So I grew up kind of in the hood,
and I started middle school when I was 11,
in 1998, when gangster rap was really big.
And so all the boys really wanted head
because that's what was being talked about in gangster rap.
And they even had this horrible game where they would kind of tackle a girl
and they would take her shoes
and they would throw her shoes in the boys bathroom.
And then a guy would go in there and try and get her to give him head.
And it was really complicated
because on the one hand, you sort of wanted to be chosen,
but then what happens in the bathroom?
And one time
this boy did tackle me and did take my shoes and did throw them in the bathroom.
But he was big and scary and terrifying
and so I didn't go in. And then I went the whole rest of the day without shoes.
And I ended up getting in trouble and taken to the principal's office.
Because our school is really strict about the dress code.
We had to wear, like, black pants and a white top to deal with all the gang stuff.
We weren't allowed to wear any colour.
And they were really big on being presentation ready.
So I ended up getting detention for not wearing shoes,
shit like that. So anyway,
it's my 13th birthday, and I'm kind of the rocker chick in the group.
I'm intensely Into Nirvana.
At this point,
I carry around the Nirvana biography come as you are in my backpack,
hoping that someone will find it and choose me and love me.
Like it's the purse episode of Boy Meets World.
But one of the things that they wrote in that book come as you are,
is that they would get high by taking fistfuls of Tylenol.
So it's my 13th birthday, someone brings tequila.
I'm taking, like,
fistfuls of Tylenol. Someone else brings weed brownies.
They didn't know how to make weed brownies.
They just did brownie mix where they plopped a bunch of weed in.
And we're wasted. We're, like,
setting fire extinguishers off out the window.
And then this guy named Nino,
who I don't like to begin with,
but invited,
he kind of corners me and gets me into the bathroom of my own house and is like,
suck it! And I'm kinda like, no, no.
But he sorta gets me down
and I end up sucking it for like 30 seconds before I come to
and I'm like, wait,
I don't wanna do this. And I try and get to the door,
and he blocks the door. We have the scuffle.
I end up being able to get out of the door,
but then he follows me and he tells everyone at the party that I did it.
That I sucked him and me in my now newly freshly 13 year old traumatized state,
and like, no, No,
I didn't. You're a liar!
And when I get to school on Monday,
he's told everybody the same thing.
And I stick to my story, which is, no,
it didn't happen. And it becomes this awful he said,
she said, and the slut shame is bad.
There's, like,
graffiti about me in the bathroom.
He's, like,
getting all these other guys against me.
They start doing things,
like guys will grab me and push me up against the vending machine and say, like,
I know you're a …,
and like, try and get me to go down on them and even, like,
take water bottles and, like,
throw it on my shirt, which is a white shirt.
So it's like, wet T-shirt contest
Wet T-shirt contest
And none of us girls are actually friends, right?
I have this group of friends.
There are girls there, but we're frenemies.
And we're all so male centered.
We're all on diets.
We all have our G strings pulled up to our freaking bra straps and, like,
sucking on baby bottle pops,
making eyes at these guys.
We used to hang out in the laundromat after school
and just compete for their attention.
And every once in a while,
one of us would have a creative idea.
Like this one girl, she was like, oh,
I'm on my period, and I'm trying to put a tampon in,
and I can't find the hole.
And then she, like,
bring boys into the bathroom of This laundromat,
trying to get them to help her find the hole.
It's bad and depressing and lonely and terrifying.
And also crazy, because if you look at middle schoolers now,
they look like children. We were children,
but at the time, we felt so adult.
And I get through this and make it to a more alternative public high school,
where I meet a guy, let's call him Jake,
and I fall in love. We fall in love hard.
Psychotic first love. And everyone talks about puppy love,
like it's this cute thing,
but in my experience, it's traumatic.
Like, people's first love is traumatic.
You're having more feelings than you've ever had in your life.
Like, peak puberty hormones,
no guidance, no wisdom.
We're always in some complex emotional melodrama by lunch.
And he's also, like,
my first real friend. He's, like,
the first person who I feel like,
sees and knows me. And, um,
we end up sleeping together when I'm 14.
