My boyfriend and I have been together for over three years, and earlier this evening we were having a conversation about whether or not we have an open relationship. Well, maybe that’s a whole article for another day.

“We already have one,” he said. “You’ve already slept with someone else.”

I was shocked and started racking my brain to think of who the fuck I had slept with.

“What? Who?”

“That guy at the bar,” he said.

Oh. Fuck. No.

“That guy at the bar? I was raped!” I told him. Shit, man. I thought you knew.

We stared at each other in shock, like this was the ending of an exceptionally dark episode of Three’s Company: “You thought Chrissy and I were dating? Oh god no! Chrissy raped me!”

Here’s why I thought he knew. Because the night after it happened, he didn’t come home. And he always comes home.

I had—obviously—stayed home from work that day. I called looking for him. He answered and said he had stopped in for a few drinks somewhere. This might be normal behavior, but believe me when I tell you that he has never done this before.

When he got home, I was crying. I didn’t know why he hadn’t come back. Was he mad at me? He mentioned that he had gone to look for the guy from the night before but couldn’t find him.

Oh, I see. You went to go beat the shit out that guy. Yeah. That’s my man. I get it.

It seems so stupid now. It made sense to me that he would go find this dude and pound him, but he couldn’t find him. That’s for the best, we don’t need the cops involved here. Ever since I was assaulted by my ex-boyfriend, I have learned not to call the cops under any circumstances. That’s probably an article for another day as well.

I’m not really like other women. I’m a little more reserved, less emotional, and more logical. I don’t EVER want to know what a guy is thinking and I sure as hell don’t want to talk about feelings.

In that way, I guess, I’m kinda like a dude. But that means I get really confused about simple things just like a dude because there’s no open conversation around them.

So, with his not coming home, coupled with me never wanting to call the police for anything, I actually thought we had some kind of unspoken agreement not to talk about it. I had made this up entirely in my mind.

My life philosophy is: look, horrible things have happened in our lives, let’s not dwell on them. It’s uncouth to obsess. It’s childish. Wipe your nose and go to work.

Understandably, I’ve been a bit depressed since it happened this past March. Distant. Struggling.

I keep wondering if I should go to therapy or not. I hate therapy. It’s so burdensome. I mean, there’s just SO MUCH to talk about. It would take ages. I don’t have ages. Nah, fuck therapy. I’ll just…keep this inside. I’ll just get raped and then never talk about it. That’s normal, right?

I remember screaming as we hailed a cab on the way home. Just screaming. He asked me what was wrong. I didn’t tell him.

The day after it happened, I stayed home from work. My boyfriend said he thought I was hung over. In truth, I hurt everywhere. I was covered in bruises and had random cuts on my legs from when I had fallen against the toilet. I couldn’t sit down right. I kept hearing myself crying.

Look, I’ll admit I don’t know what’s appropriate to say here and what isn’t. Trigger warning or whatever, I guess. I’m sorry.

My main memory of being raped is how it hurt to take a shit for about a week.

The next day, I went to work because I had to go to work. I’d already taken a day off. But the whole day I just kept thinking, “I was raped two days ago. Why am I here?”

I would go into the bathroom and lean my back against the wall. Then I’d stand over the sink and look in the mirror.

“Go back out there and do your job, you pussy,” I’d tell myself. “You can’t take time off just because you put yourself in harm’s way. This was your own fucking fault.”

So I did my job and I went home and cried, thinking he knew why and understood.

At first, when my boyfriend and I had sex I would flash back to the bathroom where it happened. I would remember throwing up from being choked on his dick. I’d push these thoughts out of my mind.

A week or so after it happened, however, my boyfriend was being a little rough in the bedroom. It scared the shit out of me. I didn’t understand why he would do such a thing and put his hand over my mouth like that. I was thinking: “What are you, crazy? I was just raped and you want to play rough?”

It all makes sense now. He didn’t know! He thought I had just gone and fucked some random dude in the bathroom. He was being rough in bed because he thought he had to be manly.

You’re not going to want to hear this, but the rape was kind of my fault. I mean, I know, it’s not my “fault”—at all. I don’t totally blame myself. But I take responsibility for my part in it. I had a part in it. I helped it happen. I could have stopped it, really. I mean, the rape never would have happened if I wasn’t there, right? So for that I take full responsibility.

When I told him all this tonight, he punched the coffee table twice. He held me and I cried until I couldn’t open my eyes anymore.

I didn’t know what else to say about this. I’m not much of a talker.