One of those "dates" ended very badly. I went out with a guy who'd been dating a friend of mine. She said he'd always said he wanted to go out with me and since they'd broken up, maybe I should go out with him. Unbeknownst to me, this guy had brought a friend along. I was raped, beaten, and threatened with death if I told anyone. I was scared and alone. I didn't tell anyone. Not my parents. Not my best friend. Not a single soul. Not for several months.

One day, I woke up feeling sick. In my heart of hearts, I knew. I knew that the night of the rape had left me pregnant. The guys had used condoms the first time they had at me. After that, they didn't care. I guess holding someone down, punching her in the stomach and chest, and the power they felt made them forget the "essentials." At some point, I stopped caring. All I wanted was to be home, safe, showered, and in my bed. I wanted the nightmare to be over. A couple months later, it still wasn't over. I thought of Eric. How we'd never been sexually intimate and how, if we ever got back together, we never would be because I was damaged goods now.

In the two months following the attack, I stuck close to home. Afraid. Afraid of everything. Eric showed up one day and asked my folks if he could take me to the beach. I said I didn't want to go, but my parents insisted that I go with him. I think they were sick of me sitting at home. They didn't know what to make of this girl sitting in their house. Later, they told me they thought I was depressed over the breakup with Eric because I'd done so little dating and taken to doing nothing.

At the beach, my heart pounded and I felt sick. I wanted to tell Eric what had happened but stopped short at least a hundred times. How could I ever say those words? It's not like I could blurt out that I had been raped. Or that I could say that I thought I was pregnant. If I told him about it, if the guys found out that I'd said anything, would they make good on their threats? I just couldn't do it. I was ashamed. I was scared.

A couple weeks later, I'd had an abortion and worked hard to move past the horror. I still felt unclean and horrible. But, one of the counselors at Planned Parenthood worked with me and helped me understand that, other than accepting the invitation to go out with the one guy, it wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault that he brought someone else, hid him in the back of the vehicle, and then brutally attacked me. The counselor gave me a referral to another counselor, one who could help me even more. She encouraged me to call. I never called. She encouraged me to file charges against the guys. I never did. She tried her best. No matter what she said, I felt, ultimately, responsible for all that had happened that night. That's why I felt so awful. I honestly believed it was my fault.