What I Remember

In 1990 or 1991, my freshman year of college, my roommate and I went to the Osco to buy who knows what. I don’t remember if we took the El or if we walked. I don’t remember if we’d been anyplace before, or if we stopped someplace on the way back to our dorm. I don’t even remember if we bought anything.

But I remember the boys who followed me around the store and groped my butt. They stayed behind me, a group of them, high-schoolers, probably. I never turned around to see their faces. But I heard their giggles.

They took turns, some touching me lightly, some a little harder. Again, I never turned around. Never said “stop.” I managed to bat one’s hand away. They laughed even harder.

I remember being scared. Terrified. And so, so embarrassed. I remember shaking; I remember the way my face burned in shame.

My roommate may have eventually shooed them away. I’m not sure. We never talked about what happened. I didn’t tell any of the girls in my dorm about it. I didn’t tell my parents. I didn’t tell my friends. I didn’t tell my twin sister.

In fact, in the twenty-seven years since it happened, I’ve only told my husband. No one else.

I was so embarrassed then, and I stayed embarrassed afterward. Even now, I’m uncomfortable, uncertain. Will people judge me? Will they say I need to lighten up? Can’t I take a joke? Why am I so high-strung? Boys will be boys. I should have been flattered.

Those boys stole some of my self-confidence that day. They made me even more wary of men. They made me afraid—a fear that still hasn’t entirely gone away.

I don’t remember all the details of that otherwise ordinary day. But I am crystal clear about what happened between me and those boys. What they did to me was wrong.

I don’t know their names, but if I did, and one of those bastards were nominated to the highest court in our land, I’d speak the truth. I hope you’d listen.