When I transfered into a new school in 5th grade and moved into middle school, I met a seventh grader and instantly liked him. He made me smile by being a plain old jokester. Yet again, I was an immature little girl who didn't know what she was doing.

After a little while, he started to get a little touchy touchy. It started off subtle, when passing behind me, his hand would graze my behind. I thought it was on accident and ignored it. Soon after, I knew it wasn’t an accident considering he was grabbing me by the handful. The thought of him touching me in ways that I wouldn't even let a boyfriend or a doctor do terrorised me. I knew I could get him to stop, but I just didn't know how.

It got to the point where he was not only physically assaulting me, but verbally too.   I remember this one instance in which a heavy woman was walking around the school with her son, he was behind me (in line) and whispered in my ear, “ If you had an a** like that, and were still skinny, I would totally date you”. That’s when I realized that he was only attracted to me because of my body and nothing else.

Now coming to a realization of him only liking me for my body, it broke my heart and I started to cry. My best friend came over to me and asked what was wrong, I explained to her what had been happening the past would of weeks and she said I should tell the teacher or it wouldn’t stop.

But I honestly didn’t want him to get in trouble. I felt as though it was my fault for letting it go on this long and that I would get in trouble for it. And because I was at a new school, I didn't want to be called names or be thought of differently. So I asked her not to tell the teachers and we left it at that.

A couple more months went by and it kept on escalating, he was shoving me against walls trying to kiss me and it was breaking me down. Of course I didn't like him anymore, but the fear of me hurting him, getting in trouble or ruining my reputation haunted me. My friend got fed up with him hurting me and told the teacher. Nothing happened. All the teachers did was tell him to stop and put us in different rooms.

My reputation wasn't affected, if anything, his was. People did find out about it after he graduated, but the only thing I got out of that was experience and trust issues. I physically can't trust anyone until I know they would be there for me if I ever needed them. Otherwise, they are just my peers and nobody else.