Kaitlyn
At first, I didn’t think anything of it: he carried my science book for me, said I was “hot” and kept making kissing faces at me and stuff. Then it was singing love songs in front of everyone, and “She’s my girlfriend.” Just annoying. I thought it was just a crush.
Then, after I told him to stop, he wouldn’t and it all got worse.
His locker is next to mine, and he started stroking my hair and touching my arm. He sat very close to me in three of the four classes he was in, and one day he slipped his hand under the desk and touched my leg.
I never told the teacher but she moved him very soon after that.
Sometimes he got other boys involved. When the class would let out him and random other boys would go on about how they were going to sleep with me. One of his friends hit me over the head with a rolled up piece of large laminated construction paper we were using for a project, with the teacher in the room.
One day in the library he cornered me and I knew there were a lot of people there, but I was terrified because of the look on his face. I guess he decided scaring me was enough so, he made a comment about marrying me on a nude beach and left.
Then he got bolder. My science partner didn’t show up one day and the boy switched seats and moved next to me. We were doing some stupid filler project involving gluing cotton to construction paper and he put his arm around me and wouldn’t let go. I was really freaked out. Then, he reached behind my back to get some glue, and I jumped a mile.
Everyone looked, and he made a comment to the effect of he would never be caught dead touching me, but the teacher saw the look on my face and reported it.
I had to go to the counselor and I told her some of what was going on. She said, ”That’s harassment. I’ll make them stop.” But nothing ever happened.
A few days after that the teacher of our last class of the day left early and told another teacher to watch us (who seemed to think as long as we didn’t kill each other we were fine).
The boy and several of his friends gathered around my desk talking, making it so I couldn’t get out. (I don’t think some of them knew what he had been doing to me and that I was scared of him.)
After that I got fed up. I went to the vice principal and reported what was going on.
The boy got to the office and said “Gee, Sir I never knew I was doing anything wrong, I’m so sorry. I’ll never do it again. Please, please don’t expel me.”
The Vice Principle told me it didn’t matter what the teacher had seen. I had to get two students to say what he had done to even press charges.
I was thirteen and freaked out. I believed him.
I’m not sure why I was still scared of him, but I was and I didn’t have him expelled. On top of this, I went the rest of the day with everyone mad at me for reporting him.
I got my mom to pull me out of school and I never went back after that. (I am home schooled.) I found out a few weeks later that the main boy was already harassing someone else.
The thing was, other then one person saying something like “he is really annoying” nobody ever stepped in for me. In fact, if they paid attention, they joined in or watched everything eagerly to see what would happen next.
I had nobody to talk to about what happened. My only close friends are boys and I didn’t feel like I could talk to them. My mom just did not (and still doesn’t) “get it.” I had nobody to talk to about what happened.
I had a really hard time dealing with it afterwards because I had been so terrified of him. I’ve just recently been able to kinda let go of this. I haven’t had a nightmare about it in a while, and I’ve stopping being scared of seeing him everywhere I went.
A while after that I found his Myspace page and sent him a message saying I had forgiven him, but what he did really hurt me.
He answered back that he didn’t know how badly it would affect me, even though it was 100% clear to me that he knew what he was doing was wrong. He also said that if he could go back and change it, he would and that he was sorry.
That has helped me so much. I’m no longer scared of him or worried that he’s hurting other girls, even though I still have the memories it’s a whole lot easier to deal with.