Things You Only Know If You’ve Confronted Your Rapist

My best friend raped me, and 14 years later we met for a drink to talk about it.

Nothing about what happened to me, or my decision to confront the man who attacked me, fits with the ‘traditional’ narrative of rape, and how survivors are meant to feel. It’s taken me a long time to accept that that’s OK – there are no rules that must be followed.

Mark* and I became friends when we were 13. He was incredibly sensitive, like no other teenage boy I knew. In December 2003, when I was 19, he threw a house party and, home from college for Christmas, I went. It was a year since my dad had died, and that night I became very upset. For thefirsttimeinmylifeIgotdrunk;Mark comforted me as he handed me another drink. I remember being carried to his bedroom, then I passed out.

I woke to Mark pulling my jeans and underwear off. I was so shocked that I froze. As he put his fingers inside me, I cried. He whispered, ‘I’ve liked you for so long. Be quiet... Everything is going to be OK.’ Then he masturbated over me.

Afterwards he dressed me, then fell asleep, and I ran upstairs and confided in a friend. ‘That’s rape,’ she said. But I insisted it wasn’t. He’d ‘only’ used his fingers. It was wrong, but it wasn’t rape. I couldn’t face the fact that my great friend was a rapist. I also worried that labelling Mark’s actions as rape was insulting to other women who’d suffered ‘conventional’ rape – as if my experience wasn’t as severe as theirs.

I told no one other than that friend – not even my mother, who was still so devastated from my father’s death that I didn’t think she could cope with it. Mark called a few days later, offering an awkward apology. I just wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened, and I brushed it off, shutting down my emotions. I saw him a few more times over the next six months, but only ever with other friends, and our seven-year friendship quietly ended.

For the next 14 years, I lived my life. It wasn’t ruined by what Mark had done, but I felt its impact. I doubted my ability to judge people, because I’d got it so wrong with him. There was a time when I didn’t want to have sex at all, and I doubted whether men saw me in any other way but sexual.

After the 2016 release of the Access Hollywood tapes that captured Donald Trump bragging that he could grab women ‘by the pussy’, then the beginning of the #MeToo movement in 2017, the nightmares about the rape, which I’d suffered for years, became more frequent. I decided to write about my experience, to try and get some closure, and show that not all rapists seem at first glance like bad men. The seemingly good, ordinary guys do it too.

To the abject disagreement of some female friends, I wanted to give Mark avoiceinmybook.Isawitasawayof finally holding him accountable. If he acknowledged what he’d done, no one could ever doubt me. My partner Chris, 38, who I met in 2009, understood why I wanted to speak with Mark, and trusted I was strong enough to handle it.

I emailed Mark in February 2018 and said I wanted to interview him for the book, but would conceal his identity. I’d prepared myself for him to refuse, but he agreed. I was nervous before our first call, but I also found myself looking forward to it. It’s hard to admit to that emotion, but my feelings were complicated; he’d been my friend, and a part of me missed him.

We spoke three times by phone last year. I asked him why he’d done it. He said he was drunk and depressed; he liked me but I had a college boyfriend. He hoped I was so drunk that I’d forget it had happened.

Listening back to each recording, I felt angry with myself because I was so kind to him, reassuring him he wasn’t a bad person. Having been emotionally numb for so long, I was more concerned with how he was coping speaking about the rape. I had to remind myself there are no guidelines when you’re a rape survivor. If I didn’t feel enraged or bitter, that was OK because I was writing a memoir, not a manifesto for other women.

The most helpful thing he said was: ‘I knew what I was doing was wrong while I was doing it, but I did it anyway.’ I’d spent years making excuses for him, diminishing his behaviour because he hadn’t used his penis, but that admission helped me accept that what he’d done was a serious crime, and he knew it too.

Friends suggested I take the tapes to the police, but putting him in jail wouldn’t make me feel better. I wanted him to admit what he’d done was wrong, listen to how it had affected me and apologise. He did all of those things in the course of our calls.

Last summer, I met Mark in person for a final conversation, and hugged him when I left. By then something had changed inside me. For the first time I’d felt anger towards him, and in feeling it, I was able to reach a point of almost forgiveness. I’d shut away my emotions for so long, it was a relief.

I’ve sent him a copy of the book, but we’re no longer in contact. There’s no way our friendship could ever be resurrected. I knew when I first contacted Mark that I had no idea what speaking with him could trigger within me. But it turned out to be cathartic. I have no regrets, and the nightmares have stopped

*Names have been changed.

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