It was a quiet night, in mid to late June. I was partying with my friends to celebrate my birthday. I remember having the best time. But then, that fun soon went out the door. I met this guy, he bought my friends and I drinks. While drinking mine, I became sleepy and tired. Then it went dark, and I blacked out, but woke a little later in a hotel room. I was with the guy who bought us the drinks. He was on top of me. I could feel him. I screamed. When he was finished he left me there. Alone. Crying out for help. I passed out again from all the pain that was caused. I was confused. I had no idea what happened or how it happened. All I knew is, I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to be forced like that. I was attacked.
The next thing I knew I was walking up in the hospital. I opened my eyes slowly. I was sore and stiff everywhere. My best friend Katia was sitting next to me holding my hand in hers. She looked worried. I asked, what happened? She had tears flowing down her cheeks. She told me everything. I was in shock. A nurse and doctor then came in. They checked on the monitors that were beeping loudly from my elevated heartbeat. The nurse gave me some medicine through the IV to calm it down. While I was out, the doctors had performed an examination. Then they allowed Katia to come and see me, and wait for me to wake up.
Just then, another knock at the door came. This time, two officers with the Special Victims Unit came into get my statement. I held Katia’s had as tight as I could. With tears streaming down my face, I disclosed what had happened. The two officers that interviewed me were Detective Nick Amaro and Olivia Benson. After, I was released from the hospital, Katia brought me down to the sixteenth precinct where the offices of the Special Victims are located. Once there, I looked at some photos to see if I remembered anyone’s face. Since I was drugged, my memory wasn’t that great.
However, Katia remembered the face. She pointed him out to the detectives. They also went through and told me the doctors found seaman and a little DNA and were running to see if they could find a match. In the meantime, Katia took me home.
It was a few days pasted, before I got a call from Detective Carisi. He said they had gotten a match and had a suspect in custody. Katia again brought me down there, and she made the ID.
Since the attack, I missed over a week of school. I was struggling to cope with that had been done to me, which isn’t uncommon for survivors. I terrible nightmares of the attack over and over again. Sometimes three or four time each night. Luckily, Katia brought me my school work each day, and my teachers would email my assignments each day. One of my teachers even came to visit me, and help me finish an essay. Knowing I had people who supported me, made all the difference. They are amazing.
Once I was finally feeling better, I went back to school. It was tough. My friends made fun of me for letting this happen. They blamed me getting attacked on me, when I didn’t know I was being drugged in the first place. I emotionally shut down inside. I couldn’t function. I was extremely sad and upset. I talked to one of my teachers about it. He was the one who came to visit me, and help me with my essay that I needed to finish up. I asked whether or not to go ahead with the charges. I explained that I really didn’t want to testify in court, cause if I did press charges than I would have to.
I got some wonderful advice from him. It was just what I needed. He told me to go ahead with the criminal charges. I was unsure. He explained, seeing what happened to you devastated me. As your teacher but also as a friend and as a mentor, I hate you seeing you so sad. You don’t deserve this, do something to take a stand against it. He even said he would take the day off, and come support during the trial. I took his idea into consideration. He also recommended I talk to the head of school, and start a program for attack victims. Since in the last year the number of attacks on high school students and teenagers has almost doubled in size. Something I needed to be done about.
This next part is for sure the hardest part of the process. Being prepared to testify in front of an open courtroom about an attack I didn’t want. It was my choice whether to pursue criminal charges or not. With the guidance of my parents, friends, teachers, and priests I went for it. I decided I did want to go ahead with it. Which meant only one thing, trial. It also meant having to relive all the pain the attack had caused in the first place.
I was pretty scared going into the trial. The detectives went over my story a few times to make sure I was consistent. I was. They said this would help when I took the stand, and I was nervous. I was at first hesitant about doing it. I thought about it. I went back and forth. I kept asking myself all these questions.
The detectives convinced me to testify in the end. Even though I really didn’t want to, I knew I had to. They told me to trust them and the ADA. They would be there to support me 100 percent. They were on my team, helping me fight.
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