A long time ago, 15 years or so, I was working as a teenager doing something I loved to do. It doesn’t matter what it was, but I had wanted to make it my life career. During one busy summer week a co-worker who was already making advances towards me took it too far. Stating “no” multiple times, the inevitable happened and he got what he wanted. The day it happened I called another co-worker in to work and told him what happened. He sent me home and I quit the job that day with no explanation to work or my family. That evening I also told my sister, who swore she wouldn’t tell anyone and she was trustful enough that she didn’t…. Weeks later I found out I was now pregnant. So my choices: Try and handle it on my own or tell my parents. I told my parents because I hoped they would help me. They didn’t seem to believe me at first and I wanted them to believe. I asked that we go to the police to give a statement(so I could prove I wasn’t lying). They tell us the guy had prior felonies, a wife, kids, and that he was older than my parents were. This would send him back to jail for a very long time. An attorney is appointed to me and she lets us know that during the arrest the guy hurt one policeman and threw his wife in front of them so he could try to escape. Now that he was caught I felt the dire need to press charges and go through the trial because my family was skeptical at first and this should really show them this really happened to me. Now here is my confession: To make it more believable I exaggerated the truth. I said I put up more of a fight than I believe I actually did. I can’t really remember everything that went down but my ex-co-worker and sister who saw me the day it happened both said my clothes were torn and I had bruising and scratches from throat down to mid-drift front and back. So maybe my mind was trying to bury the hurt and make me think less of what happened, but I thought I deserved what I got and that I could’ve done more to prevent it. Maybe I could, but at the time I might not have realized it. During the trial we find out that he was doing it to another girl that worked there too. She had taken my job when I quit and he was going the same route with her. Anyways the trial ended in a “hung jury” which my attorney believed was the doing of the defense attorney paying someone off. The juror didn’t want to wait for a final verdict and wanted to go home after being in the court for 3-4 days. I don’t blame them for anything and hope they did what they had to do. But this now meant I had to go through another trail or offer him a plea deal. I went with the plea because that trial really took a lot out of me. It was on the week of my junior prom no less. The guy supposedly got out of jail recently, which is why I felt the need to write this.
Again, I know I technically exaggerated about what happened (or maybe I didn’t, can’t remember), but I absolutely know I said no more than once! I now know I didn’t deserve to go through what I did. I do feel some relief as I was the one who stopped him before someone else got hurt. This has been a weight on my shoulders for so long. I hope that reading my story, someone out there will get a voice and speak up. No need to exaggerate and if you think no one will believe you, I will.
