complained about him not sharing the TV. He looked different than he had on all other mornings because he’d opened a door inside of me that could no longer just be shut.
Through the view from that opened door, I noticed how pointy his dark brown ears were and how the angles were symmetrical with his rectangular haircut. I noticed his thin plum lips, his protruding hazel eyes, features he shared with his mother, Janine. I noticed his long, thin fingers and the way they curved around the edges of his toast. I had seen his features before but never taken note of them because Derek held no significance to me. Now he was the manifestation of a secret I wasn’t equipped to keep.
Derek dragged me across a threshold out of childhood. Before he grabbed me by my ankles and opened that door, I had jumped double Dutch and played jacks and stolen packets of Nerds that jiggled in my pocket as I walked out of the corner store during beer runs for Dad. I had run away from scraggly stray dogs and rubbed my knees raw by riding my skateboard on one knee.
Now that door was cracked open, creaking on its hinges, and I didn’t know when or if I should walk through it. My world shifted when Derek wrestled with me on that carpet. It wasn’t the wrestling or the grinding; it was the foreplay that had me yearning for his return, that planted a craving in my belly. As I would later experience, Derek had petted me, held me, spoken softly to me, and I liked the attention, the closeness, and the intimacy. I liked the fact that this well-dressed teenager who had all the latest tapes and outfits likedme. It was his attention, his wooing, that shifted my focus. And that was what I later learned that predators have in their arsenal of affections: They are able to make an isolated, outcast child feel special. Derek made me feel special when no one else was around, and especially when no one else validated the girl-child inside of me. Derek treated me like a girl, I thought, so I understood him to be my only ally, and my ally wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.
It took me years to recognize, label, and acknowledge Derek’s actions as molestation. I made excuses for him, from blaming my femininity to blaming his age. He was young, so he didn’t know any better, I often thought. But blaming myself and making excuses for Derek didn’t allow me to uncover the facts about child sexual abuse.
I later learned that the majority of sexual abuse offenses are committed by people who know the victim, including immediate or extended family members: a neighbor, coach, babysitter, teacher, or religious leader. According to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Crimes Against Children Research Center, over a third of all sexual abuse against children is committed by a minor. These statistics show a commonality between my experience and that of others who know and trust their abuser, who may be another young person. Though I now have empathy for Derek and am aware of his emotional immaturity, that doesn’t negate the pain his actions inflicted on me over those two years in my childhood.
Just a few nights after our first interaction on the carpet, Derek returned to me in the soothing darkness, shaking me awake in my twin bunk bed. “You up?” he said, framing his words with a smile, one I returned as he held out his hand. I took it, and he led me across the hall to his bedroom. I could hear Chad’s snoring from behind Derek’s closed door.
He took off his shirt and boxer shorts, and for the first time I saw him fully erect. It was the length of a Barbie, with the girth of twodolls. I stared at it as he lay down in bed. This was a penis, not his privates or a thing or dingaling .
“Come here,” he whispered, and I followed him, fully clothed, under his sheets.
I could hear his steady heartbeat from his chest as if I held a cup to a closed door, listening to the secrets inside him. I felt chosen. So when he unlocked my linked fingers and put them around his
Through the view from that opened door, I noticed how pointy his dark brown ears were and how the angles were symmetrical with his rectangular haircut. I noticed his thin plum lips, his protruding hazel eyes, features he shared with his mother, Janine. I noticed his long, thin fingers and the way they curved around the edges of his toast. I had seen his features before but never taken note of them because Derek held no significance to me. Now he was the manifestation of a secret I wasn’t equipped to keep.
Derek dragged me across a threshold out of childhood. Before he grabbed me by my ankles and opened that door, I had jumped double Dutch and played jacks and stolen packets of Nerds that jiggled in my pocket as I walked out of the corner store during beer runs for Dad. I had run away from scraggly stray dogs and rubbed my knees raw by riding my skateboard on one knee.
Now that door was cracked open, creaking on its hinges, and I didn’t know when or if I should walk through it. My world shifted when Derek wrestled with me on that carpet. It wasn’t the wrestling or the grinding; it was the foreplay that had me yearning for his return, that planted a craving in my belly. As I would later experience, Derek had petted me, held me, spoken softly to me, and I liked the attention, the closeness, and the intimacy. I liked the fact that this well-dressed teenager who had all the latest tapes and outfits likedme. It was his attention, his wooing, that shifted my focus. And that was what I later learned that predators have in their arsenal of affections: They are able to make an isolated, outcast child feel special. Derek made me feel special when no one else was around, and especially when no one else validated the girl-child inside of me. Derek treated me like a girl, I thought, so I understood him to be my only ally, and my ally wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.
It took me years to recognize, label, and acknowledge Derek’s actions as molestation. I made excuses for him, from blaming my femininity to blaming his age. He was young, so he didn’t know any better, I often thought. But blaming myself and making excuses for Derek didn’t allow me to uncover the facts about child sexual abuse.
I later learned that the majority of sexual abuse offenses are committed by people who know the victim, including immediate or extended family members: a neighbor, coach, babysitter, teacher, or religious leader. According to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Crimes Against Children Research Center, over a third of all sexual abuse against children is committed by a minor. These statistics show a commonality between my experience and that of others who know and trust their abuser, who may be another young person. Though I now have empathy for Derek and am aware of his emotional immaturity, that doesn’t negate the pain his actions inflicted on me over those two years in my childhood.
Just a few nights after our first interaction on the carpet, Derek returned to me in the soothing darkness, shaking me awake in my twin bunk bed. “You up?” he said, framing his words with a smile, one I returned as he held out his hand. I took it, and he led me across the hall to his bedroom. I could hear Chad’s snoring from behind Derek’s closed door.
He took off his shirt and boxer shorts, and for the first time I saw him fully erect. It was the length of a Barbie, with the girth of twodolls. I stared at it as he lay down in bed. This was a penis, not his privates or a thing or dingaling .
“Come here,” he whispered, and I followed him, fully clothed, under his sheets.
I could hear his steady heartbeat from his chest as if I held a cup to a closed door, listening to the secrets inside him. I felt chosen. So when he unlocked my linked fingers and put them around his
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