When I'm 15, we try and run away to Georgia to get married with this, like,
ring he buys me from a bubblegum thing.
And from the beginning, he asked me about what he calls the Nino thing.
And me, because I've been denying it,
I say no, like,
I have been. But every once in a while,
he'll ask again. And as we're going on,
like, into sophomore year and we're falling more deeply in love,
I feel like I want to tell him I want that part of me to be seen and known.
And so I build up my courage,
and I'm practicing my story when I'm taking a shower to myself in the mirror.
And the next time he asks,
I say yes. And I start going into the story that I prepared.
But instead, he freaks out.
Like, scary
Freaks out, like,
crying and howling. And we're in this Mexican restaurant,
and he crumples to the floor,
whimpering like a dog and starts, like,
crawling to the door. And I'm terrified.
And I take him back to my house.
And then he starts screaming that I'm a … and a …
and that he'll never love me again
and I'm a piece of ... And in the morning,
he says he deserves a period of what he calls retaliation,
which is basically a permission slip for abuse without any foreseeable end.
And this period of retaliation includes things like
I'm supposed to set him up on dates with other girls,
that I'm supposed to orchestrate group sex with me and other girls,
that I have to
on demand whenever he wants,
that I need to cook for him.
And because two things about Jake.
The first is that he is, to this day,
the most intense alcoholic I've ever met.
I think at the time,
I didn't understand how bad it was because I didn't have any context,
but he would, like,
wake up at five in the morning to Drink an entire hand,
an entire handle of Taka vodka before school started at 8.
And also,
he's moved in with me because his relationship with his dad is really bad.
And so I comply because I think I deserve it.
I think I have, like,
ruined our trust and broke his heart.
And that I am us and a piece of ...
And, um,
his alcoholism gets even worse and kind of out of control.
And I'm, like,
16 now, living in basically,
like, a domestic violence situation with an alcoholic in my own home.
And he'll do things like I'll get calls at four in the morning
to pick him up from parties or other girls houses
and then bring him home. And he's a really mean drunk.
Like, when he gets drunk,
he will, like,
go into this mode where he just verbally berates me.
And he'll. I'll try and get him in the car,
and he's, like,
flailing and pushing me around.
And I feel like if I can be good and I can show him that I love him,
then he'll come back to me
and I will have done my penance for this, like,
horrible crime against love.
And then it comes to light
that he played basketball at the boys and girls *club*
with Nino and a bunch of Nino's friends.
And that they've been making fun of dating me,
of him dating me from the beginning,
which is how he even knew About it to begin with,
and is also part of why he pushed for us to have sex so early,
because he thought if we were having sex,
then they couldn't step to him.
And years later, he sobers up
and we reconnect. When I'm back in the city
and I'm expecting amends or something like that.
Um, but they don't come.
And so I bring it up with him,
thinking he might not even remember the worst of it because he was so blasted.
Or he might have reflected on it and have some piece of the puzzle for me.
And instead, it's like we're 16 again.
And he says he can't believe that I did that to him,
that I embarrassed him like that in front of his friends,
and that I made him look like a fool.
That all these years later,
what stuck in his head about that experience
was not what I had been flagulating myself for.
About breaking his trust, or the damage done to our love,
or the fact that he had come from such a difficult home life
and finally felt like he had sanctuary with me,
and yet I had ruined it by keeping this lie from him.
No, what stuck in his head was
losing face in the eyes of these other fatherless boys.
That's what he remembered.
And years later, I was with another friend,
and we were catching up in New York City,
and they actually brought it Up and apologized to me.
That they didn't recognise it at the time,
but that's abuse.
And they remember seeing me at so many parties and at so many people's houses
where he would get drunk and he'd be towering over me with a drink in his hand,
screaming at me.
And they would watch me get more stoic and kind of draw in and take it
and give him more love and more understanding.
And at the time they thought that that was so mature,
but that now they can see that that was really wrong
and that they shouldn't have valued me for being able to take it,
that they should have valued me enough to take me out of it.