Naïve

*WARNING* THIS CONTAINS STORIES OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE*

It breaks my heart seeing all these young girls aged 13 to 16 actively seeking out guys who are aged 18 or over and thinking it is okay. It isn't. It is so dangerous and I'm talking from past experience. This is my story.

At the age of 13 my family life wasn't the greatest( I went into detail in my first post). I remember being home alone one chilled day in September 2013, I'm bored and twiddling my thumbs looking for something to do. Suddenly, my phone chimes from a Facebook notification. A friend request. Billy James aged 18. I accepted even though I didn't recognise the name. I eventually come to realise this would be the biggest regret of my life. My phone chimes again, he's messaged me. I message back and after a while we were messaging every day. I trusted him even though I didn't know what he looked like, it sounds so stupid now but I was 13 and didn't know any better. I just wanted someone to listen and he made me feel cared about.

After a couple of weeks, maybe a month, he kept pushing to meet up and I was so nervous I kept putting it off. Until one day I'm out with my friends and I get a text. He's driven to my village to see me. I told my friends and they decided to come with me which I was relieved about. We all headed over to Tesco car park and a silver golf pulls up in front of me. It's Billy. He asks me to get in and I freak out. I don't want to be alone with him. My friend (lets call her friend A) who is also 13, tells me to stop being scared and pushes me into the car. Before Billy has a chance to drive off friend A stands in front of the car and says if he doesn't bring me back in an hour then she will tell my parents. Nothing happened. We spoke for the entire hour and it was such a relief to get the first meeting over with. For a couple months, every time we met friend A would give us a time limit and every day he brought me back on time.

I decided to tell my parents about Billy and told them he was 18, they didn't care, they just nodded and said "okay". He made me feel appreciated when my parents didn't. At the time this was happening I had just started smoking and being 13 I couldn't support my addiction so every time I saw Billy he was give me a fresh pouch of tobacco for free.

After 6 months of meeting, he started to get possessive. I would be out with friend A and he would call me shouting all sorts of nasty things saying I shouldn't be friends with her and that I was "his". I decided to pull back and stopped talking to him as much but I was still talking to him every other day. I couldn't let go of how he made me feel.

Halloween 2014. I'm now 14 years old. I was in my bedroom with my friend (friend B) getting ready to go out when Billy calls me and tells me he has a new pouch of tobacco for me and he wants to talk. I tell friend B who I'm meeting and say if I'm not back in 15 minutes then call me. I left her in my room to go meet Billy to see what he wanted.

I get in his car and he puts a 50g of tobacco in my bag. As I'm rolling a cigarette, he locks the doors. He leans over and gets on top of me, pinning my arms down. I tell him no, I don't want too, I want to leave. He doesn't listen. I try and regain control of my arms but he is too strong. I scream and shout but he still doesn't stop. Instead he shoves a sock in my mouth to keep me quiet. After he had his way with me, he unlocks the door and I run home crying. I can't believe what had just happened. I tell friend B and she hugs me for an hour as I just break down on her shoulder. 6pm. My mum comes home, drunk, and starts shouting at me because I haven't done the washing up yet. I try to tell her but she won't listen. She slaps me and I grabbed my friend and ran away from there. I was reported missing for the first time that weekend.

Monday morning, I go into school and I tell friend A what happened. She looks me straight in my eyes and says " you're lying" and walks away. I was so confused. I felt so alone. I didn't realise she had been talking to him behind my back and he did the same thing to her a week later.

Friend A goes to the school after he did it to her and told them everything. I was told I had to support her because what happened to her was "worse". She had stabbed him with a screwdriver to get him to stop and he didn't stop. The school went to the police and I gave them friend B's name because she was there straight after it happened. She lied to the police and said it had happened to her before it happened to me. This messed me up because she knew who I was meeting and never stopped me. After a 2 year police investigation and being prepped to go into court he admits what he did to me and friend A and gets a deal of 2 years suspended sentence. The police found out his name wasn't Billy James and he wasn't 18. He was a 25 year old man who had a fiancée and a 5 year old daughter. He eventually went to prison because during his suspended sentence he was caught selling cocaine and stalking his ex. That was all the justice I got. He's been out as a free man the last 2 years but I refuse to let what he did to me define who I am.

Now, I didn't write this to make any readers upset even though it is a sad story. If I can have all of this happen and I still look into the future with bright eyes then there is no reason you can't. No matter what happens to you, don't let it weigh you down. The best justice is to show everyone you didn't let it ruin you. I hope in writing this I can prevent something similar happening to another young girl. It is not okay to be messing around with 18+ guys because you never know who is waiting around the corner ready to take advantage of you.