Because I Needed to Get This Off My Chest…

Now before I get into this let me just say, this post has been sitting in my drafts for days. I had a hard time deciding if I should hit publish or not, and in turn, it’s been blocking me from writing other things.  I needed to get this off of my chest. People get over things in different ways. Some talk through it while others push it to the back of their minds. And that’s okay. I chose to write through it.  For me at least, writing has always helped to give me closure.  So here we go…

Last week, I did my daily Facebook rounds. I searched through my timeline to see who was doing what, who is engaged to who, who’s having a baby, and who still doesn’t know what they’re talking about. As I continued being nosey, I saw a notification on my friends request. When I saw his face, I hyperventilated, closed my laptop and tried to push the thoughts that now rushed my mind back to where they came from.

See in high school, I wasn’t all that. I was quiet when I probably should’ve spoken up and loud when I probably should’ve been quiet. Freshman year, I had my first taste of alcohol. Devil Springs. I drank too much trying to prove to my then friends that “I could hang” and that I wasn’t as nerdy or weird as I seemed.

We played “7 Minutes in Heaven”, a game that I had only seen on Lifetime movies about out of control teens. How ironic. When it came to be my turn, it was as if a spotlight was on me. My face felt hot. I was hoping that my “friends” wouldn’t make me go. But, I can remember one of them yelling “We did it, so you gotta do it too” as if it were some rite of passage to being grown.

We walked into the bathroom. With the door locked from the outside and the lights off, we kissed. It was my first kiss and even though I was drunk, it was about all I was ready to do. He was really nice to me at first. We never talked to each other prior to that day. It wasn’t long before “7 Minutes in Heaven” turned into however many minutes of “Is it over yet?” Somewhere between ignoring my no’s and holding my hands above my head, he asked “What do you want me to do instead?” Though we were in a pitch black tiny bathroom, if looks could kill he surely would’ve been dead.  What I wanted him to do was to stop fondling me. What I wanted him to do was let me leave so I could go home. After what seemed like forever, someone finally unlocked the door. By the look on my face, my “friend” decided that our make-shift party was now over.

We went back to school that following Monday as if nothing had ever happened. We didn’t speak. We didn’t make eye contact in the hallways. We spent the next 2 or 3 years until he graduated as strangers and that worked for me. When someone would mention his name, I would pretend as if I didn’t even know who he was.

Though he didn’t rape me, he touched me in ways I didn’t like. He touched me in ways that to this day, I jump or curse someone out when the brush against me in a crowded area. He touched me in ways that made cross the street when I saw him walking in Harlem a couple of years ago. He touched me in ways that when he left a comment on my picture from 123 weeks ago that read: “You never know what’s going in or around your mouth. #takethathowyouwant #nodisrespectintended “, I threw up. He touched me in ways that when he had the audacity to send me a friend request on Facebook last week (after I unfriended him), I damn near cried.

The thing is: I’m not afraid of him. I’m actually afraid of what I would do if I ran into him again. Would I have to be fake friendly? Would I let my repressed emotions get the best of me? Shit, does he even remember what happened?

As his friend request still sits in my Facebook inbox, I write this post in hopes of getting it off my chest, off my heart, and out of my mind.