"I'd had a long-term boyfriend until a couple months before prom, so Adam and I never had the chance to consider each other as anything more than friends - except for maybe what others saw: a fruit and his fly, a fag and his hag. As I caught a glimpse of him changing just feet away from me, his shirtlessness and my singleness seemed to suddenly amplify what I had hardly thought about when we were previously alone together: Adam was a boy."
"Other boys snapped my bra straps against my shoulders in class, grabbed my sides aggressively in the halls, pushed my head into the water at the pool, chased me, poked me, kissed me and groped me both at school dances and outside of them. Alone with a boy, my past traumas hummed up toward my heart in a flurry of fear. Maybe, I thought, he does "like-like" me. Maybe he is no different than the others. Maybe I am not safe."
"At the end of junior year, after I was assaulted in an older boy's car outside a house party, Adam was the only one I told about it. We met up on our favorite walking trail to go to our favorite local art museum,and no matter what we did that day - skipping, talking, standing in front of a piece of art - he maintained a loving space between us. You can keep that, he seemed to say, meaning my body."
I had a long-term boyfriend until shortly before prom, so Adam and I had only been friends despite other people's perceptions. Other boys repeatedly harassed and violated me in school and social settings, and a sexual assault at a house party left me shaken. Adam was the only person I told, and he offered steady, protective space during a shared day at the walking trail and art museum. Standing alone with him at prom, the proximity and undressing reawakened past traumas and fear, leaving me uncertain whether my body and safety would be respected even by someone I trusted.
Read at BuzzFeed
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