I went on a second date with Him in fall of 2015. I was 19, he was 29. I loved telling my friends that he was a lawyer. He was tall and gangly and funny in that way when you look back, you realize that it really was just a certain type of meanness. We were set up by mutual friends, which I thought meant he was safe. We went out for drinks with my fake ID, and I went back to his apartment. I walked around and imagined my home might look like his one day, thinking of the tiny dorm I’d be returning to, decorated with vinyl and books and traffic cones my roommates thought would be funny to steal.
While we had sex that night, he called me a “Condom Nazi.” I felt bad for inconveniencing him. Drunk, sad, worried he wouldn’t like me anymore, but unyielding in my insistence that he wear one. I left, eventually sobered up, wondered to friends the next morning if that was weird (“a little”).
A few days later came the text from him asking if I was on birth control (“No, why?”) and then the text saying I may want to get Plan B. I thought he was joking – I was mocked for being a “Condom Nazi,” wasn’t I? He had taken the condom off at some point – couldn’t I tell? How could I not notice something like that, he asked, and implied that maybe I’m too inexperienced – surely I’d figured it out when I later used the bathroom, right? This was on me for not realizing.
I took Plan B, there was a little spotting. I was hopeful I had nothing to worry about. By the time I took a pregnancy test it was just before Christmas, while I was home on break. I had a friend drive me to Walgreens, and then I lied to her about the results (“All good!”). I told Him what had happened. He accused me of trying to steal $400 from him, the cost of an abortion in DC at the time (unless I put it on my parents’ health insurance). He demanded to see a test, then another, which I bought with money I didn’t have. I spent the day after Christmas that year calling up Planned Parenthood and scheduling a D&C for as soon as I got back to college. He met me two weeks later outside of my tiny dorm, decorated with vinyl and books and traffic cones, and gave me the $400 in cash with little fanfare, and certainly no apology. I never heard from him again, aside from one text that he sent to me mistakenly while trying to hook up with a girl with a similar name (I’d deleted his number and when I asked who he was he replied, “Abortion *****”).
I felt that what he had done to me was wrong, but it wouldn’t be later until I gained the vocabulary for it – first, “stealthing,” and later, “rape” (depending on your jurisdiction. Technically, I believe it would still be up for debate in DC).
I went to Planned Parenthood with one of the people who set me up with Him in the first place on January 11, 2015. I was about ten weeks pregnant. I never doubted for a second that I would get an abortion, but to say that the decision was made joylessly is an understatement. I was sad and furious in that waiting room. I was sad and furious afterwards, as I laid on my bed bleeding, knowing something terrible had been done to me by someone who would never have to reckon with his choices the way that I would. I continue to, frequently, be sad and furious to this day. My life was affected by my assault, but thankfully it did not need to be defined by it.
I don’t know what I would have done had I been somewhere without abortion access.
