Them

I let them in.

And somehow that makes it my fault, my doing, a mantra that has played in my head all these years. I let them in.

I was in seventh grade, I think. So many things happened with them over time that the years blend together, but I’m pretty sure this was seventh grade. It was summer, it might have been Fourth of July. There was a big party around the block at my uncle’s house with a live band and I don’t remember what the party was for, I just remember being there, but not being there, wrapped in a cloud of shame and disgust.

But first, I let them in.

Everyone was at the party and when I went over the intricacies of the events of that day, I could see it was all well planned and thought out and there were a lot of people in on it, not just the two of them. But it was the two of them who asked me to run home and get a record, knowing I’d be in the house alone. It was the two of them who said they’d walk me there. It was the two of them who walked into my house with me.

I let them in.

I know I shouldn’t have. But they were neighbors, boys my age I grew up with, friends of the family, supposed friends of mine. I should have known better, given our history, the history of them touching me where I shouldn’t be touched without consent, the history of them badgering me for things I didn’t want to give them, the confusing history of me letting them touch me out of fear; fear of what they would do if I said no, fear of being cut off from the only group of friends I knew if I said no. Fear of the no, I called it. Fear of what saying no would mean. They already tormented me in ways that would later be known as bullying but in years past was known as boys being boys.

I let them in.

We went to my room to find the record they wanted to borrow. But there was really no record they wanted. No Led Zeppelin album was going to get me out of there quick, out of the sacred place that was my bedroom, back outside, back to the party, back to my family and safety.

I knew it, felt it, as soon as we entered the bedroom. I could sense the conspiracy between the two of them, I could see their subtle hand signals to each other, the slight head nods, the shifting gazes. I knew I was in trouble. But I also knew I was trapped, that we were alone with no chance of anyone coming home, that I was in a way beholden to them, obligated to them. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want any of this. I wanted to be back at the party, listening to my cousin’s band do horrible Creedence Clearwater Revival covers. I wanted to see my sisters. I wanted to hear my father telling stupid jokes. I felt like I was suffocating and they hadn’t done anything yet.

“Let’s go,” I said, as if everything was normal. But Steven stood in my way, blocked me from going further than my bed. Joey stood behind him, smaller than Steven, much smaller, but somehow more menacing. “Come on, just a little,” Steven said, and I knew what he meant.

“No.”

I said it clearly, firmly, but with no sense of authority. I didn’t own my body. They made it clear over time that they did. Steven laughed, took me by my shoulders and pushed me down on the bed.

“I don’t want to.”

Joey was standing at the foot of the bed. He grabbed my pants by the cuffs and pulled.

“Stop.”

They didn’t hear me. My voice did not exist to them, I had no say. Steven was on one side of me, Joey on the other. My pants were down and forceful hands were upon me, touching, grabbing in the way a teenage boy would grab, greedily, without care. “I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do this,” I whispered. If only I’d asked someone else to come home with us. If only I said no. If only I told my mother. If only I didn’t let them in.

Four hands on me, four hands in a place no hands should be, fingers prodding and groping, wriggling inside me.

I let them in.

My breath was coming in gasps, I was collapsing inside. Everything I knew about comfort and safety was unraveling in long ribbons and I closed my eyes and found some strength and tried to fight them off. But four hands beat two, two very small hands, god I was such a small kid, and they continued to have their way with me while my soul fell apart, a thousand little pieces hurling through space. I’d never be able to put them together again. Never.

And then they were done. They were having fun and I ruined it by crying, ruined their good time. They left me there on the bed, pants around my ankles, all of five minutes gone by. They left. They went out the door I let them in.

Everything hurt. My head, my heart, the places where their fingers probed. I washed up, got myself together and walked back to the party determined to pretend like the worst thing to ever happen to me didn’t just happened. I’d wipe it out. Erase it. Forget it.

But there would be no erasure, no forgetting. The thing I wanted to keep secret was a conquest to Steven and Joey, and they told and bragged about it to the circle of people I thought were my friends. Girls, boys, all of them. They questioned me about it, they teased me about it, they laughed and pointed and called me a slut, a whore, an easy mark. The girls were especially mean-spirited, taunting me, asking why I let them in. I must have wanted it if I let them in. I must have been asking for it. They were told it was my idea.

Everything was spinning. I was dizzy, short of breath, one second away from breaking down right there and then, running to tell my father what happened, asking him to defend me and protect me. But I couldn’t. How could I tell him what happened? I was at fault. I let them in. I let them in. The sounds of CCR played on, all around me people eating corn on the cob, people shouting, playing ball, the party raged on while I emotionally collapsed. I defended myself, I tried to tell everyone what really went on, but it was too late, I was branded. And I was ashamed.

I never told anyone else what happened. No parent, no authority figure, no relative, no one. The only people who knew were our small circle of friends and they kept it to themselves, an inside joke where I was the punchline. I spent that summer mostly with myself, reading in my room, listening to records — anything but CCR — hating myself, hating Steven and Joey, hating the girls who called me a slut, hating life.

That incident colored my ideas about myself. It’s where my self-loathing began. It’s where my sense of shame about who I am began. It marked the beginning of a life long battle with panic and anxiety, it defined who I was sexually, emotionally.

I shouldn’t have let them in. I should have said no more times. I should have yelled louder, fought harder, done something, anything to fend them off. I should have years ago told Steven he wasn’t entitled to me. I shouldn’t have feared them. I should have told someone.

What is the point of me, 40 years later, telling this story? There is no point really, except for the letting go of it. I’ve carried it around with me all this time and I never forgot about it, never let those memories get carried away like so many other details of my childhood. I wake up thinking about it, I dream about it, I think about it every time I look at Steven’s or Joey’s childhood houses across the street. I don’t know what they are doing now. I don’t know how their lives turned out. I don’t know if they ever think about that summer day when they destroyed a small part of a young girl’s psyche.

I’m just trying to find a way to forgive myself for letting them in, or perhaps teaching myself that I have no need for forgiveness. Then I think maybe I want to forgive Steven and Joey their childhood transgression, maybe that would free me, but what if? What if they continued that behavior into adulthood? What if my letting them in made them think they had a right to be let in by other girls, women? How can I forgive myself that? Maybe if I told, there would have been consequences. But who would believe me, a slut, a whore, an easy mark? Who would believe the person who let them in?

I’ve carried this for so long it’s a facet of who I am. It is evident in the way I raised my daughter to have respect for her own body, it’s evident in the way I raised my son to respect girls and their ownership of their bodies. But it’s also evident in non-positive ways, and I wish to cast those ways into the water, I wish to let them go.

So here they are, here are the words I’ve been holding in for 40 years, here is the story I never told. At the risk of being self-serving, I hope this in some way sets me free.

*The names have not been changed to protect anyone.