why. I told him I was lost. He seemed super nice. He offered to escort me to my destination, my friend’s apartment.
He did in fact take me to my friend’s apartment but only after taking me into an isolated spot of woods as dusk was gathering and holding me against my will in the dark for two hours. I was beaten and I was threatened with death. He put his hands around my neck. He raped me multiple times. He walked around with me for two hours. Then he let me go, across the street from my friend’s apartment building, and pointed it out to me and let me go. I got back to my friend’s house at a bit after nine p.m.
What happened that night was just the beginning of the story. What followed over the next decade was a roller coaster series of events (and this blog is part of it all). Basically every time I thought the story was over, it would pop back up again.
I now consider myself to be “over” what happened to the extent that anyone can be. Let me explain it this way: if I saw my attacker, was face to face with him, I’d just turn around and walk calmly away. I have nothing to say to him and have no more feelings about him than I would about a shark. These people are called “predators” for a reason and he did what they do. These last several years, I have forgotten about it on the anniversary of the rape, June 16. Only a few days later will I remember: “Oh, the other day it was the anniversary of what happened.”
But it took a long way to get there. I would not have finally found peace unless the story had finally finished itself. In 2019, ten years after the attack, it finally did.
It’s quite a tale. And it takes a long time to tell. I will do a post about it every day till it’s over. Not enough people talk about what happens after a sexual assault.
The Charley Project Blog 