Til it Happens to You

I didn't say yes. But I didn't say no.

After, we were at church. I stood while we sang.

And I cried.

I wasn't crying because I was moved by the spirit. I was crying because I was 14 and had just performed the first sexual act of my life.

And I didn't want to.

And I had never said no.

We talked about it in hushed tones outside of the church, the only place we could see one another. He'd ask. I'd halfway act interested so he wouldn't think I was lame. So he wouldn't think I didn't like him.

So he would still like me.

The church would have lake days with the youth group. Must-wear-t-shirts-over-your-bathing-suit lake days. He'd touch me under the dirty, dark lake water while our friends waded close by, oblivious.

Of course they weren't oblivious.

He'd grown up at this place. His family went there. Mine did not. I was 14 with a C cup and the advice to not wear those green Aeropostale sweatpants to youth group, because they were "distracting" for the boys.

And one day, brushing up against me wasn't enough. Not enough for his hormones. Not enough for me to show my love for him.

Pancakes I would make him before Sunday service, poems we would write one another, the way I put up with never seeing him and the constant pressure for naked photos.

That didn't show my love for him the way putting my hands in his pants would.

He'd grown up at the church. He knew where we could go where no one would know. We could go sit outside right now, while we should have been helping with Sunday school.

Just let me pull it out. Just touch it. Just wrap your hand around it.

I didn't say no. But I didn't say yes.

But I had to show my love for him. Nothing was ever enough.

So I did it until a door opened, and the Sunday school teacher knew. He didn't say. But I saw in his eyes, he knew we were doing something wrong.

We went inside.

I cried the whole service, filled with the Spirit.

Filled with shame.

Once I had done it once, I could never make up enough of an excuse to justify not doing it. To avoid his anger at me when I wouldn't. Why was I punishing him?

Didn't I know how to have a boyfriend?

Well, no. He was my first one.

There were 20-hour bus rides to Tennessee with our youth group, his hands in my pants under the blankets.

It wasn't that I didn't want him.

It was that it didn't seem to matter what I wanted.

No, I didn't want to pretend to sleep in his lap while I blew him on the bus, across the aisle from the pastor's daughter.

No, I didn't want to "help him get something" while he tried to perform oral sex on me.

But I loved him as much as a 14 year old girl could.

So I didn't say no. But I didn't say yes.

Fifteen years old. My first musical showcase of high school. High on a wonderful performance. The happiest night of my life to date. I turn my phone on when the concert is over. I have dozens of messages from him.

My mom found your photos. I'm sorry. I'm in so much trouble. My parents are so angry. My mom hates you now. I saved them all in my phone.

I had asked him not to. My face was in some of them.

My current, adult relationship does not get naked photos for this reason. I will never be able to face the shame of that day.

They didn't tell my parents. I didn't tell my parents.

We dated a few months more.

It didn't stop.

He told me had an addiction to porn and I was enabling him by giving into his advances.

He said this the weekend after his parents finally invited me to their house for dinner.

We'd gone for a walk after, and he took me into the woods and begged me to blow him.

And I didn't say no. But I didn't say yes.

It's taken me almost 9 years to ask myself if I was sexually assaulted. Because it doesn't feel like that to me.

I didn't want it. But I didn't fight it.

Did I encourage his behavior?

It was nice to feel wanted.

But the shame was never-ending.

I couldn't show my face after we broke up. Not because I had to see him at church. But because I knew people knew what we had done. What I had done to their baby, the girl with a big chest who didn't belong to the church. I had let him stray. I hadn't been strong enough to say no.

They weren't wrong about that. I wasn't. I wanted so badly to be loved, to be wanted.

So I never said no. But I never said yes.

So could that possibly be assault? My mind tells me no. That I can’t blame him for being a child, using another child who never protested. Not directly.

But my 14 year old heart, smashing her phone camera so she would have an excuse not to send him more naked photos, says yes.

My 14 year old heart, filled with shame during youth movie night, my hands sticky, says yes.

My 22 year old heart, petrified to post this, horrified for my parents to know... tells me that whatever we call it, it wasn't right.

If you don't say yes, then it's no.