Where were on on July 24, 2007? I was in a gold Mustang, being brutally and deeply emotionally scarred by someone who supposedly loved me more than life itself.

The first thing I remember after the pain stopped and the blackout ended was being very cold. It was 11:00 at night, and even in that Florida summer, I was shivering. But that probably had more to do with what had just happened than the actual temperature. I begged him to stop, not because I was afraid, not because it hurt, but because I was cold. Over and over again, that was all I could say, all I could think. I was cold, and I wanted to put my clothes back on and go home. Finally he let me.

He took me to my best friend’s house, where I was staying for the week. She had already gone to bed, but she heard me come in, and she wanted to know every detail about my date. She was fascinated with him, his good looks, and his shiny new sports car. I had prepared a story about how we had gone to dinner, then took a walk in a park, and then made out in his car. No one would ever have to know about this. It was going to be my secret, and I didn’t want anyone else to ever have to share my pain. But I wasn’t prepared for the first thing that came out of her mouth.

“You have sex hair!”

Indeed I did. I guess the shocked and terrified look on my face partially alerted her to what had happened, as she immediately checked me for hickies. I stood there, numb and shaking, as she shlowly inspected my neck and moved aside the collar of my cotton navy polo, diligently searching for what I knew she wouldn’t find. At least he had been courteous enough to give me hickies on my breasts where no one would see them. My best friend still seemed confused by my sex hair and the shock on my face when she mentioned it, but I assured her that everything was fine, told her that we had went to dinner, and that I was quite tired and would like to go to bed. I spent that whole night crying.

It was weeks before I could actually believe that it had happened to me, and months before I told anyone. Six months to the day that it happened, I told my parents that I had been raped. They cried, and for the first time in years, told me that they loved me. They asked me if I wanted to go into counseling, and I declined. I had my own ways to deal with this, ways that involved razorblades slicing into my skin, forming physical scars to match my emotional ones.