I write this while my husband works on the computer and my son plays with his fake sword. I write this while I try not to cry. I write this because holding it in is making me sick. I feel it swirling around in the pit of my stomach, sitting there like one big lump of heavy sludge. The night started off fun, it was supposed to be a casual get together for a co-worker moving on to a new position. I was excited to go out because most of the time I don’t get to do that. I’m a mom, a wife, a hard worker. I take care of others. My days consist of working, making meals, going to tee-ball and swim. My weekends consist of catching up on laundry, getting the occasional pedicure and going on Costco runs. I struggle like any woman with my identity as a mom and a wife and the person I was before. I was getting drinks, sharing stories of our crazy job and enjoying my time off. I was laughing so much. Here is where the blame kicks in, and even though I know better I can’t help but blame myself. I blame myself for drinking too much, I blame myself for being too chatty. I blame myself for being too friendly. I blame myself for not going home sooner. Everyone was done, but I wanted to keep going. One more bar, and so did he. I was so glad one person was on the same page and they didn’t want the night to end just yet. I felt young and free, running around different bars with a new friend. We kept talking about girls he liked, and I was giving him advice on being young, carefree and taking advantage of that. The bars were closing, I had to get a ride and I had to walk to my car. The alcohol was running through me and I felt so good. I thought I was chalking up the night to a fun carefree evening, where new friendships were made and it turned out I was wrong. Things started to get blurry, as we sat on the cement waiting for my ride. We were still talking and it was fine but then he pulled up a video of a man and a woman having sex, and he asked me if I liked it. He started to ask me more questions, if I watched porn, how often, and what kind. I was shocked, I answered the questions like a robot. He told me he was hard, and I kept looking away. My ride finally appeared and I left, made it home and I didn’t fully understand what had just happened. Just how uncomfortable I was and how wrong he was to do that. He texted me, asking to come over, asking me to watch the same video as him. I responded and pretended I was ok, pretended the questions he was asking me were normal …I don’t know why. It makes me sick that I didn’t just say fuck you!! You sick fucking piece of shit!! Don’t ever fucking talk to me again you mother fucker!! I just kept saying yeah sure which video, you can’t come over and lol. He finally stopped and I passed out. I woke to an alarm and I later got a message from him laughing it off, and asking me to delete the messages from him and I did. I went about my day, I went about my weekend. But flashes of what happened keep creeping in. I can’t stop them. I dread seeing him at work. I fear that he will spin what happened into a story that makes me look like a cheating wife. I feel like I was unfaithful. I know I did nothing wrong but I hate myself, I hate what happened, and I hate that I have to live with this. I feel like I can do nothing, and can’t tell anyone. Ever. I question my whole being, why would someone think they could do this to me. Why , why, why me.