D is for Douche

I don’t want to use the rapist’s name, so I’ll use D for Douche, Dickhead, Douchecanoe, Dipshit, Douchefuck, Douchelord, Raping Douchebag — you get the picture.

I actually can’t nail down the exact moment I met D. I was a junior, several months before anything happened that led down the road where D violated me in the worst way you can violate a human being. I was 21 and he wasn’t. He tried to sneak into bars with a group of friends (only one or two of whom were friends with him) but didn’t make it in. I didn’t think much of it as I thought he was ugly – and I don’t say that to be mean, as I truthfully don’t find most men attractive, but to just say that he was not on my radar in any form.Looking back, I can tell I was on his. I just didn’t realize what that meant. I wonder sometimes what I would do, if I could go back in time, and only to one specific moment in time when I didn’t even know who D really was, what I would say to myself. How I could possibly explain it, that this little skinny guy with the gross facial hair and huge glasses and awkward personality needed to be avoided at all costs at all points of the future?It’s laughable. And I highlight it, because I feel there is a perception that rapists are guys in hoodies who always look tough and who you just “know” to stay away from. Often, I think they are, whether people admit it or not, a different skin color than them. And it’s ridiculous, but I think I know why: if you keep perpetuating this belief that a rapist looks a certain way, it both helps you deny the rapist is someone you know and it makes it easy to blame the victim because “well, what did you expect? Not that I’m blaming you (but really, I am blaming you, because, like, I can’t hold creepy guys acceptable because it’s too hard).”After the first few encounters, summer hit. The beginning was one hell of a start, as I broke up with my on-again, off-again boyfriend for the final time. He was also my best friend, and we are still on good terms. I won't go into that though because he didn’t destroy me, but it’s a key plot point in this saga, that I was completely broken-hearted.I had a great summer that year though. I interned at a place that had everything to do with my one-day profession, and I focused on it since my boyfriend was gone and I didn’t want anyone new. I wanted to grieve since I knew it was necessary to heal. I met great people at that job, and hung out with my remaining friends. I grew as a person. I was excited to wake up every day and go to work. At the end of the summer, on the one year anniversary since I had gone abroad, I got a tattoo that meant a lot to me about that experience. It was a nice full-circle.The only complaints I had was that it seemed to rain a lot on my days off, which were weekends, and that my grandmother passed away. The last one was sad, but I was honestly okay with it, because I knew she was ready to go. There was peace in that.

But I couldn’t. I felt powerless, and in broad daylight, on my last college move-in day, I just felt like crying.

Maybe that’s why I dreaded the end of summer – I was broken hearted still, but at peace and the happiest I had been in a long time. I did not like my school. If I could go back in time to prevent interacting with D on any level, I wish I could go back and either go to a different school or transfer out. I was miserable there for many reasons.But mainly, at the end of that summer of 2014, I had this huge lump of dread that hung deep in my heart – this sense of foreboding that something was coming and that this year would be the worst yet.I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t tell anyone about it because it felt so foolish, and, also, what could I do? Not go to school for my senior year and drop out of college when the finish line was in sight? No point.It’s just one more year, I told myself. You can do it. What could go wrong? You’re fine. You like your professors, you’re smart enough to get through your classes, you know you can make it. Just one more year and then you get to leave and go do something exciting like all of your older friends have.No dice. I lost sleep. I put off packing as long as possible. I was irritable. I think what was worst was that I was so scared but couldn’t back out, and I couldn’t tell anyone.I was haunted for a long time by one moment in particular, which happened the day I moved into my college apartment. I couldn’t get the dorm door open because I didn’t have keycard access, so I was trying to get ahold of a residence life person. My parents were in the car so it was just me on the doorstep. I was trying to stay calm since it was not worth getting upset about.Keep in mind, I’m not the type who goes home every weekend like some do. I could go weeks and weeks at a time without seeing my family and would be, more or less, fine.But in that moment, sweating on a hot and humid August day, all I remember thinking was, “I want to go home. I am making a huge mistake. Something bad is going to happen. I want to go home.”But I couldn’t. I felt powerless, and in broad daylight, on my last college move-in day, I just felt like crying.A few weeks later, after classes started and I had been lulled into an uneasy sense of security, I met D at a party. He had a different haircut, ditched the glasses, and trimmed the ugly handlebar mustache for a goatee instead.I didn’t know it yet, but “the worst” had arrived. Turns out he had a great smile, and we lost at beer pong.