Survivor

The first time (first of many) I was ever touched inappropriately, without consent, was when I was in second grade by a classmate. I don’t know how someone so young could know what sex is, or why a boy his age would even have an urge to do the things he did… but he did.

I’ve never felt like I really fit in, no matter what grade I was in, and second grade was no different especially since I had just moved from a small town to the suburbs over the summer. I made a few friends, a few people really didn’t like me, and most of the kids in my grade I just didn’t talk to. The people I did talk to was mostly one “cool” group of boys that I’d always sit with on the bus and had class with as well. There was another group of boys that were what’d be considered the “weird” guys, but being the nice person I was I’d try to talk to everyone. I remember them always being really sarcastic and I was very naive. Eventually, one of the boys started saying pretty inappropriate things that no second grader should even know about. I remember one time he’d ask if I wanted to get naked with him in a hot tub and when I’d said “ew, no!” He’d asked, “What? What’s that word? What are you saying?” and I’d spelled out “N-O N-O N-O” which he replied with, “Oh! You want to sit ON my lap naked??” The boys he was friends with would laugh and snicker and act like it was the coolest, funniest thing they’d ever heard while I sat there uncomfortably.

At my elementary school each teacher would walk their class out to the busses at the end of the day. I’m assuming it was just to keep them from running around the halls and stuff. Well, I was almost always the last one out of the classroom because I’d get too caught up in doing something, my desk would be a mess, or I’d forget something. One day the teacher left with the class and the last student had turned off the lights, like usual, leaving me at my desk still looking for whatever I was looking for. Well, this boy, the one who’d been verbally harassing me on the bus/after school/at recess, came back into the room without me noticing (my desk was facing the opposite direction of the door) and came up behind me and scared me by grabbing my hips doing “jumper cables”. When I turned around to see it was him, I just laughed uncomfortably and tried going back to doing whatever I was doing. Well, he didn’t like that. He grabbed me, turned me around, and started kissing me with tongue. Every time I pulled back, he pushed forward, eventually causing me to practically lay back on the desks. He started grabbing my chest (mind you, this is second grade so I didn’t have breasts yet) and put his hand over my pants on my “private parts”. I was terrified, but I didn’t know what was happening so I didn’t know what to do. I just remember being so scared and unable to move or do anything so I just stood there for what felt like forever until a teacher came in. The teacher saw what was going on and just told us to hurry up so we didn’t miss the busses.

I didn't understand what happened until I was older, not until I was almost 15 when I finally accepted all of the other things that have happened to me in the past. One thing I will never accept or get over is the fact that someone at such a young age was capable of doing something like that...