Dear Counselor: My Story.

Letter Eighteen

10/8/2016

Alexis Poniewierski

It's been months since I've last written. Approximately four or so months- and it's not because I wasn't hurting, but because I was away. Escaping from everything for awhile.

My boyfriend and I broke up in July. We went two months without talking- and during those two months, I was out in a different city hanging out with friends, and doing stupid things a teenager should not have been doing.

I was drinking. I was smoking. I was getting my mind off of everything.

I ended up smoking with the wrong person. I thought he was my friend. I trusted him.

He drugged me, but I escaped as soon as I felt strangely. I went to my friends house, and that's when I started feeling miserable. I was going in and out of consciousness. I was feeling nauseous, I was having cold sweats. It was unbearable. I had gone out of consciousness completely- not knowing three people had come and gone at my friends house.

A few days go by, and I went and stayed with a few people I knew and trusted for a few days. I was in a completely different city than my Mom and Dad, them both being divorced. I wanted to move out as soon as I turn seventeen, so my Mom was giving me a free ride to see what it was like to be alone and on my own.

Going to these people's house was a bad idea.

The husband, let's call him Richard for privacy reasons. Let's call his wife Nancy.

Nancy worked midnight shifts at Meijer's, and Richard drove her there every night, and if you've ever heard of that app involving Pokemon, where you go around town catching them, they were playing that. I went with them, because at that time, I played it as well.

Eventually the time rolled around where Nancy had to go to work. So Richard dropped her off at work with me in the backseat, so when she left I hopped in the front seat and picked music on the auxiliary plug, we were off to go and catch Pokemon. 

It was a bad, bad night.

We had stopped at a place called Vantage Point, because there were "lures" down for Pokemon.

Richard started asking me strange things, like, "do you think I'm attractive?"

I kept trying to change the subject, because it turned into, "I think you're a beautiful woman," and, "I've known you for over a year and you became extremely sexy," and I kept changing the subject. But he wouldn't stop.

We started to leave, and he randomly stopped the car and leaned over and forcefully kissed me. I kept yelling, "No," and, "please stop," and he didn't. He had tried forcing his hand into my shirt, reaching for my inner thigh, and forcing his mouth on mine, despite the fact I wasn't kissing back.

I felt so overwhelmed and scared. In fact- I was terrified. 

"This wouldn't change the fact you're like a kid to me," he told me. Which made me want to vomit. I was scared- a lot of things were going through my head. I was scared that I was in danger for sexual assault and possibly being left on the side of the road.

I kept telling him to stop, that it was weird, and that I was uncomfortable. He kept touching me, despite me saying stop, and no.

When he finally started driving, he kept flirting and asking me if I was going back to his house that night. I was texting a friend begging them to call me so he'd stop. I had told them that it was an emergency and I'd explain later. 

My friend called me, I was supposed to be going to hang out with him anyways. While I was talking to my friend on the phone, Richard kept putting his hand on my upper thigh and whispering disgusting things. I wanted to cry. I kept ignoring Richard, choking down tears while I tried to have a conversation with my friend on the phone, but I couldn't think of anything to talk about because of the situation I was in.

A few days after this happened, Richard was jailed for thirty days for being held in contempt of court.

I went to go and speak to Nancy about the situation. I talked to her, and she looked solemn. But had the nerve to look up at me and say, "it's not the first time this has happened," and, "please don't bring the cops into this, you can still come over, just not to be in the same room as Richard," and I was ultimately disgusted.

Your husband had the audacity to touch a minor child in inappropriate places with the hopes of having sex with said minor, and you're going to ask me to do nothing about it, and then tell me it's not the first time he's done this.

It had mentally screwed me up. In fact- I'm still screwed up. I think about it everyday. I had filed a police report against him- but they dropped it because I'm legal age of consent. It's so screwed up that this man can get away with trying to have sex with me despite me telling him no, and telling him to stop, but yet these dumb police officers and investigators had the audacity to drop the case just because I'm a sixteen year old teenager which is legal age of consent? I DID NOT CONSENT.