In my sixteenth year, I was sexually assaulted twice, both times by boys I considered my friends. I know very clearly that none of it was my fault, but I also know that I had gotten accustomed to having my body too close to the fire, to the rage of my father. I befriended boys with tempers that I tried to quell, who took more than they gave, because it was familiar to me. I had learned to seek connection at the expense of my bodily safety, to lose my own limits in order to belong. Eventually, transgression became familiar, a fact of relationship. I learned to quiet my body’s responses, a
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