A letter to the accused
Last year I wrote a letter to myself. It mostly recounted what happened, how life had changed since, and said thanks to the people in my life. It was something to burn to ceremonially move on. This year, I choose to write openly to you.
[trigger warning: mentions rape and police investigation]
Dear accused,
Do you think of me? I don’t know if it’s possible that you do. Do you think you got to know me in those few hours before you blocked me from your bedroom door? It’s tricky to imagine the outline of me that exists in your head. Was I pretty to you? Was I weak? Did you know I ask too many questions?
It’s funny. To me you’re strong, in the way that roadkill is. Jaw clenchingly uncomfortable, but a victim too. Your masculinity could have been positive, but it was crushed by rape culture, leaving a repulsive silhouette of misogyny. While cycling, I came across many animals, crushed by the vehicles forced onto roads by failed mass transport systems. My road to maturity is equally littered with the carcasses of men who’s violent misogyny collided with my femininity. Vile, a product of failing to see women as people.
You didn’t know I vomited when I saw you texted me. My hands were only just quick enough to push open the police car door when they took me home. My hands held me against a brick wall as acid splattered on pebbles. My friend held back my hair and hugged me. I’d only had water while they questioned me, swabbed me, took their evidence. What was it like to be questioned? Did you get the same plastic bottle of water? Did you worry there might be consequences? The statistics are on your side.
While you were cautioned, I drifted between dazed and distraught. What was it like when all that stopped? When the police deemed evidence “inconclusive”. I felt like the world had been pulled out from beneath me. It must have felt like the world rose up to support you.
But now I breathe. I’m stood on a train platform, about to start medical school, with a sparkling CV that looks uninterrupted by my flashbacks, panic attacks, and collapsed world view, curtesy of you. The sun is shining. Kids are giggling. There are so many people who are so unlike you. That makes me happy.
Happiness is frequent now, abundant and blatant. It permeates time when I’m alone in my room, pressed between strangers on buses, surrounded by friends in open fields. It’s so stubborn it feels closer to joy, a reliable consequence of the resilience I’ve built from grieving the me that thought lightening wouldn’t strike twice - that I couldn’t be raped twice.
Do you have those moments where you realise how endless thoughts can be? Everyone around us has infinite depth to their consciousness. And outside is a universe that stretches out endlessly too. As humans we have a remarkable ability, we shape the mind of others with just our words - we can interface these infinities. The images of crowded transport and sunny days above are moved from the external to your internal. I’m curious what goes on in the shadows of your daydreams. What brings tears to your eyes? What makes you take a breath? What forces you to appreciate sunshine to avoid tumbling into cynicism? What humanity do you grip to when you remember you’re a rapist?
Because I refuse to believe you are evil, I reject cynicism. You were a student, just like me. Someone with friends, and family. I wish you’d been punished, left with a criminal record to cast a shadow over your future. Something tangible to force you to prove your goodness, the same way I felt I had to prove my worth after you violated me. Maybe you were shaken by the interrogation, their evidence collection. Maybe you’ve changed.
Regardless, I’ve seen men who watched me cycle across America alone reflect on their own actions. I’ve spoken to boys who’s perspectives have been changed by my story. This is on top of the fellow survivors who feel less alone, who have reached out for support they didn’t know existed. Your depravity doesn’t stop others from learning, from standing with survivors to create goodness where you failed.
Dear accused,
I don’t care about why anymore.
How will you do better in future?
Yours cordially,
Some girl from a while ago
