"Hey, It's Fine."

I was fourteen. I just started my first year of high school. I had left so much past trauma behind, but it seems trouble follows me. On the first day of school there was a fight. I saw him standing there being yelled at and pushed but not giving in to the temptation of fighting back. I saw him fall to the ground and be kicked over and over again. I saw his friends standing in shock and I noticed my feet walking over. I started yelling "stop" at the boy I once knew who was doing the kicking. He and I have a history, and that's a whole deal on its own. He noticed me and backed off laughing as a car pulled up and the driver yelled at the boy I was helping off the ground to get in. I let him lean on me and helped him to the car, and I ended up getting in. We went to his house and to his room and to his bed where he told me what had happened. He was stressed and I was overwhelmed. He kissed me, he grabbed my thigh as high as I would let him and breathed into my ear how I had saved him. I let him keep going because I wasn't thinking. It escalated and I didn't want it to but soon enough he was talking off my pants with one hand around my throat and telling me how thankful he was that I was there today. I didn't know him, he didn't know me. He didn't care. I grabbed his sheets and he grabbed me. Once it was over he told me I should leave. I left. During the next couple days I discovered more about him. The first thing I discovered was that he had a girlfriend at the time. He got into trouble and I knew he wasn't going to be good for me. Every once in a while for the next couple weeks he would walk me home and end up staying in my basement and telling me all about my body and my lips and my hips, things I didn't need or want to hear. If I would protest he would tell me, "hey, it's fine, don't worry," and that was that. He broke up with his girlfriend and soon enough she messaged me calling me a dirty whore and a slut and then the whole class of grade nine girls hated me. School was just dirty looks and homework, after school was him, but hey, it was fine.

He would text me talking about how badly he wanted to hold me and when I got drunk off horrible tasting whiskey I told him I didn't want to be physical with him. He said he understood. He didn't understand. He never just wanted to hold me, his lips barely ever touched my own. He said it was my fault. He blamed me for his actions by complaining that I teased him by wearing shorts in twenty degree weather and he couldn't help himself. He said it was my fault I looked the way I did and I should expect nothing less. It was my fault.

He always had a hand around my neck and it started out as just some pressure but as fall started my breathing became raspy and his grip became tighter and stronger. It hurt to swallow and I had bruises that I covered up with makeup. He started pushing me onto the floor and twisting my hair until my eyes watered. He assumed I didn't mind because I kept seeing him, but I was terrified. If he did that much damage while he was happy with me, I had no idea what he would do if he wasn't. "Hey, it's fine," is all he would say when he noticed my shaking body as he was washing his hands clean—as clean as he could get them.

School started turning into a fortress of privacy where I could plug in my earphones and just escape. I stopped answering his texts the same day I passed out when he was choking me and threw me to the floor when I tried to push him off. I avoided the halls his classes were in. I used side or back entrances to the school. I told some of my friends that something happened between us and they helped me avoid him. He moved schools the next year and has only contacted me one time since. He was crying on the phone of a blocked number. "Tell me it's fine," he was shouting. "Tell me it's fine." He repeated the phrase so many times before I could muster up the courage to reply, "no."

It was not fine and it will never be fine. Although after getting help and support, I am.